The Dwayne Johnson vrat = The pebble diet

I’ve been recovering from aches after dengue and it’s not pleasant. It’s as if every day a part of me reminds me of its presence, “Hi! Just want you to know I am there. Think of me today!”
During the time I was sick, I saw movies starring Dwayne Johnson = The Rock. Ok, many of them. Good to see that perfectly fit man save so many people.
Since I had a lot of time to think, I decided I want to be as fit as him…

 

Now that the laughter from those who know me has stopped, read further. At the outset, by fit like him, I don’t mean I’ll work out like him. A recent back problem has ensured that I don’t exercise too hard. After dengue, I am not exercising at all, I won’t even copy the regimen of my fitness-crazed next door neighbour. Besides, someone has already tried living like The Rock for a week, and it nearly killed her! She’s Madeleine Chapman, a journalist from New Zealand.

For someone who weighed 58 kgs at her ‘fattest,’ (10 years ago) it’s going to be very difficult. But taking everything into account, by ‘fit like him,’ I mean, a very teeny tiny bit. I thought even if I copy his breakfast for some time, I’ll be a little – teeny tiny bit fit. But after reading about The Rock’s preparation for the movie Hercules, I realised what he ate for breakfast is what I would eat for a week! His regular breakfast too, is a lot.

Also, I don’t want to be a body builder. So I’ve decided copying an extremely small bit of his diet will be enough. A nano bit. So this is what I’ve termed the the Dwayne Johnson ‘vrat’ or the 'pebble' diet. It means, like him, I’ll eat two eggs a day for breakfast… That’s it. If I get through a week and manage to increase my weight even by 10 gms, it'll be great! Who knows? I may even continue with the vrat! After all, then I’ll be fit like The Rock! Well, a teeny tiny, nano bit anyway…

My current weight is 52.5 kg.
Here’s today’s (day 1’s) breakfast:

An omeletty start
 

 

Pet-ty things 1

Mighty Mau

I’ve filled a dog-shaped hole in my family. While she made do with the loss of her dog in exchange for a kid sister, my sister often reminded me that ‘Tipya,’ was given away because of me.

When we were growing up, apart from Tipya, who insisted on becoming our pet as a stray pup who got into our car and refused to get out, me and my sister were never allowed to keep a dog. Not because our mother hates keeping pets, but because our father never got over the loss of his dog. So a dog was all I wanted, and I tried a great many things to get one, (I even tried psychological blackmail – I crossed out the name of a boy from Enid Blyton’s book ‘The boy who wanted a dog’, and wrote mine everywhere instead!) but nothing worked.

 

Tai (my sister) with Raja. No, she's not strangling him.

   

Then one day when I came home from school, I found a kitten sleeping in a box in our house. My father had gone to see off my cousin, when the little kitten which was being chased by a boy came to him. Nana (my father) picked it up and put it in his shirt pocket, where it felt safe, and soon went to sleep.

Media cat

I named the kitten Raja. He soon began leading a royal lifestyle that suited his name. My father brought him fish every day. Tai (my sister) and I loved to paint around his eyes – with a sketch pen as an eye liner. He didn’t mind. Raja played as much as he slept, joining my father in his afternoon nap, or curled up on my grandfather’s shoulder. His favourite place was on the stabiliser behind the fridge. I don’t know about dogs. But I do believe that cats like to be in newspaper offices! Like the beautiful tom cat that hung around Mumbai Mirror and Femina’s offices. Raja also often hung out at the office of the Daily Gomantak in Goa, where my father was Editor-in-Chief. We stayed in a flat on the building’s fourth storey. Raja would often spend time watching my father work in his cabin. He would also walk around the proof readers’ section as they read aloud reports, and elsewhere fearlessly. He visited the office of Gomantak at lunch time to eat scraps from the tiffins of the staff. He also made it a point never to go there on Thursdays, for that was the staff’s ‘shivrak’ (vegetarian) day!

Initially I was scared of him because like most kittens, he too would come running on his hind legs, and grab the first human leg walking by, and pretend to bite it. Thankfully he grew out of this soon and became a calm cat. He loved sunning himself on the window sill, an activity that cost him one of his lives, when he fell down from our fourth floor flat, onto a shed below.

