Roti, Paani aur Bijli

The water supply was restored on the 4th, after three full days. At first we felt irritated, harassed, angry. Our daily routine went haywire. How much comfort we derived from the same ness, routineness of everyday things ... no reason why... like sweeping and mopping, watering plants, the dishes, the laundry...

It felt surreal to wash the clothes at 6pm when a water tanker would arrive and water would run through our taps if only for a couple of hours.

We had all our taps on...and the slightest trickle, heralding the arrival of the water tank would galvanise A and me (and the other residents I am sure) to action. We stored water wherever possible: In buckets, in my two pressure cookers, assorted pots and pans...in fact I was running out of dishes to prepare the meals!

The household helps came several times each day to check and somehow, the water would arrive only after they had left! They must have been laughing at our predicament, a taste of what 'their' life is like. This afterall, this is nothing new to them. My maid J manages to run her home with water that her husband brings from a distant tap.

It also drove home the point how much we took things for granted...how wasteful we were. And not just leaving the tap on while brushing. I managed to cook and clean and wash clothes properly but with a limited quantity of water...perhaps, for the first time, the correct amount of water. A bucketful of water was enough for a good bath instead of a luxurious soak in a bath tub. And believe me when I say, it felt just as good as if I had taken a bath in a hot tub with aroma oils and candles lit on the edge, sipping wine!

Even after the water supply was restored, we continued to store and use water judiciously (read not wastefully).

Last evening, when we reached home after our weekly shopping at Wazirabad Haat, we found the entire building completely dark. That meant no power and no generator either. A was too tired (with the various excuses that the administration would have given us and none of which would make sense and yet all would promise instant resolution of the problem) and so we lugged our veggies upstairs slowly, through the ptich dark.

The power came back for half an hour, enough time for me to grill the kebabs and then it went and returned only at 9 this morning. Which meant I missed "To Kill a Mockingbird" shown on Sony Pix last night at 10pm. (This is the second time I could have seen and yet missed the film...the first time was my choice, unbelievably. We were in the middle east then and I for some unearthly reason...chose to swot for my exams rather than watch the film...perhaps the only time I have done so)!

This morning, we find out that Gurgaon has been plagued with 12 hour power cuts. So perhaps the building admin decided to give the generators a rest and keep it for the all important pumping water to the over head tanks.

Perhaps all this is a boon in disguise...teaching us, preparing us for the day, not so far away when we'd have to ration (if lucky, fight for if not) water, power, fuel and by we, I mean everyone....

Afterall, man does not live by bread alone. Water and Power are very important too....

No Poinsettia this christmas

I had just finished re-doing my drawing room in rust, brown and red the colours. Not overtly so; just a tinge here and another there. And with the cream walls, they gave the room a warm rosy hue in the cold Delhi winters. I needed just one more thing – those bright red plants in the black pots dotting the various nurseries all over Gurgaon. I told A and he surprisingly didn’t come up with his usual “Another plant? Not again?” (the painful memories of hauling the heavy pots during our last shift still fresh in his mind, not to mention his muscles).

Yesterday we had gone out for lunch and he obligingly stopped at a very busy intersection so that I could go and check out the nursery alongside. 150/ said the mali. For a small potted plant? How about if I take a very tiny one? No? What about one without a pot? No?

I must have looked rather crestfallen, so A said we could try the other nurseries. “You shouldn’t have gone in your Parisian best. The mali hiked up the price”. My Parisian best happened to be a smart orangish jacket, common enough in Paris, but tres chic here, or atleast with the malis or so A thought.

On our way back, we stopped at a place where there were three large nurseries side by side a riot of colours with the winter blossoms. Poinsettia? (ah…so that’s what it is called). 125/- said the first one, the second one didn’t have any – all sold out and the third and the last one said 90/-. Earlier I would have paid up without much thought, but ever since I went to the Government Nursery (yes that is what it is called) at Nizamuddin, I realized by how much I was being ripped off. There I had bought 5 plants for 80/- only. So, wiser, but infinitely sadder, and minus poinsettia, I walked back to the car.

Ignorance would be so blissful, wouldn’t it?

A belated happy Diwali post

This has been our 4th diwali since our 'retour' from France. But our first diwali at home. Our latest home that is (3 shifts in as many years, 4 if you count the few months we spent with our in-laws). So naturally, we were looking forward to it.

As the day drew closer, diwali melas sprung up everywhere. Familiar landmarks disappeared and the ordinary skyscape was transformed into a twinkling fairy land by night.

I picked up 50 earthen diyas for a steal - 20 Rupees only. I also got the cotton wicks (12 to a pack for 5/-). And the all important mustard oil. (I could have opted for the easier electric lights...but somehow, I wanted this diwali, my first one here, to be traditional).

A got a tad carried away and bought a large amount of crackers: no bombs; Charkis, anars (flower pots) and 20 boxes of phuljharis (sparklers). This last one was for me since I am petrified of crackers despite my enthusiasm for diwali fireworks. We invited S & his wife D and their 3 year old to help me finish off the phuljaris.

We sat and reminisced about past diwalis. How one year the 8 year old A with his uncle's help decorated the entire home with homemade lanterns made of coloured papers and diyas and had the whole neighbourhood agog and his photo in the paper! And how I after shifting into a new appartment in Kolkata, bullied the residents for the diwali fund and had our first diwali dhamaka...where everyone burst the never ending supply of crackers that I had organised while I and quaked under the water tank.

On diwali eve, we put the crackers in the sun .... to make them crackling shape (for diwali night)!!

On diwali, I timidly (I am timid in all things domestic...well actually in most things), filled up the diyas with mustard oil (realising that slipping a piece of newspaper under the diya should be the first step, rather than the last), put in the wicks...arranged the diyas on the broad parapet on each verandah and lit them.

We went downstairs and were told that we could burst our cracker outside the entrance. A and our friends promptly started off while I quivered with a sparkler in my shaking hand. Soon, the other residents descended with huge bags holding their enormous stock of crackers. Our flower pots, sparklers and charkis got lost amid expensive rockets zooming and bursting into golden showers, silver sparkles, dropping parachutes and what not.

We returned upstairs...and ate pizzas and then bid our friends adieu. I realised that I had been so busy running around trying to hide, fingers in my ears from the various bombs...that all evening I managed to light only three phuljharis (A had got 20 boxes for me remember?).

