Happy Diwali and...

One more inane post from me with colorful pics which might not interest anyone and in fact has nothing to do with the writings. To keep the interest alive even without food, you have to do the unthinkable.

The fact is I am not cooking much these days. The sweet ma-in-law who is visiting has been delegated the task to feed the family. Now she cooks delectable delights and had I been the ideal Indian Bahu with virtues like patience, docility, ghunghat…blah blah I would have patiently stood by her side and jotted down recipes in neat cursive writing in my recipe book with expensive monogrammed pages(Do they make those by the way)

At The Capitol on a crisp cold November morning

But as luck would have it I have neither patience nor cursive writing and in fact not even a decent recipe book. So I don’t write, I just come back home, lay the table for dinner and eat the sumptuous meals, all the time doing my bit by praising her culinary skills. In fact I sometimes even suggest the menu and throw in my ideas about how it should be done (ok no one listens..so what), and then cook the Dal of the day while I let Ma-in-law wallow in the pleasure of cooking rest of the meal. The only thing I can't get her to do is measure which no decent cook worth their Indian Spices does, so the blog suffers.

Had I done that, Ekta Kapoor would surely feature me in her next multistarrer "Kkabhi Bahu bhi Saas Banegi"

The Washington Monument standing tall

So you see, that is though you do not see food on my blog I am enjoying good food, family and life. That is I have proved that I actually have a life now outside the Blog. Wow I actually proved something… incredible.

Can we decide on the next President

Now to keep the Mom part of the Blog alive a short update on lil’ S who in fact refuses to grow up and doesn’t even want her Birth Day anymore. Given that I have not read Peter Pan to her yet, I don’t know how she got this idea.

She however started showing an increased interest in dancing after we plugged in to 4 Indian Channels who showcase dance and music like there is no tomorrow. In the fear that she could bring shame err fame to the family by becoming the next Rakhi Sawant and dancing to tunes of Himesh, I signed her up for a Indian classical dance lessons. She did not really take to it much initially and even made me hold her hands and do some steps with her. Me with my two left feet holding a 3and ½ year olds hand and dancing Kathak was a sight to behold, but I would do anything, really anything to keep my child safe from Himesh and gang.

Fall colors in the woods across my backyard

Also had much fun at Halloween. I like Halloween because of two primary reasons besides the candy.

The burgeoning cost of costumes have not hit me yet as the lil’ one is really good and wants to be princess and nothing but the Princess and does not want any costume per se. So while last year I dressed her up as the Indian princess in her ghagra-choli with a crown, pearly beads and wand this year she was a Princess in a hand-me down pretty Cinderella dress. So whatever the costume as long as there is a crown she is happy.

The second reason might evoke sniggers but I really like this one time chance I get to take a sneak peek at the unknown neighbor’s. The unknown always holds enchantment for me and instead of using that curiosity to discover the new planet in the galaxy with intelligent beings, I take sneak peek at the neighbor’s (don't get wrong ideas ok ?). The daughter however turned to be too propah and refused to ring doorbells at unknown houses so we did the rounds of familiar boring homes and collected limited candy

And now there is Diwali. Staying in a different land has its advantages. You get to celebrate all your own festivals, adopt the ones that the new country has to offer and also celebrate some which others like you have brought into the culture. The result is nothing but celebrations year round. And even then I pine for Durga Puja back home which actually might turn out something like this (Do read this hilarious post by Anamika)

And that brings me to the actual reason why I wrote this post. To wish all of you A VERY HAPPY DIWALI .

And please do pardon me if you don't see me around that much, I try to and then life happens.

* Pics are from our recent DC pilgrimage
* For all who wanted to know the make of my camera , I mostly use my Canon SD700 IS. The first 2 pics in this post have been taken by the Nikon D80, which is a recent gift from D and which I have not used that much yet.