One life used up

Before the big fall, Raja had once fallen onto the parapet of the window below, and my father and grandmother had managed to rescue him with the help of a basket. But despite this, Raja did not learn a lesson and in the next fall, landed on the shed. Once again, my cousin was visiting and it was he who realised Raja had fallen down. We went to rescue him and my cousin climbed onto the shed, where Raja was lying, too scared to move. We picked him up and took him home, where we found the only injury, surprisingly, was a broken tooth. For the next couple of days, Raja refused to move out of the room and sat still in one place, scared. He did recover but was not his usual self when I tried to take him towards the window from which he had fallen. He meowed loudly and jumped from my arms and ran out of the room!

Like most other animals, he was also scared of fireworks and whenever there was a festival and he heard them, he would hide under a bed. He also did not like being alone. Once my parents and I were going out and he probably thought he was alone, because I heard him meowing loudly. I had never heard him cry so loudly. My grandparents were home, and my grandmother later told me that he calmed down only when she said to him, “Raja, it’s okay, we are here. You are not alone.” Strange that a cat didn’t want to be alone! But perhaps it’s a feline thing, because years later, when we were in England for a cousin’s wedding, my uncle said their cat, Miss Wu, also hated being alone. “When we are in the house, once in a while, she comes to check if we are still around!” he said.

There was one thing I hated about Raja though. He had turned into an ‘alarm cat’ for my parents. Every Sunday, my parents had a tough time waking me up. After Raja arrived, things got easy for them. He would join them. I would wake up alarmed, for he would try to wake me up by pretending to bite my toes. I did dread those sharp feline teeth, and always jumped out of bed when I realised that he had arrived.

It’s been years since Raja ran away like most tom cats, one day. Unlike Nana who vowed never to keep a dog again, James Herriott used to say he cannot live without a dog. Lately I’ve been thinking of the same, by keeping a cat again. It’ll surely be purr-fect.

Clean socks

The past few years through winter in Mumbai, I’ve taken to wearing socks. Yes, what little we have of the cold in winter, is enough for us to make the most of some of our sweaters, scarves and other woolen garments!


This morning I remembered my weekend ritual of washing my canvas shoes and socks, when I was at school. It had to be done, or else, we would be shamed before the school for our muddy, dirty shoes and socks in Assembly.


We also had half an hour of parade for all the classes together. So the socks and shoes had to be clean also on Wednesdays for it. I would keep one pair clean for Wednesday. But lazy me faced many a Wednesday when I would wake up in panic, and remember I did not have a clean pair of socks or shoes. While the chalk from class came in handy for painting the shoes just before the parade, one couldn’t always fool the teachers with dirty socks. 

We had fantastic teachers at this school. Once, two or three of them, dressed in the school uniform, showed us all how badly we marched in the school parade! As most of us rolled in laughter, a little guiltily and a little embarrassed, they coolly enacted some of the girls who marched really badly. Needless to say, it had a strong effect on us and we marched most perfectly after that… for that day.


I remember wearing the canvas shoes and socks through school. Even the smell of my feet when I removed them on arriving home, especially after having played football, basketball or simply, after the school marching exercise. When I joined college, like thousands of others, I was glad there was no uniform and no wearing shoes every day. 

Later as a journalist, again, I did not have a uniform, or needed to wear formals at work. No one really cares if one wears shoes or doesn’t. But wearing socks thanks to the winter, brought back these memories. Of course, I am not so lazy now and do wash them much more regularly! But there’s a warm feeling that envelopes me when I look at my socks and remember the time from school, the day the teachers marched, and even the stinky feet.

Old chai in a new cup

Irani cafes. That celebrated, much talked about, written about and sadly, slowly disappearing integral part of Mumbai. Bun maska, chai, keema pav, khari - many a Mumbaikar has devoured these creations here, and lamented that some of these little time capsules are shutting down. The owners – most of them have owned these cafes for generations – are unable to sustain them in these times.

Kyani, Yazdani, Sassanian are some of these gems that have still managed to stay afloat. In 2015, as a tribute to these places, a restaurant that mimics their style and serves some of the cuisine they serve, was started. Today, SodaBottleOpenerWala has become ‘the place’ to be seen for the rich, who ironically, might not want to be seen visiting the real McCoys. This weekend I headed to it with friends.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. While the flattery seems to succeed at most places here, it falls flat with the food.

The interiors included a medley of items bought from Chor Bazaar, new furniture designed in the Irani café style, and tiffins or dabas to serve some of the dishes. The glasses were bigger versions of chai glasses.

The tables were covered in the uniform red chequered pattern fabric one sees in most Irani cafes. And they had made an effort in most of the place, to tell the customer about Irani cafes and Parsis and their food. Just in case a customer forgot.

What I really liked was the motif on the flooring. Really, really Irani café.

Old photographs from Irani/ Parsi families also adorned most walls. Wall clocks showed the time in Persia and London among other places.