Before retiring for the night, I went from room to room switching off the lights...and there they were...my cheap little diyas holding their own...casting a small but tenacious golden light...to me more beautiful than any of the fancy twinkling electric lights.

Happy Diwali everyone!

Goodbye Ms. M

I did it. Finally. Screwed up the courage to tell M that her services were no longer required. And it has taken me exactly four months to do so.

M our cook, landed up on the very day we moved here. And from then on, apart from cooking extremely mediocre meals, has been a source of constant torment to me. Each morning I'd wait for her to turn up and make my breakfast or rather A's breakfast since he like elaborate ones and not the plain milk and cereal sort. I'd arrive home late from work, dead tired, crawl in to bed, sleep uneasily with my never ending job lists haunting me and crawl out bleary eyed next morning. As the minutes would tick past and the clock inch towards 9 when my cab would arrive, I'd start making A's breakfast. On a good day, M would turn up just as I would enter the kitchen and on a bad day (which was more often the case) just after I'd finish making A's breakfast. I would have minutes if not seconds to spare and rush without giving M a piece of my mind and of course, sans breakfast.

She did turn up early, well before 9...but only on weekends, when I would be really loathe to leave my bed early.

She'd never remember the recipes and finish cooking (irrespective of the number of dishes) in less than an hour and leave with the kitchen tap dripping, lights and exhaust fan on, the kitchen a mess. But I couldn't complain. Work swallowed up most of my time.

If I am sounding mean, I am not. I let her take a day off whenever she wanted to or if she said she was not well. And more over we often spend the weekends with our in-laws and was OK with her flexi timings.

Recently, I quit my job (Yes, I have quit), and now had the time to supervise her.

"Why are you late?"

"Well you are home now, so I can come in a bit late", meaning What's the fuss? You can make the breakfast can't you?

"Don't drop the peels on the floor", I tell M.

"J hasn't come today has she?", referring to the other maid who does the floors, and continues to drop peels on the floor.

Each morning, the same thing. M with her face an unreadable mask and me sounding like a nagging stuck record.

Recently friends were coming for lunch. So I'd ask M to chop up veggies after she made the breakfast. I could begin the cooking lunch and M when she returned could do the rest. When she turned up three hours later, I had finished two dishes. She took one look at the uncooked bhindis and said, "Three hours and you haven't done the bhindis yet?"

Just after I quit my job, A and I went for a seven day trip to MP. Before leaving, I told both M and J to check at 10 on the day we were returning. J dutifully did. M sauntered in at 1. By that time, I had ofcourse finished cooking lunch.

"What"?, I asked her angrily.
"What do I cook?"
"Nothing, I have finished".
"OK", she leaves, cool as a cucumber.

She turns up at 12 one day.
"Why didnt you come earlier"?
"Here I am", (ignoring my comment).
"Yes I can see that. But why so late"?
"Oh, I overslept".

You get the picture. After much internal debating, I told her not to come any more.

J, the other maid, tells me the next day, M has found three new jobs. And she is getting paid really well.

And she reminds me again the next day.

I retain my cool and say that is really, really good.

And then she tells A, "Madam is so nice. She is doing all the cooking herself and is saving you money". Argh!

And finally, today, she has a ring side view of my cooking episode involving lots of lal saag, worms, my hysteria and her eventually rescuing me from it. Bet she and M are having a nice laugh.

Procrastinater, no longer (hopefully)

Am I procrastinator? I never seriously thought so. OK, I would like to tackle the easier, simpler and non confrontational tasks before the more complex ones. And occasionally, I’d like to shove the really unpleasant task under the ever present pile of papers on my messy desk. But this time, I really outdid myself. Could it be then, that I am a confirmed and beyond hope procrastinator?

I shifted residence (3rd time in as many years) in May end this year. This was peak work season. I managed two days off from work for the shift. We moved in to this really large apartment but without any woodwork what so ever. Just large bare rooms. Worst affected was my kitchen. There was just a long counter – a slab of black granite. And so all my kitchen ware, spices, grains, cereals etc were piled just any how on to the counter and left for a weekend when I could sort them. June, July and then August came and went. We settled in properly, the logistics, the maids, the shops, the electricity, telephones etc…except the kitchen.

The mess was incredible. In fact, the very sight of it was enough to have me shuddering and making a dash away from it. The few times I had to cook (maid was absent or the dish I wanted was beyond her) I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for the ingredients. I went out and bought stuff only to discover more of it lurking on the messy counter top. And occasionally, I’d have to get rid of something putrid from among the stuff which had been lying there neglected for quite some time.

And the guilt – oh god!

Since my maids were not going to lift a finger to remove the mess and neither would A, it would HAVE to be me. OK. So what if I tackled it bit by tiny bit. Perhaps all the large containers on day 1. All the smaller ones on day 2, all the Indian spices on Day 3, etc. Workable? Yes. And I’d feel a little less guilty with each passing day. So, I began on Sunday and finished on Wednesday. Wow! I felt like I had just scaled the Everest.

The kitchen is looking NEAT, everything in place and easily available and to my Surprise, did I actually buy so much and of nearly everything? I am after all the Timid Cook and the most adventurous that I have ever been was when, nearly four years ago, I tried to make Ras Malai (my first and last time …. And no it didn’t turn out bad… it was good…but the effort was too tiring).

The guilt which had rapidly evaporated on seeing my organized kitchen is back full force. I have spent so much on stocking up and yet in the last three years, have used less than 25% of what I have in my kitchen. Wasteful, zero planning / organising skills and WORSE - procrastinator.


This is what I found:

I have seven types of lentils – moong green and yellow, masur, chana, arhar, two types of rajma, lobia (am not sure if the last two are lentils)
3 types of breakfast cereals,
2 types of rice
4 types of cooking oil – mustard, vegetable, and two bottles of olive oil
11 type of sauces including teriyaki and black bean
10 Indian spices – cumin, coriander, poppy seed, ajwain, saunf, kalonji, black and yellow mustard, black and white sesame seed, radhuni, cardamom, cinnamon, mace, black pepper, red dried chilies, chili flakes, cloves green and black, thyme, oregano, basil and one mixed herb
Fried garlic and onions
Sooji, soya bean, dalia….


I am going to take a photo of my now tidy kitchen (should have taken one of the messy one too...but its too late now) to remind myself of the perils of procrastination.


