Monday, September 24, 2012

Mutton Kurma

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Aloo Dum (Potatoes Curry) Recipe

This is an exotic delicious main dish. Just the smell of aloo dum can make you hungry! To make this dish, potatoes are fried and then soaked in the spicy aromatic gravy. This is a perfect dish for any dinner party.

Recipe serves 4.

Ingredients:

4 medium size russet potatoes
2 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon cumin seed (jeera)
1/8 teaspoon asafetida (hing)
1 tablespoon gram flour (basen)
6 whole red chili
1/4 cup yogurt
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon coconut powder
1/4 inch of ginger
1 green chili adjust to taste
1 tablespoon coriander powder (dhania)
1 tablespoon funnel seed powder (saunf)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric (haldi)
1/2 teaspoon red chili powder adjust to taste
1/2 teaspoon paprika (dagi or kashmiri mirch)
1 teaspoon salt adjust to taste
1/2 garam masala
about 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro
oil to fry
Method:

Peeled and cut the potatoes into ½” cubes.
Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium high heat.
Frying pan should have at least 1inch of oil. To check if the oil is ready, put one piece of potato in the oil. The potato should sizzle right away. If potatoes are fried on low heat they will be very oily.
Fry the potatoes till they are cooked through; turn the potatoes few times while frying. Take out potatoes with a slotted spoon (this allows excess oil to drip back into the frying pan) and place on a paper towel. Keep aside.
Heat the pan on medium heat and stir-fry the sesame seeds for about a minute until seeds lightly change color. Take them out and keep aside.
Blend sesame seeds, coconut, ginger, green chili, and make it into a paste. Use water as needed to blend into paste.
In a small bowl mix, sesame paste, yogurt, ginger, green chili, coriander powder, funnels seed powder, paprika, red chili powder, and turmeric into a paste. Keep aside.
Heat the oil in a saucepan. Test the heat by adding one cumin seed to the oil; if seed cracks right away oil is ready.
Add the cumin asafetida and cumin seeds. After the cumin seeds crack, add whole red chili and besan (gram flour). Stir-fry for about half a minute until the besan (gram flour) is golden-brown.
Add the spice paste and stir-fry for about 2 minutes on medium heat until the spices starts to separate from the oil.
Add the potatoes, mix it well and add about 1cup of water. After the gravy boils, let it cook on low-medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes. Adjust the water in gravy to your liking.
Add the cilantro and garam masala cover the pan and turn off the heat. Let it sit for few minutes before taking of the cover. This helps bringing the color on the top of the dish.
Serve with any bread.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Vishnu Sahasranamam - M S Subbulakshmi

Bhaja Govindam_MS Subbulakshmi_Adi Shankaracharya

Jagadoddarana - Kapi ( United Nations Concert )

M S Subbulakshmi - Ksheera Sagara Shayana - Devagandhari - Tyagaraja Swami

MSS Annamacharya keertana .NANATI BRATUKU NATAKAMU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSRlPiHGWT8

Bombay Jayashree-Nilambari

Musical Concerts by Bombay Jayashri & Ayaan Ali Khan for Aradhana Mahotsavam in Prasanthi

Muralidara - Bombay Jayashree - SREEJITHKUMAR.G

Bombay Jayashree, Manasa Sanchara Re

Manasa sancharare - Vani Jayaram, SPB - Sankarabharanam (1980)