As written, the place is a tribute to Irani cafes, so there shouldn’t be other expectations. This isn’t a review, but for the authentic experience, head to the real places, while they are still there.

Mug shot

Happy New Year! As we begin another year, I would like to draw your attention to the humble mug. More precisely, the ‘office mug’, as I would like to call all those ceramic drink holders we use at our desks.

It’s not just a mug. It’s also a life saver. I began to look at it differently after seeing the countless mugs gifted through Secret Santas at office recently. Each one of us has guiltily or without guilt (as me) gifted a mug to someone as their Secret Santa. Admit it. It’s the best unisex gift to give someone whose name came to you in a chit. You may not know the person, but he or she surely could do with another mug. A mug is something that can be recycled as a gift, and of course, you could always use another one in office. Like my colleague. She’s got two mugs, used alternately or even the same day for coffee. (She’s also got an electric kettle at office, but that’s another story)

The humble office mug is also more than just a tea or coffee holder. It serves as a Manchurian bowl (for one of my other colleagues). Or it can always be used for soup. And if you really didn’t like your Secret Santa gift, it’s a great pen holder.

There are other uses too. You could always land up with your mug at the coffee machine when the new or girl you want to know is there!

So look at the office mug differently. It’s more than a beverage holder. It comes in different colours, sizes and shapes, and has as many uses.

Big sisterly advice

A very senior author who is a neighbour, wanted to read books by Ruskin Bond. My mother told her he’s one of my favourite authors, and now one of his books from my collection is on the way to the neighbour’s house.

Books have always been a way to say ‘I love you,’ in our house. We’ve given each other books for various occasions and even for no reason, as long as I remember. One of my most prized birthday gifts was from my elder sister and her husband. It was Rs 1,000 that blew up on books. Today that sum does not have much value. But when I was a teenager then, quite some time back, it was a lot of money.

So I had found myself in a bookshop buying a treasure trove of words. I brought the books home and covered them with plastic, as is my habit, to protect them.

I also write my name and full address on the first page of the book.

It was on one such occasion, when I had bought new books, that tai (my sister) told me it wasn’t enough just to write my name and address on the book. She told me I should write my name somewhere on the inside pages too. “Why?” I asked her, wondering what quirky advice she was going to give me then. “It’s because someone who has borrowed your book and doesn’t want to return it, will tear off the first page with your name and address. But no one tears a page from between a book,” she said. Strange advice I thought, but believed it immediately and followed it.

While choosing a book to lend my neighbour, I saw I had written my name on one of the pages inside.

It’s certainly not a fool proof method to prevent a book from being stolen. A thief will take it if she or he intends to, despite the owner’s name or address on the first page or inside! But like many crazy things my sister told me and I listened to, I took this too, seriously.

After all these years, seeing my name in the middle of the book, brought a smile to my face. Evidence once again, of my mad kid-sisterly obedience.

The Japanese box

My father gave me this box. He purchased it from Tokyo airport on a stopover while on an official trip almost 30 years back.

The Japanese box was a delightful gift for a school girl. I spent a lot of time with it. Opening and shutting it, putting things in it and taking them out. 

Then it became guardian to some things from my childhood. Tucked in it, away from adult eyes, were a toy teacup, rubber stamps from Canada with a plastic container of glitter, the woggle from my Girl Guide scarf, and for some strange reason, a plastic camera roll container. For years, I also kept a letter from my father in it.

My father had accompanied former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, as part of the press on a Tokyo-Vancouver-Boston-New York-Washington tour. The letter dated October 12, 1987, was written on board the Prime Minister’s special flight. Nana (my father) describes how luxurious the air plane was and the royal treatment they received on board the Maharaja. How they were frequently served salted almonds and cashews, how journalists were being spoilt with Black Label whisky and 555 cigarette packets. He wrote that he felt as if they were disconnected from our country, then poor, and caught up in a severe drought.

Seeing the box and its contents once again reminded me of the day Nana returned from the trip. When he gave me the box, it contained the cat and tortoise stamps and glitter. For a long time my penfriends received letters with the stamped images. 

Nana narrated anecdotes from the trip for hours. He had even brought newspapers from the US to show us. The big story then was the rescue of a girl called Jessica, who had fallen into a well. This was long before Prince’s similar story in India. Recently I read about Jessica McClure online. She is married and has kids of her own. She may never even imagine how someone in India was once taken up with her rescue and had read about it then.

In incidents like these is my interest in journalism and writing rooted. Seeing the box brought this and much more to mind