PS - Now that I think about it, my desk at work was always messy. And ocassionally when things got really out of hand, once in 6 months or so, I would take couple of hours of tidying it up. And it would be such an event. People would gather to see. The housekeeping would provide me with a large garbage bin to dispose the useless papers and other stuff. A colleague V, would always click pictures on her cell of the before and after and send me the jpgs.

Does size matter?

Since I last wrote, we have been looking around for a place to move to. Half heartedly really. Since our landlord had given us three months' notice (and out time is nearly up). Something would definitely happen in the meanwhile, we thought.

All that has happened since then is the realisation that the prices have sky rocketted. A tiny two bedroom in the same complex is a good deal more than the three bedroom we have.And the two bedroom flat is really, really tiny.

But that shouldn't be a limiting factor. Afterall, there is an entire universe of people living in small apartments and there is even a Smallest Coolest Apartement Contest 2007, no less.

That cheered me up a great deal. Till I took a look at a the entries! Egad.

Moving times

Once again, it’s time to move. The bother of shifting, not finding something nice within our budget etc is not worrying me. Sab ho jayega at the last moment, in a mad rush. It always does. No point worrying about that.

But what I am worried about it is how to explain the rust splotches on the white walls of our bedroom to the landlord (should he ask).

It’s mosquito season. And once the lights are off, they get into action driving us into a manic rage by their bites and buzzing. We get up, switch on the lights and with a rolled up news paper (which is always at hand, since I like to play a game of sudoku last thing every night) and an enormous amount of pleasure, swat them, who by now are in drunken stupor on the walls and occasionally, right by our side, on our pillows.

A, has on one occasion, even stood up on the bed and swatted two on the ceilings.

My Magic Table

I have a magic table at home. It’s a simple round cane table with a glass top. When I bought it, it looked like any other, regular piece of furniture. Once bought, it could be put to any use by its owners. I bought it as a dining table. Ha! Had I only known that, how different it would be.

First, our maid put a hot dish on to it and the glass cracked, edge-to-edge. Then, both A and I took our dinner / lunch plates in front of the TV which was in the bedroom. When friends came to dine with us, the table was too small to sit at, and so we used it for serving the dishes while we took our meals either in the drawing room or in the verandah. In case you are wondering about the crack, well, happily, it ran down the middle and I was able to cover it with a long runner!!

So what did we use it for? Well for piling things up on. News papers, bills, take away menus, files, water bottles, medicine box. The chairs were used to hang clothes…laundry, my duppattas, my tote bags etc.

When we moved into our new apartment, I made a mental note of using it as I had meant to. Also, our new place was much smaller and the table lay bang in full view of anyone coming into our apartment in the large hall which served as drawing / dinning.

But that was not to be. Strangely, despite my many attempts, it began to attract all the flotsam and jetsam in our home and lives. No matter how many times I cleaned it up, within a few hours, hey presto, a new set of things were back again on it!

This morning, I did some clearing up including the table. And yet now, some 7 hours later, I find, two bags (mine), a t-shirt, a pair of shorts (A’s), a news paper (I was doing the sudoku), a cook book I was leafing through during lunch, a cup, an empty match box, a nice wicker tray (which I have rarely used as a tray) holding three different sets of placemats (again rarely used; in fact one set still has the plastic covers on it). And oh, there is the nice glass bowl which instead of fruits, is full of little scraps of papers with phone numbers, assorted bills and what not. It held two apples a while back. But both got spoilt and had to be thrown away.

It must be the table then. It has a mind of its own. It was perhaps miffed at being bought by us, and then carted unceremoniously on a “thela” and hauled up three flights and getting scraped in the process. Perhaps, it had, while sitting to be picked up, visions of being amid a beautiful house, surrounded by beautiful things, greenery, beautiful people having candlelit, rose scented dinners with wine in beautiful glasses. And here we were. Dumping cheap take away menu, plastic water bottles, old ugly melmoware crockery, cracking it within a week. Oh ho. So this is my fate is it? The table thought. I will show them. I will make sure, they will never, be able to, let alone enjoy, even get close to having a pleasant meal atop me!!

I am alone now. My neighbour (whose verandah is within earshot) is away. I think, I will go and clean it up, speak to it gently, apologise and be generally very nice. Try and soothe it and tell it I am mending my rustic ways. And when A returns this weekend, we will, A, the table and I will begin anew.

The Birds

“I feel like wringing their silly necks,” I wrote to R, them being a flock of silly pigeons that have decided to grace our verandahs. “Call your nearest lab assistant”, she wrote back. (She was a zoology student).

Last winter, a solitary pigeon sat immobile on the verandah rails for hours on end. I felt really sorry for this perhaps old and dying / seriously ill / injured bird. It was there for a couple of days before it left. I let it be, undisturbed.

That, I think, proved to my undoing. It was, I am convinced, a stool pigeon. It flew back and informed its clan who thus emboldened, moved in. Though, not all at once. Slowly, in ones and twos. Faint silhouettes, at first, on window ledges. Then a sudden rustle of wings along the glass panes, a careless feather here, a squawk there.

I should have nipped it in the bud then and there. But I didn’t. Not only had they moved in, but made their presence known.

I think, they meet every morning or at night and divided duties amongst themselves. You, you and you…shit on verandah no. 1, you two on 2. Hey you two love birds…you get to wake them (me and A) up by frenzied lovemaking on their air conditioners.

They choose their time well for this last activity. Always on a weekend. Always in the bedroom we happen to be sleeping in. (We have two and alternate depending upon the weather and or guests etc).

Not exactly the idyllic cooing wake up call…but the irritating metallic clang of their tiny feet on the aircon and general squawking early on a Sunday. How many time have I stumbled sleepily from my bed to the verandah, struggling to open the door which just happens to stick at the very moment...by then, the pigeons have finished their quickie in record time and are sitting beyond my reach, cooing maddeningly, and I think, smugly.

They haven’t spared my little garden either. I do so enjoy my first cup of tea, there, every morning. Will have to give it up soon. Bird shit all around. And different dimensions. As if they had a shitting contest the night before. You clean and hey presto, back again next morning. Each evening, when I return from work, I find feathers galore on our door mat. (None on our neighbours….and we DO clean our mats everyday much the same as them).

Their take over is now more or less complete. And how do I know this? Last night, I found ONE LARGE feather on our door mat.

I don’t think I am getting paranoid. I have seen a similar pattern earlier.