Marugelara-Nithyasree mahadevan

Bismillaha khan

MSS-Fibare rama rasam

MSS-Rama rama jaya rajaram

Thursday, June 7, 2012

ABCDs ; The Culture-Conflict. 105



                                                (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


          In a moment she would hear the beeps of the security system, the garage door opening, car doors closing, her children's voices in the house. She applied lotion to her arms and legs, reached for peach-colored terrycloth robe that hung from a hook on the door. Her husband had given her the robe years ago, for a Christmas now long forgotten. This too she would have to give away, would have no use for where she was going. In such a humid climate it would take days for such a thick material to dry. She made a note to herself, to wash it well and donate it to the thrift shop. She didn't remember the year she had gotten the robe, didn't remember opening it, or her reaction. She knew only that it had been either Gogol or Sonia who had picked it out at one of the department stores at the mall, had wrapped it, even. That all her husband had done was to write his name and hers on the to-and-from tag. She didn't fault him for this. Such omissions of devotion, of affection, she knew now, did not matter in the end. She no long wondered what it might had been like to do what her children had done, to fall in love first rather than years later, to deliberate over a period of months or years and not a single afternoon, which was the time it taken for her and Ashoke to  agree to wed. It was the image of their two names on the tag that she thought of, a tag that she had not bothered to save. It reminded her of their life together, of the unexpected life he, in choosing to marry her, had given her here, which she had refused for so many years to accept. And though she still didn't feel fully at home within these walls on Pemberton Road she knew that this was home nevertheless ; the world for which she was responsible, which she has created, which was every where around her, needing to be packed up, given away, thrown out bit by bit. She slipped her damp arms into the sleeves of the robe, tied the belt around her waist. It had always been a bit short on her on her, a size too small. Its warmth was a comfort all the same.


There was no one to greet Gogol on the platform when ha got off the train. He wondered if he was early, looked at his watch. Instead of getting into the station house he waited on a bench outside. The last of the passengers boarded, the train doors slid to a close. The conductors waved their signals to one another, the wheels rolled slowly, the compartments glided forward one by one.He watched his fellow passengers being greeted by their family members, lovers reunited with entangled arms, without a word. College students burdened by backpacks, returning from Christmas break. After a few minutes the platform was empty, as was the space the train had occupied. Now Gogol looked onto a field, some spindly trees against a cobalt twilight sky. He thought of calling home but decided he was content to sit and wait awhile longer. The cool air was pleasant on his face after his hours on the train. He'd slept most of the journey to Boston, the conductor poking him awake once they'd reached South Station, and he was the only person left in the compartment, the last to get off. He'd slept soundly, curled up on two seats, his book unread, using his overcoat as a blanket, pulled up to his chin. 












Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Yamagola - Gudivada Vellanu - Spicy Song

ABCDs ; The Culture-Conflict. 104



                                                   (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


           Ashima finished breading the final croquette, then glanced at her wristwatch. She was slightly ahead of the schedule. She set the platter on the counter next to the stove. She took a pan out of the cupboard and poured in the oil, several cupfuls, to be heated in the minutes before her guests are expected. From a crock she selected the slotted spatula she would use. For now, there was nothing left to be done. The rest of the food had been prepared, sitting in  long Corning Ware pans on the dining room table : dal coated with a thick skin that would rupture as soon as the first of it was served, a roasted cauliflower dish, eggplant, a korma of lamb. Sweet yogurt and pantuas for dessert sat on the sideboard. She eyed every thing with anticipation. Normally cooking for parties leaves her without appetite, but to night she looked forward to serving herself, sitting among her guests. With Sonia's help the house had been cleaned one last time. Ashima always loved these hours before a party, the carpets vacuumed, the coffee table wiped with Pledge, her dimmed, blurry reflection visible in the wood.
          She rooted through her kitchen drawer for a packet of incense. She lighted a stick and walked from room to room. It had gratified her to go to all this effort - to make a final, celebratory meal for her children, her friends. To decide on menu, to make a list and shop in the supermarket and fill the refrigerator shelves with food. It was a pleasant change of pace, something finite in contrast to her current, overwhelming, ongoing task : to prepare for her departure, picking her bones of the house clean. For the past month, she had been dismantling her household piece by piece. Each evening she had tackled a drawer, a closet, a set of shelves. Though Sonia offered to help, Ashima preferred to do this alone. She had made piles of things to give to Gogol and Sonia, things to give to friends, things to take with her, things to donate to charities, things to put into trash bags and drive to the dump. The task both saddened and satisfied her at the same time. There was a thrill to whittling down her possessions to little more than what she had come with, to those three rooms in Cambridge in the middle of a winter's night. Tonight she would invite friends to take whatever might be useful, lamps, plants, platters, pots and pans. Sonia and Ben would rent a truck and take whatever furniture they had room for.
           The walls of the house reminded her of the house when they had first moved in, bare except for the photograph of her husband, which would be the last thing she would remove. She paused for a moment waving of the incense in front of Asoke's image. She went upstairs to shower, getting into her beige bathtub, behind the crackled sliding glass doors. She was exhausted from two days of cooking. from her morning of cleaning, from these weeks of packing and dealing with the sale of the house. Her feet felt heavy against the fiberglass floor of the tub. For a while she simply stood there before tending to the shampooing of her hair, soaping of her softening, slightly shrinking fifty- three-year-old body, which she must fortify each morning with calcium pills. When she was finished, she wiped the steam off the bathroom mirror and studied her face. A widow's face. But for most of her life, she reminded herself, a wife. And perhaps, one day, a grandmother, arriving in America laden with hand-knit sweaters and gifts,leaving, a month or two later, inconsolable, in tears.
          Ashima felt lonely suddenly, horribly, permanently alone, and briefly turned away from the mirror, she sobbed for her husband. She felt overwhelmed by the thought of the move she was about to make, to the city that was once home and was now in its own way foreign. She felt both impatience and indifference for all the days she still must live, for something told her she would not go quickly as her husband did. For thirty-three years she missed her life in India. Now she would miss her job at the library, the women with whom she had worked. She would miss throwing parties. She would miss living with her daughter, the surprising companionship they had formed, going into Cambridge together to see old movies at the Brattle, teaching her to cook the food Sonia had complained of eating as a child. She would miss the opportunity to drive, as she sometimes did on her way home from the library, to the university, past the engineering building where her husband once worked. She would miss the country in which she had grown to know and love her husband. Though his ashes had been scattered into the Ganges, it was here, in this house and in this town, that he would continue to dwell in her mind.

