At our last residence, the pigeons had done the same things. First the silhouettes, the rustles, the bird shit. And one day, A and I returned from a weekend trip to find a funny smell. Couldn’t figure out what it was or where it was coming from. I cleaned whatever I could think of. The kitchen, bathrooms etc. But the smell didn’t go. And then my hands started smelling funny. Yukh. The tea, the food. And finally while I was taking a bath, it struck me and for a few heart stopping seconds, I actually thought, that the source of the smell was me: I was rotting.

THE WATER. “Go check the water tank,” I shouted to A. Sure enough, there was, a dead, decomposed Pigeon. Of all the tanks (there were 4), that dratted bird had to choose ours to bid adieu. And what an adieu. Yukh.

Can’t pack up and leave at dawn ala the Hitchcockian winged drama… (sill have quite a few months on the lease and this place is convenient). Suddenly, R’s suggestion seems infinitely sensible.

Boys will be boys???

One day, last week, my maid turned up pretty late and though I was irritated, I didn't show it. She is after all, very sweet oldish lady. And her reason for being late, astonishing as it sounds, is produced nearly verbatim (as much as I could make out from her thick Haryanvi accent) below:

That morning, she went up straight to the 12th floor (instead of the 11th floor) and rang the bell. Most of the apartments are identical including the doorbell. A tall young chap opened the door, let her in and went back to reading the newspaper. My maid took him to be my brother in law (whom she had briefly met). As is her usual practice, she went to the kitchen and started washing the dishes wondering why she couldn’t see Mai-dm (that is what she calls me). Having done the dishes and still not seeing me, she started sweeping the floors. The young man continued reading the papers. This is when she asked the man if they had re-arranged the furniture. They probably had recently and he replied in affirmative. And then she asked, where is Mai-dm.

“Mai-dm?? There is no Madam here,” the man said.

“HOI? She went away and didn't even tell me”?? said my Maid

“What madam? We have been living here for months and there has never been a madam here”.

“HOI??? What floor is this”?

“12th”.

“HOOOOOOiiiiii, I had to go to the 11th”.

At which point she left and turned up at ours. And I presume the young man continued reading his papers.

Poor thing, she went on for quite sometime about what a dirty pile of dishes she had done and how dirty their room was!!

My maid is, like I said, very sweet if slightly batty (in a nice way) and so one can quite forgive her for turning up one floor above and doing the dishes. But the chap????? What was he doing / thinking?

There are 3 or 4 of them living in the apartment above ours. I have never seen them, but I often hear them in loud conversation at odd hours of the night. I have tolerated their weird urges to shove furniture around after 12am. And of course the dribbling of what sounds like a basketball, I have forgiven.

Boys will after all be boys. Even after 5 years of marriage, A shows frequent signs of slipping into I-am-living-in-a-dormitory-behaviour. So I wasn't too bothered by the antics of the boys (young men) living right above us. Till this maid incident.

It’s been around 4 months that we have shifted into our brand new appartment and already, there is extensive seepage in the ceilings of two of our bathrooms, just above the shower. We had duly informed the landlord and the housing society. They had in turn taken up or said they would take it up with the occupants above and see to it. And yet, the seepage grows daily. Last week, when we called up the housing society we were told that they had not once, but twice, visited the people above, repaired that seepage and told them to not pour water over it for a few days. They could have you know, there is a spare and third bathroom. But no, they either don't care or forget and wash the cement and away. Hmmmmpf.

I am sure they don't do it on purpose. It's just one of those things. They forget. I thought that I'd go and talk to them about it, kindly explaining the reason and asking for their cooperation. But after this maid, we are stuck with this seepage problem, for a looooooooong time.

Notes to myself

I am trying to make the most of living in this nice house, while it lasts, after ignoring what I had for 7 months.

So, I am sitting on the verandah. Both of them. Front and back. Reading, cutting my toe nails, staring at the trees and the enjoying the nice pattern that the white cows dotting the field, make. And frequently stopping my sitting-on-the-verandah-and-enjoying-life to feel very pleased about sitting-on-the-verandah-and-enjoying-life. And also, wondering (frequently too) why didn’t I ever do this more often.

Cant concentrate on the serials on the TV. I just lie on the bed and take in the big spacious bedroom size. Thank god I didn't trim the curtains into a smaller size to fit nicely over the air conditioner that's just under the window. (God knows how I tried to but just couldnt find the time). The new appartment has big glass windows and the long curtains will be useful. All I have to do, is to take out the plastic clothes pin that I used to shorten the curtains! Hehe!!

I decided to do some packing yesterday (Sunday) and while at it, kept sighing over the size and number of built in wardrobes.

Am bathing in a different bathroom each day, (having stuck so far to the one with the master bedroom). And why not? The one in the guest bedroom is so nice and big. Sigh! Where are those little prints that I thought I’d have, a potted plant or two. In the bathroom, did you say? Yes I did. So what. Its my bathroom isnt it? So what if I havent managed to and so what if the three plants that I own have never flowered. But they are not dead. The only seem to grow vertically.

We had surprise and very welcome showers suddenly, yesterday afternoon. So we did an impromtu and very silly drenching in the rain…And infact, both of us went upstairs to the terrace. It was so silly, so pointless and so very fun. I did a little hop and a jig and caught people staring at me (three storeyed house is not really so high) and the roof was slippery. So I just …well…got drenched. First time the two of us have been up there. 4th or 5th time for me … oh to hang clothes to dry, to check on the TV antenna and once for a early morning walk. A goes up there whenever there is water shortage (to check on the tank) and once well to find a dead bird floating around in the water tank.

I make mental notes to buy a roll of film to take photos of this place.

But…moving into a new house, new place etc is in many a new beginning, start of something new. Life will continue very much as it is now unless I stop whining and start doing some serious time management, but till then, I can always postpone everything I have been meaning to do and havent been able to, till I move into my new place. As if, overnight, I will become this efficient person wonderfully balancing home and hearth. Silly isnt it? But well that never stops me from making more notes, in that crowded space that is this head of mine, on how things will be…..


(PS – I spent a huge amount of time making timetables during my school days, that always excited me and took up most of time, than the actual studying which I found rather irritating and getting in the way of dreaming up wonderful schedules where everything was so fine. Old habits, die hard. Even today, planning about balancing home and hearth, right down to minutest detail is so much more fun than actually doing it)!

Moving…again!

(Be warned...this is full of general purpose whinning).

Its time to move again. Our landlord has, very apologetically, served us notice. You have been gentle tenants but I’ve got a great job offer and I am returning. I do hope they don’t notice the ugly gaps in the plaster that we, the gentle tenants will be leaving behind. A handyman had clumsily hammered gaping holes to affix nails for the mosquito nets.

That means another 3 weeks at the most. Sigh!

Am I sighing because it was too short a stay at a place, though rented, felt like home? Or am I sighing because I couldn’t make into a ‘home’?

By a ‘home’, I mean a home like our moms had. Everything ship shape, everything in place, neat and tidy. Not a speck of dust, spotless floors, refrigerators and cupboards filled with nourishing food, clothes laundered, ironed and folded away in drawers and wardrobes, green verandah where I sit in the morning coolness, sipping my first cup of tea.

Instead, there is a pile of unwashed clothes in the laundry basket (plastic one, because in 6 months, I couldn’t manage to buy myself a wicker one I so wanted). And the clothes keep piling since it was only today that I managed to find myself a good dry cleaner. God knows when I will actually be able to give those clothes to the cleaners.

I sit in my drawing room (and not a drawing cum dining mind you), a large room and stare at the pleasant effect of the glass windows framed in dark wood, yellow drapes and the assorted paintings on the creamy walls. And then I look at the divan where Rabindranath Tagore sadly looks at me, framed but not yet hung since I haven’t managed to find time to drill holes, (the neighbourhood handyman would mean more cracked plaster).

Alongside Rabindranath lies two of my paintings of rural France. I had copied them out of a Babar book and painted them, in my idyllic days back in France. Having brought them back with me, I framed them and shyly showed them to a friend who said, “looks like done by a 5 year old”. Ouch! It was a near perfect copy of the one done by a famous illustrator.

The brown cushions on the armchairs are all creased, as we, A and I have sat in all the chairs at one time or the other and yet have never plumped them up properly.

The shoes lie in a heap on the floor of the scarcely used 3rd bedroom. I have, often made a mental note of arranging them neatly in the empty chest in that room. Argh! My mind is saturated with all the mental notes I have been making.

Piles of old newspapers lie all over the round dining table, yes the one with the cracked but never replaced glass top. Anyhow, the papers at least cover up the crack rather nicely!

My verandah is brown as ever. Except the flourishing wild green growth of a plant I didn’t buy nor plant, underneath the white bouganvillea which stubbornly remains brown and bare.

And yet all around are me, are beautifully kept houses. Through the open windows, I can see marvellous arrangements of knick-knacks (knick-knacks? Wow. It took me two months to buy three drapes and one more month to put them up)!! Who are these Mary Poppinesque characters with perfect, spotless houses and domestic wheels churning with clock work precision?

Its dinner time. And I am hungry and tired, having spent the day looking at houses. I realise that there is no rice. Forgot to make rotis. There is some bread. I know there is. But spoilt in this humid heat. OK. We can buy some. And yes, get me some milk, I tell A. Atleast I can have some cereals for breakfast tomorrow….a pleasant break from constantly missing mine since there is usually nothing to eat in the mornings.

I wanted to put up the rattan screens (‘chik’ to those who know), a wicker lamp would have been a nice touch. A white, glass topped wrought iron table amid foliage and me amid all that. Pipe dreams. Ah well! Minimalistic is so stylish, I console myself.

I sigh because of the evenings I didn’t spend on the verandahs, of the walks I didn’t take in the rose strewn little park opposite, the meals I didn’t cook in the smart kitchen, for the laundry I didn’t keep in the wicker basket I never bought, for the spare bedroom I never converted into a workspace for making papier mache objects which I never made, for the alter I never bought for my gods who sit patiently atop a cabinet left behind by the landlords.

Just as well. Had I done all that….I would have been too well settled and would have been loathe to leave, wouldn’t I? And having said that, I stumble among the empty water bottles lying next to the bed, lie on my bed, lumpy because of books and pens I left behind when I rushed off to work this morning, angrily pummel my naked pillow (the pillow cases have been washed and are still hanging on the clothes line) and say goodnight!

Get cool quick schemes

I am running out of words to describe how hot it is. Outdoors, my skin feels like its being broiled. And when I return home, no matter how early or late, as soon as I enter, I can feel the heat weigh down on me. I have little recourse but to switch on the air conditioner for longer than I intend to. Am dreading the electricity bill.

This was a long weekend, with Monday a holiday for Budh Purnima. And for the first time, I was not really looking forward to it. Office with its central air-conditioning seemed such a better alternative!

We decided to see a movie on Sunday so that we could spend the afternoon – the hottest part of the day away from our hot apartment. And so we did, even though it meant dragging oneself off after a heavy Sunday lunch at 4pm to go to the nearest cinema hall, some 15 minutes away. We returned home at 9.30 after spending a pleasant evening watching a movie and a sumptuous meal. The enitre area was very dark. But we weren’t really worried. We have a big inverter and till date, there never has been an all night power cut.

I decided to check on my plants –a nightly routine, when I saw my neigbour sitting on her terrace fanning herself with a hand fan. She told me that the power had been coming and going since 4pm, a good 6 hours or so. There seems to be some grid failure. And as a result, her inverters too were running low on charge. I rushed indoors to tell A and we decided to switch off the fans and sit out in the verandah, which we did till, the mosquitoes drove us indoors. Inside the heat was too stifling. We opened every single window and door in the hope of cajoling in some of the coolness outside but the bed was really warm. Little of the coolness came in. Instead the mosquitoes did, and in hordes. The power came on and we ran to shut every door and window and switch on the AC. And just as we are about to retire in relief, the power went off. Again we opened the doors and the windows and so on and so forth.

A decided on an old Delhi trick – sprinkling the mattresses with water and laying down on it. Even the lazy swishing of the fan made the room much cooler. I had never heard of a thing like this and was understandably very reluctant. A lay down on his side of the bed, oohing and aahing about how wonderful it was and that sort of convinced me to try the same. That gave us some relief. We both kept mugs of water next to the bed and kept sprinkling more water on to the bed.

We have been trying all sorts of get cool quick schemes including drinking gallons of liquid and nimbu pani and eating light lunches, filling up buckets, before the water in the overhead tank gets too hot), keeping the shades drawn etc. And now I am nice and cool, having hit upon the ultimate cool idea….have sneaked off to office, citing work!