Monday, June 4, 2012

ABCDs ; The Culture-Conflict. 103



                                              (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


          Ashima had decided to spend six months of her life in India, six months in the States. She would live with her younger brother, Rana, living in Calcutta, when she would visit India. Her brother used to live with his wife, and their two grown, as yet unmarried daughters, in a spacious flat in Salt Lake.There she would have a room, the first in her life intended for her exclusive use. In spring and summer she would return to the Northeast, dividing her her time among her son, her daughter, and her close Bengali friends. True to the meaning of her name, she would be without borders, without a home of her own, a resident everywhere and nowhere. But it was no longer possible for her to live here now that Sonia was going to be married. The wedding would be in Calcutta, a little over a year from now, on an auspicious January day, just as she and her husband were married nearly thirty-four years ago. Something told her that Sonia would be happy with this boy - quickly she corrected herself - this young man. He had brought happiness to her daughter, in a way Moushumi had never brought it to her son. That it was she who had encouraged Gogol to meet Moushumi would be something for which Ashima would always feel guilty. How could she had known ? But fortunately they had not considered it their duty to stay married, as the Bengalis of Ashoke and Ashima's generation did. They were not willing to accept, to adjust, to settle for something less than their ideal of happiness. That pressure had given way, in the case of the subsequent generation, to American common sense.
          For the final hours she was alone in the house. Sonia had gone with Ben to pick up Gogol to the train station. It occurred to Ashima that the next time she would be by herself, she would be travelling, sitting on the plane. For the first time since her flight to meet her husband in Cambridge, in the winter of 1967, she would make the journey entirely on her own. The prospect no longer terrified her. She had learned to do things on her own, and though she still wore saris, still put her long hair in a bun, She was not the same Ashima who had once lived in Calcutta. She would return to India with American passport. In her wallet would remain her Massachusetts driver's license, her social security card. She would return to world where she would not single-handedly throw parties for dozens of people. She would not have to go to the trouble of making yogurt from half-and-half and sandesh from ricotta cheese. She would not have to make her own croquettes. They would be available to her from restaurants, brought up to the flat by servants, bearing a taste that after all these years she had still not quite managed, to her entire satisfaction, to replicate.  