Meanwhile, the bunch of people working on the transformer thingy (bang opposite our house) has swelled in numbers. They have been at it since early morning and yet, no sign of power. And I have a guest coming to visit me this evening…

Madam you have killed them!

'Madame, aapney to inhey maar hi dala'. Madam you have killed them. Aghast, the mali told me. Mortified, I listened. My little garden dead before it could bloom?

I had been meaning to button hole the mali into getting me a small garden started on the balcony. The thing was, I could never manage to catch hold of him, although he came to our house daily to tend to the garden downstairs. One fine, rather hot day, he turned up to accompany me to the nearby nursery. R was visiting me then. The two of us hopped on to a rickshaw while the mali followed on a bicycle.

At the nursery, I asked for plants which would be easy to maintain. I was shown three which according to the nursery chap, didn’t need much watering. Just plenty of sun light. We hoisted them onto the rickshaw and came home. A and I dragged the plants three flights up. The mali told me that he would come later and replace the pots with bigger ones and more fresh soil. Fine. In the meanwhile, I checked them regularly and ocassionally watered them. The red bougainevilla sort of crumpled. Too much water I thought. And stopped watering it altogether. The white one grew vertically. Three long upright twigs with three white blossoms at each end. The third one some tincopanna or something like that…would be all droopy and curly each evening and would miraculously revive when I watered it. The red one never recovered. And yet, the dried buds remained firmly affixed to the stems. I would however check them each night, before going to bed. I would talk to them (saw that on a TV sitcom), tenderly stroke them, mentally sending "grow and blossom" messages. One large balcony, three small ugly pots, three plants in various stages of death and decay. Never mind that. There were really precious to me.

I asked my neighbour (the president of the local kitchen garden owner’s association) as to why my plants were dying. Add manure. Really? Easier said than done. Where and how. How come the road to my office is full of hale and hearty bougenvillaes – no one ever waters them and they are under strong strong sunlight. And manure? Not many cows around either.

And that is when the mali came up to check on my plants. “Apney to maar hi dala”.
- But I was told they don’t need water.
- That’s only after the leaves have grown. Once the flowers appear, water them every alternate day. Not before that. Ek balti paani pilaya. Literally, they drank a bucket full of water. He left strict instructions to water them thrice a day. And sure enough, the tincoma grew and how. The white bougainevilla sprouted baby leaves. The red one resisted. As if withdrawn in an injured silent protest. But I still have hopes for it. It has now three new leaves. No sign of flowers yet. The dried up buds still clinging on fast like little blood clots.

The mali has since then repotted them, added fertilizers. He said that maybe I should get more plants. And he could accompany me to the nursery.
- How about today?
- No, am busy. But maybe next weekend?
- No I will be busy. Ok, how about the weekend after that?
- Madame, why don’t you tell me which plants you like, he said pointing to our neighbours gardens.
- Eeps…but don’t I have to ask their permission?
- Well, I AM the garderner out here. And I do all the trimmings and repotting. So its really in my hands.
- Really?

Well, now I have a good mind to take a leisurely walk among the wonderful houses all around with even more wonderful garden, note down the house numbers and make a note of the plants I want. How about that?!

When we lived in the middle east, plants were rather expensive. She would always be on the lookout for plants...a rare sight in the desert and if she ever saw a nice specimen, would think out loud of getting down from the car for a wee bit and grabbing hold of it, to take home. She never did. Back then, R and I would immediately shoot down any such idea of ma's...what if the owner ... some irate sheikh would find out and run after us? I am doing much of the same aren't I? No irate sheikhs out here though...


This morning, I found, to my delight, a small greenish-reddish blob on the tincoma (I am sure I have the name wrong)....it wont be late now, that my balcony will be a bright splash of colours!

Grass is always greener on the other side?

Seems so. Its been ages and ages since I have blogged. Forget blogging, its been ages since I have had the time to even think of blogging. Each night I somehow manage to crawl upstairs and collapse on my bed and spend a night plagued by nightmares of things I haven’t done or that needs to be done.

I wanted a home of my own, where I am free to do as I please. I wanted neighbours I could speak to. Above all, I wanted to be home, in India. I have all of those. Its been three months since I have moved in to a lovely place. All balconies and large airy rooms, a huge terrace to enjoy evenings with friends. How often had I dreamt of my proper drawing room, balconies overflowing with greenery. And yet, my house is still not ‘done’. M-I-l has helped by doing up things in my absence. R who is visiting us, has redone it a bit more…but still its so bare. My balconies lie empty. I managed to get three potted plants and haven’t yet figured out the watering schedule and so they are wilting.

Got a cook and daily help, after a few failed attempts. This one is the third one. I haven’t been able to instruct her properly and so she generally has a ball in my absence. Sunday is the only day we meet and that too if we are staying in!

I had it all planned out ….I would get up in early (I was, till recently, an early bird), sit in my lovely verandah and enjoy my morning cuppa and catch up on the news. I somehow manage to crawl out just an hour before I have to leave for office. Tea is a hurried affair. The morning paper arrives indifferently and the paper man chucks it expertly from three flights below all rolled up tight with a rubber band. Anyone sitting on the verandah risks being hit on the head with a loud thwack!

So, all the while, governments are falling and new ones being made, Tsunamis hitting and all sorts of casting couch scandals breaking, I carry on unawares in the bewildering world of proposals and pitches and review meetings and briefs.

The glass top on our new lovely dining table cracked from side to side. Already. Mosquitos (which were absent) in Jan, when we had moved in, are back with a vengeance. We have managed to get a hammer, nails, mosquito nets….but don’t know when we will be able to string them up!

Neighbours are very nice and friendly. But I have to repeatedly turn down their requests for tea and coffee since I am always meeting them on my way to work. My neigbour downstairs, I have exactly thrice, twice when I was locked out returning very late at night and had to wake them up to remove the padlock on the gate. I did get a chance to meet them at holi. But then it was a very brief civilised sort of a polite meet.

We haven't decided on a car yet. In our brief conversations late at night or in the mornings, before I leave for work, we swap notes. How about this one? No, no not fuel efficient. OK. How about that one? Too expensive. And so on and so forth. Cash or finance? AC or non AC? To have or not? Upshot of all this is, that on good Friday, a holiday, I had to come to office for work while A left for his parents and I found out that there were no cabs available. All drivers had gone on leave on the long holi weekend. So, we, A and I spent our first holi in India, apart.

My days in France seems so idyllic in comparison. I had all the time in the world to cook, paint, blog, walk about, watch movies, do yoga, visit places, museums, parks..

After what seems an eternity, I can leave early for home this evening. Or so I thought. Our electricity got cut off this morning due to some mix up. The landlord had paid the earlier bill and although our electicity has been restored, we need to show the recipt by tomorrow morning. And that bill will be faxed to me (at my office) late tonight. So…I am stuck in office anyhow.

The trouble with chapatis....

A long time back, I was invited for lunch at a school mate’s home for lunch. It was my first average UP lunch. Average in the same routine, normal, daily, 'rozmarra'. Simple tasty vegetarian food with chapatis served hot off the 'tawa'. Soft and hot. Her mother served us one by one. I just loved the idea. But that was not how it was at home. Us bengalis are rice eaters. Ofcourse now a days, many of them, us included have switched to the more healthy rotis for dinner, but alas our cook made them in advance and kept them in a casserole.

Things were different at my in-laws. They are long time residents of Delhi. Proverbial 'dilli wallas'. M-i-l made dinner in advance but rotis came hot off the 'tawa' during dinner. After I got married, it was my turn to make the rotis. I did state that I could make rotis. Very grandly at that. They even turn round when I roll them out. Is what I said. That proved to be my undoing. First of all I couldn’t roll them out quickly enough while one was on the tawa. I had to roll them all out in advance and then roast them. What took m-i-l 5 minutes, took me well over an hour to do.

But that lasted only during my brief visits to India.

When I returned for good last May, things really got serious. Every night was an ordeal, for me and for the rest of the family. I routinely turned out tough as leather, half burnt, half raw rotis. A and f-i-l bravely ate them but m-i-l was rather more vocal about it. Especially since she had a bad tooth. There I was every evening, sweat running over my forehead and into my eyes, in the terrible delhi heat, rolling out one horrible chapati after the other. My m-i-l was quite at her wits end how to teach me to do it. But after a while, even she gave up. It did seem that I was spoiling each and every roti on purpose and finding new ways to do it. The dough would stick to the rolling board, sometimes it would fall onto the floor. When I finished, there was atta all over the place. The tawa was burnt to cinders. And I was sweaty and hot and bothered and the family were chewing leather!

And then we shifted to our own place in Gurgaon, just A and me, believe it or not, the very first night, my rotis turned up light and fluffed up perfectly. And the sad part was there was no one to see them. I had to call A to witness this minor miracle. But obviously its not the same thing as his nonchalantly saying ‘Yes, yes, great’! Not content with that, my parathas turned out well too.

M-i-l understandably finds it hard to believe…

If one were to believe in destiny...

Everything moves along to some little understood cosmic reason...an easy explanation. Yet some things are just too coincedental.

Like our moving into our own place in Yes! We moved in last week to Gurgaon, close to my office.

A had first heard about this place in October when I had not even thought that one dy I'd be working here, let alone staying. Once I joined work, house hunting (when I found the time), became a top priority. The 80km up and down communte was killing me and naturally, this was the first place I saw. A was away in France then. I really liked it at first glance. But the in-laws pointed out that it was simply too large for just the two of us and would be terribly hot in summer and cold in winter being on the second and top floor. Not to mention the water and power problems which appartments in building usually don't have.

I mentally wrote this place off and tried to check out a few other smaller appartments but each had a serious drawback. The landlords rang up frequently, negotiated and renogotiated the lease, all the while when we were actually looking for other places! And all the whiile, this house waited patiently, empty, beckoning us! As if it knew that we'd land up there eventually. And so we did! One fine day in Jan (last week actually), after having commuted what seemed a million miles, I signed the lease, couriered it off to the landlords, hired a van, piled in our worldly belongings and viola! Here we are.

2 of us, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3 balconies, a lobby, a kitchen, a drawing room and a terrace...all are, our stuff neatly unpacked and put away in the numerous built in wardrobes.

The landlady's siter lives nearby and is our contact for most things about the house and Gurgaon. On our first meet (back in november when I had come to see this place for the first time), she told me in passing that her sister, the landlady was to work in the very same agency but had been called when it was too late. By that time they had decided to shift out of the city. Last week, I casually mentioned this to my boss. What? her? God! We really liked her but and wanted her to join but we were too late in getting in touch with her.

If she had got the offer in time, she wouldn't have moved. But it was too late. I moved in to her job and her house!!

PS- one of the first things I did after moving in was to hang up my two painting and a terracotta fresco that I had picked up in Crete. It is in a greenish antique colour (fake ofcourse). And rummaging through the stuff the landlord had left behind, I found another terracotta plaque (not cretan, very Indian) but in the same greenish antique tinge! I hung it up too..

Hmmm....do you hear the hmmm, hhmmm, hmmm, hmmm theme of the twilight zone playing in the background or is it simply work pressure thats making me see things when there aren't any??!!

My family and other animals

(Warning - this post is full of typos...am typing at great speed, post work)!


As far as family is concerned, here in Delhi, it is just the in-laws and me (A is away in far away France). But we have plenty of animals to keep us company, none our though!

Foremost comes the monkeys. They come and go as they please and usually wreak havoc in our garden, breaking stuff, uprooting plants and plucking and throwing away half eaten guavas. Once they climbed over the neighbours newly painted grills and got paint all over their paws. They sat, started at their palms and tried to very human like, get rid of it by rubbing it on walls and tree barks but in vain. It remains, another, sign of the human encroachment into what was once, their domain. I used to watch their antics from the safety of our screen door. But now the novelty has worn off. Especially since their newest trick is to leave a bit of excreta in our backyard. This has upset f-i-l's afternoon snooze on the terrace. Face to face, these monkey are vicious. Our 65 year old neighbour Mr D, in bed with steel shafts to mend his broken leg, is witness to their calculated savagery.

Squirrels bound up and down the trees by the roadside and on to our terrace, busy in whatever that squirrels do...squirreling away something or the other in some nook or cranny and once, with disastrous consequence, inside our meter box which is fitted onto one of outer walls, in the garden. One hot summer night, at the end of a particularly taxing day, when the heat had all of us in frayed tempers, the power went off with a loud bang. Luckily for us, m-i-l had just stepped out of the bedroom where we couldn't hear a thing because of the hum of the air conditioner. We ran out and found the meter box in flames and neighbour crowded around it. The electricians were summoned (at exorbitant rates, it being past midnight), found a nest of squirrels inside the box, burnt to cinders. They had been squirreling away nesting tufts in anticipation of possible a baby?). Luckily for us, we found out in time. Otherwise we would have no escape route since the wall was next to the main gate which is also the only way out of the house. The squirrels had apparently learnt to open the meter box with their tiny paws. We have, since then, put a squirrel proof lock on the box.