Sunday, June 3, 2012

ABCDs ; The Culture-Conflicct. 102



                                          (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


          It was the day before Christmas. Ashima Ganguli sat at her kitchen table, making mincemeat croquettes for a party she was throwing that evening. There were one of her specialties, something her guests had come to expect, handed to them on small plates within minutes of their arrival. Alone, she managed an assembly line of preparation. First she forced warm boiled potatoes through a ricer. Carefully she shaped a bit of potato around a spoonful of cooked ground lamb, as uniformly as the white of a hard-boiled egg encased its yolk. She dipped each of the croquettes, about the size and shape of a billiard ball, into a bowl of beaten eggs, then coated them on a plate of bread crumbs, shaking off the excess in her cupped palms. Finally she stacked the croquettes on a large circular tray, a sheet of wax paper between each layer. She stopped to count how many she'd made so far. She estimated three for each adult, one or two for each of the children. She reviewed the exact number of guests once more, saw that an extra dozen of them arranged on the plate, to be safe. She poured a fresh heap of bread crumbs on the plate, their color and texture reminding her of sand on a beach. She remembered Gogol and Sonia helping her on such occasions, when they were children.
         This would be the last party Ashima would host at Pemberton Road, the first since her husband's funeral. The house in which she had lived for the past twenty-seven years, which she had occupied longer than any other in her life, had been recently sold, a Realtor's sign stuck into the lawn. The buyers were an American family, the Walkers, a young professor new to the university where her husband used to work, and a wife and daughter.. The Walkers were planning renovations. Listening to their plans of renovation, Ashima had felt a moment's panic, a protective instinct, wanting to retract her offer, wanting the house to remain as it had always been, as her husband had last seen it. But this had been sentimentality speaking. It was foolish for her to hope that the golden letters spelling GANGULI on the mailbox would not be peeled off, replaced. That Sonia's name, written in Magic Marker on the inside of her bedroom door, would not be sanded, restained. That the pencil makings on the wall by the linen closet, where Askoke used record his children's height on their birthdays, would not be painted over. 

Saturday, June 2, 2012

ABCDs ; The Culture-Conflict. 101




                                           (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


             Gogol decided to try the Barnes and Noble, a book stall, at the northern edge of the square. But staring at the immense wall of new titles on display he realized he'd read none of those books, and what was the point of giving her something he hadn't read ? On his way out of the store he paused by a table devoted to travel guides. He picked up one for Italy, full of illustrations of the architecture he had studied so carefully as a student, had admired only in photographs, had always meant to see. It angered him, yet there was no one to blame but himself. What was stopping him ? A trip together, to  a place neither of them had been - may be that was what he and Moushumi needed. He could plan it all himself, selected the cities they would visit, the hotels. It could be his Christmas gift to her, two airplane tickets tucked into the back of the guide. He was due for another vacation, he could plan it for her spring break. Inspired by the thought, he went to the register, waited in a long line, and paid  for the book.
            He walked across the park toward home, thumbing through the book, anxious to see he now. He decided to stop  at the  gourmet grocery that was opened on Irving Place, to buy some of the things she liked : blood oranges, a wedge of cheese from the Pyrenees, slices of soppresata, a loaf of
peasant bread. For she would be hungry - they serve nothing on these days. He looked up from the 
book, at the sky, at the darkness gathering, the clouds a deep, beautiful gold, and was momentarily stopped by a flock of pigeons flying dangerously close. Suddenly terrified, he ducked his head, fee pedestrians had reacted. He stopped and watched as the birds shot up. He was unsettled by the sight. He thought of Italy, of Venice, the trip he would begin to plan.
           The lobby of the apartment was warm when he entered, the building's heat restored. "She just got back," the doorman told Gogol with a wink as he walked past, and his heart leaped, unburdened of its malaise, grateful for her simple act of returning to him. He imagined her puttering around the apartment, drawing a bath, pouring herself a glass of wine, her bags in the hallway. He slipped the book he would give her for Christmas into the pocket of his coat, making sure it was  concealed, and called elevator to take him upstairs.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