A is petrified of cats, having been attacked by a cornered cat in his childhood. He usually keeps away from neighbourhood cats who pick and choose various houses, lawns, cars for reposing at various times of the day and year. One cat has chosen our home to have her litter - 2 adorable balls of fluff. She gets them to the security of our enclosed backyard for the night. Often we hear pitiful mewing of a kitten stranded half way up a treeor a parapet when ma arrives and leads it down with a firm shove by its nose.

I get up very early to get ready for office when it is still dark. I open the door and find (A, beware), the curious kittens sitting poised outside the screen door, head at an angle watching me moving around inside! They are so adorable, especially when they chase their little tails but mama is so protective. She bares her fangs (or canines?) and sets up such a hissing if I so much a turn to look at her little ones.

A wont be thrilled to read this but we are hoping to put the cat family to good use. Of late, m-i-l's tiny lawn is being dug up nightly by large sewer rats - bandicoots. Where do they come from? Why do they dig up the lawn is such a mystery to us. M-i-l asked a gardener for help. He sent one of his minions to clear up and block any entry points and spray the lawn liberally with gamaxene powder. Add to it the fact that we found the kittens playing with a large dead rat had us all complacent that we had tackled the rat problem! Alas, no. Next morning, the lawn was as dug up as ever, the rats clevery digging up the non-gamaxened patches so that it was a merry check board of holes and white powder. These rats are obviously too large even for the mama cat, since the holes continue to merrily appear.

Then there are the indoor pets - the cockroaches, who are a bit subdued thanks to the magic chalk marker. One has to just run this chalk across counters and other places and viola! Every morning, I walk into the kitchen and dead cockroaches crunch underfoot. Yukh..but its a solution. Lizards are in hibernation, I guess.

Neighbourhood dogs choose the front of our gate for their nature's call.
There are little sparrows and finches twittering about in among the tress at home, too clever to be caught by the ever patient cat and its frisky kittens. The ugly pi-dog has given birth to the most adorable set of pups and she has chosen the dry partially covered drain just outside our gate to keep them in. She takes them out one by one occasionally and during feed times and then she puts them back! All in all, very animal friendly, we.

Living Mindfully

I am a great fan of all those books which tell us to slow down, live mindfully, how to live life the zen way etc. How many times have I chanced upon such a book convinced that within its pages was the answer to all the problems in my life. "Open your eyes to the wonder all around you", "101 ways to eat a mangoes" (not in the culinary sense), "illuminate your corner of the world", :highway to heaven" to name a few!

But I have been too busy to actually apply any of it to my life. And infact am not very sure it is applicable. Things always turn out nice and neat in books don't they?! Not in my life. For example, I read somewhere that while cooking, I should pay deep attention to what I was doing; I should notice the shape, the texture, the colour of the food, draw pleasure from their variety, their aroma. I tried to, while cooking bhindi (okra). I was convinced that it would be delicious. It turned out as usual...with A complaining at the blandness of it. Yet another book instructed me to rub grains of rice in my palm and feel their texture and think about the goodness of it while washing it before cooking. All it did was to increase the time I spent in cooking it. Can't say it tasted any different! And yet another book told me to repeat a word of thanks while cooking! I did (felt a bit silly to mutter over my pots and pans). But perhaps in my case the thanks was not so much for the food we received as much for my cooking skills! Then there have been other instructions on how to get up in the morning (slowly, and not jumping out at the last minute and three page full of other stuff to do), how to sweep and clean, how to take a walk.....The message I guess was 'There is magic in everything, slow down to see it, experience it". I somehow got too much caught up in the 'how to' of it to see the end result.

And now out here, without even intending to, I have slowed down. The lack of options, the daily domestic routine, reduced mobility are responsible. I find myself doing all sorts of 'zen' things. My life revolves around the comings and goings of the water supply, the maid, meal times and of course the power. I am not free to move around as I would do if I were in France or in dear old Kolkata.

So I have taken to plucking yellowed leaves, watching the wax and wane of the flora, the antics of the fauna, the children flying kites, the women walkers.

The pink blossoms curl into tight buds every evening and unfurl in the morning. The orange blossoms were coming along very nicely when all of a sudden, a hoard of black beetle or is it a variety of wasps, with red wings striped in black, desecnded on them and literally are sucking the life out of them. And when these wasps fly, their wings whirr around making them look like tiny helicopters.

There is a crow with a very long upper beak which curls down under the lower beak. The monkey chief is lame. There are thick brown slugs inching across the narrow path in the park looking curiously like brown leaves, so slow is their movement and more often than not, end up in a pulp.

So am I not taking life each moment by moment? I am living life mindfully and slowing down to really notice my surroundings, ...as compared to my earlier lifestyle when I didnt have time to breathe. But instead of overflowing with bliss and contentment, all this slowing down is making me feel sorry for myself! Living unmindfully was better. It was so much fun being out of breath!!

Our Menagerie

When we say India is the 2nd most populous country in the world after China, we are not referring to people alone...but to domestic lizards and cockroaches too! Infact we would come out on top beating all other nations hollow! Looks like our tropical weather is high fertility inducing in more than one species!!

Normally, cockroaches would make a tasty snack for lizards, but in our house, they seem to have struck a deal and stick to their well defined territories and ignore each other,
the cockroaches concentrating their energy and efforts to the kitchen and around food stuff and even inside the refridgerator while the lizards are content to creep around the light fixtures.

One more point on this fascinating topic - the lizards are quite plump and largish as compared to those in kolkata(perhaps the pollution out there, stunts their growth) but I would say smaller than their brethren in Mumbai. Now how do I know this? Well I do. My Uncle (dad's bro) on each of his visits to Kolkata would spend some quality time in comparing Kolkata with Mumbai and ofcourse Kolkata would come out very badly in all respects...civic amenities, work culture, pollution etc etc. But not content with that, our dear uncle would even come up with special points:- You (meaning us poor kolkatans) have petty thieves; We (the lucky mumbaikars) have Mafia. You call these lizars?! Ha! Ha! Should see ours...They are dinosaurs!!

Hmmph!