ABCDs ; The Culture-Conflict. 100



                                            (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


         The previous weekend was Thanks giving. Gogol's mother and Sonia and Sonia's new boyfriend, Ben, had come, along with Moushumi's parents and brother, and they had all celebrated the holiday together in New York, crowded together in Gogol and Moushumi's apartment. It was the first time he'd not gone either to his parents' or to his in-laws' for a holiday. It felt strange to be hosting, to assume the center of responsibility. They had ordered a fresh turkey in advance from the farmers' market, planned the menu out of Food & Wine, bought folding chairs so that everyone would have a place to sit. Moushumi had gone out and bought a rolling pin, made an apple pie for the first time in her life. For Ben's sake they'd all spoken in English. Ben was half-Jewish, half-Chinese, raised in Newton, close to where Gogol and Sonia grew up. He was an editor at the Globe, He and Sonia met by chance, at a cafe on Newbury Street. Seeing them together, sneaking into the hallway so that they could kiss freely, holding hands discreetly as they sat at the table, Gogol had been oddly envious, and as they all sat eating their turkey and roasted sweet potatoes and cornbread stuffing, and the spiced cranberry chutney his mother had made, he looked at Moushumi and wondered what was wrong. They didn't argue, they still had sex, and yet he wondered. Did he still make her happy ? She accused him of nothing, but more and more he sensed her distance, her dissatisfaction, her distraction. But there had been no time to dwell on this worry. The weekend had been exhausting, getting their various family members to the apartments of nearby friends who were away and had given them keys. The day after Thanksgiving they had all gone to Jackson Heights, to the halal butcher so that both their mothers could stock up on goat meat, and then to brunch. And on Saturday there had been a concert of classical Indian music up at Columbia. Part of him wanted to bring it up with her. "Are you happy you married me ?" he would ask. But the fact that he was even thinking of this question made him afraid.
            He finished up the drawing by working through the lunch, and when stepped out of his office building it was colder, the light fading rapidly from the sky. He bought a cup of coffee and a falafel sandwich at the Egyptian restaurant on the corner and walked south as he ate, toward the Flatiron and lower Fifth Avenue, the twin towers of the World Trade Center looming in the distance, sparkling at the island's end. The falafel, wrapped in foil, was warm and messy in his hands. The stores were full, the windows decorated, the sidewalks crammed with shoppers. The thought of Christmas overwhelmed him. The previous year they went to Moushumi's parents' house. This year they would go to Pemberton Road. He no longer looked forward to the holiday ; he wanted only to be on the other side of the season. His impatience made him feel that he was, incontrovertibly, finally, an adult. He wandered absently into a perfume store, a clothing store, a store that sells only bags. He'd no idea what to get Moushumi for Christmas. Normally she dropped hints, showing him catalogues, but he had no clue as to what she was coveting this season, if it was a new pair of gloves or new pajamas she'd like. In the maze of stalls in Union Square that sell candles and shawls and handmade jewelry, nothing inspired him.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

ABCDs ; The Cultur-Conflict. 99



                                              (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


           Gogol woke up late on Sunday morning, alone, from a bad dream he could not recall. He looked over at Moushumi's side of the bed, at the untidy pile of her books and magazines on the end table, the bottle of lavender room spray she liked to squirt sometimes on their pillows, the tortoiseshell barrette with strands of her hair caught in its clasp. She was at another conference this weekend, in Palm Beach.. By tonight she would be home. She claimed she'd told him about the conference months ago, but he didn't remember. "Don't worry," she'd said as she was packing, "I won't be there long enough to get a tan." But when he'd seen her bathing suit on top of the clothing on the bed, a strange panic had welled up inside of him as he thought of her lying without him by a hotel pool, her eyes closed, a book at her side. "At least one of us wasn't cold," he thought to himself now, crossing his arms tightly in front of his chest. Since the previous day afternoon the building's boiler had been broken, turning the apartment into an icebox. Last night he'd had to turn the oven on in order to tolerate being in the living room, and he'd worn his old Yale sweatpants, a thick sweater over a T-shirt, and a pair of rag-wool socks to bed. He threw back the comforter and the extra blanket he'd placed on top of it in the middle of the night. He couldn't find the blanket at first, nearly called Moushumi at the hotel to ask where she kept it. But by then it was nearly three in the morning, and so, eventually, he'd hunted it down himself, found it wedged on the top shelf of the hall closet, an unused wedding gift still in its zippered plastic case.
         He got out of the bed, brushed his teeth with freezing cold water from the tap, decided to skip shaving. He pulled on jeans and an extra sweater, and Moushumi's bathrobe over that, not caring how ridiculous he looked. He made a pot of coffee, toasted some bread to eat with butter and jam. He opened the front door and retrieved the Times, removing the wrapper, putting it on the coffee table to read later. There was a drawing for work to be completed by the next day, a cross section for a high school auditorium in Chicago. He unrolled the plan from lts tube and spread it it out on the dining table, securing the corners with paper back books. He put on his Abbey Road CD, and tried to work on the drawing. But his fingers were stiff and so he rolled up the plan, left a note for Moushumi on the kitchen counter, and went to the office.
          He was glad to have an excuse to be out of the apartment, instead of waiting for her, at some point that evening, to return. It felt milder outside, the air pleasantly damp, and instead of taking the train he walked the thirty blocks, up Park Avenue and over to Madison. He was the only person at the office. He sat in the darkened drafting room, surrounded by the desks of his co-workers, some piled with drawings and models, others as neat as a pin. He crouched over his table, a single pool of light from a swinging metal lamp illuminating the drawing. At the end of the week, it would be the fourth anniversary of his father's death. there was a photograph of his mother and Sonia and himself at Fatehpur Sikri, hanging on the wall in front of him. And next to this, a picture of Moushumi, an old passport photo he'd found and asked to keep. She was in her early twenties, her hair loose, her heavy-lidded eyes slightly lowered, looking to one side. It was taken before he'd begun to date her, when she was living in Paris. And yet they had met ; after all her adventures, it was he whom she had married. He with whom she shared her life.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

ABCDs ; The Culture-Conflict. 98



                                              (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


           One night it was worse than usual. It was three o'clock, then four. Construction work had been taking place for the past few nights on their street, giant bins of rubble and concrete were moved and crushed, and Moushumi felt angry at Nikhil for being able to sleep through it. She was tempted to get up, poured herself a drink, took a bath, anything. But fatigue kept her in bed. She watched the shadows that the passing traffic threw onto their ceiling, listened to a truck wailing in the distance like a solitary, nocturnal beast. She was convinced she would be up to see the sun rise. But somehow she slept again. She was woken just after dawn by the sound of rain beating against the bedroom window, pelting it with such ferocity that she almost expected the glass to shatter. She had a splitting headache. She got out of bed and parted the curtains, then returned to bed and shook Nikhil awake. "Look," she said, pointing at the rain, as if it were something truly extraordinary. Nikhil obliged, fully asleep, sat upright, then he closed his eyes again.
            At seven-thirty she got out of bed. The morning sky was clear. She walked out of the bedroom and saw that rain had leaked through the roof, left an unsightly yellow patch on the ceiling and puddles in the apartment : one in the bathroom, another in the front hall. The sill of a window left open in the living room was soaked, streaked with mud, as were the bills and books and papers piled on it. The sight of it made her weep. At the same time she was thankful that there was something tangible for her to be upset about.
           "Why are you crying ?" Nikhil asked, squinting at his pajamas.
           "There are cracks in the ceiling," she said.
           Nikhil looked up. "They're not too bad. I'll call the super."
           "The rain water came right through the roof."
           "What rain ?"
            "Don't you remember ? It was pouring rain at dawn. It was incredible. I woke you."
            But Nikhil didn't remember a thing.


A month of Mondays and Wednesdays passed. She began to see him on Fridays as well. One Friday she found herself alone in Dimitri's apartment ; he went out as soon as she arrived, to buy a stick of butter for a white sauce he was making to pour over trout. Bartok played on the stereo expensive components scattered on the floor. She watched him from the window, walking down the block, a small, balding, unemployed middle-aged man, who was enabling her to wreck her marriage. She wondered if she was the only woman in her family ever to have betrayed her husband, to have been unfaithful. This was what upset her most to admit : that this affair caused her to feel strangely at peace, the complication of it claiming her, structuring her day. After the first time, washing up in the bathroom, she'd been horrified by what she'd done, at the sight of her clothes scattered throughout the two rooms. Before leaving, she'd combed her hair in the bathroom mirror, the only one in the apartment. She'd kept her head bent low, glancing up only briefly at the end. When she did she saw that it was one of those mirrors that was for some reason particularly flattering, due to some trick of the light or the quality of the glass, causing her skin to glow.
          There was something on Dimitri's walls. He was still living out of a series of mammoth duffel bags. She was glad not to be able to picture his life in all its detail, its mess. The only thing he'd set up are the kitchen, the stereo components, and some of his books. Each time she visited, there were modest signs of progress. She wandered around his living room, looked at the books he was beginning to organize on his plywood shelves. Apart from all the German, their personal libraries are similar. There was the same lime green spine of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. The same edition of Mimesis. The same boxed set of Proust. She pulled out an oversized volume of photographs of Paris, by Atget. She sat on an armchair, Dimitri's only piece of living room furniture. It was here that she'd sat the first time she'd visited, and he'd stood behind her, massaging a spot on her shoulder, arousing her, until she stood up, and they'd walked together to the bed.
        She heard Dimitri's footsteps on the stairs, then sound of key in the lock, slicing sharply into the apartment. She got up to put the book away, searching for the gap in which it had stood. 















Monday, May 28, 2012

ABCDs ; The Culture-Conflict. 97



                                              (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


           Dimitri and Moushumi began seeing each other Mondays and Wednesdays, after she taught her classes. She took the train uptown and they met at his apartment, where lunch was waiting. The meals were ambitious : poached fish, creamy potato gratins ; golden, puffed chickens roasted with whole lemons in their cavities. There was always a bottle of wine. They sat at a table with his books and papers and laptop pushed to one side. They listened to WQXR, drank coffee and cognac and smoked a cigarette afterward. Only then did he touch her. Sunlight streamed through large dirty windows into the shabby prewar apartment. There were two spacious rooms, flaking plaster walls, scuffed parquet floors, towering stacks of boxes, he had not yet bothered to unpack. The bed, a brand- new mattress and box spring on wheels, was never made. After sex they were always amazed to discover that the bed was moved several inches away from the wall, pushing up against the bureau on the other side of the room. She liked the way he looked at her when their limbs were still tangled together, out of breath, as if he'd been chasing her, his expression anxious before relaxing into a smile. Some gray had come into Dimitri's hair and chest, some lines around the mouth and eyes. He was heavier than before, his stomach undeniably wide, so that his thin legs appeared slightly comic. He recently turned thirty-nine. He had not been married. He didn't seem very desperate to be employed. He spent his days cooking meals, reading, listening to the classical music. She gathered that he had inherited some money from his grandmother.
          The first time they met, the day after she called him, at the bar of a crowded Italian restaurant near NYU, they had not been able to to stop staring at each other, not been able to stop talking about the resume, and the uncanny way it had fallen into Moushumi's hands. He had moved to New York only a month ago, had tried to look her up but the phone was listed under Nikhil's last name. It didn't matter, they agreed. It was better this way. They drank glasses of prosecco, an Italian wine made from grapes. She agreed to an early dinner with Dimitri that night, sitting at the bar of the restaurant, for the prosecco had gone quickly to their heads. He had ordered a salad topped with warm lambs' tongue, a poached egg, and pecorino cheese, something she swore she would not touch but ended up eating the better part of. After ward she had gone into Balducci's to buy the pasta and ready-made vodka sauce she would have at home with Nikhil.
           On Mondays and Wednesdays no one knows where she was. There were no Bengali fruit sellers to greet her on the walk from Demitri's subway stop, no neighbors to recognize her once she turned on to Dimitri's block. It reminded her of living in Paris ; for a few hours at Dimitri's she was inaccessible, anonymous. Dimitri was not terribly curious about Nikhil, did not ask her his name. He expressed no jealousy. When she told him in the Italian restaurant that she was married, his expression had not changed. He regarded their time together as perfectly normal, as destined, and she began to see how easy it was. Moushumi referred to Nikhil in conversation as "my husband" : "My husband and I have a dinner to go to next Thursday." "My husband's given me this cold."


At home , Nikhil suspected nothing. As usual they had dinner, talked of their days. They cleaned up kitchen together, then sat on the sofa and watched television while she corrected her students' quizzes and exercises. During the eleven o'clock news, they had bowls of Ben and Jerry's, then brushed their teeth. As usual they got into bed, kissed, then slowly they turned away from each other in order to stretch comfortably into sleep. Only Moushumi stayed awake. Each Monday and Wednesday night, she feared that he would sense something, that he would put his arms around her and instantly know. She stayed awake for hours after they had turned out the lights, prepared to answer him, prepared to lie to his face. She had gone shopping, she would tell him if he were to ask, for in fact she had done this on her way home that first Monday, halting her journey back from Dimitri's in midstream, getting out of the subway at 72d street before continuing downtown, stopping in a store she'd never been in, buying a pair of the most ordinary-looking black shoes.     

Friday, May 25, 2012

ABCDs ; The Culture-Conflict. 96



                                              (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


          Several minutes passed between his undoing of one button and the next, his eyes closed all the while, his head still on her shoulder, as the bus hurtled down the empty, dark highway. It was the first time in her life a man had touched her. She held herself perfectly still. She was desperate to touch him too, but she was terrified. Finally Dimitri opened his eyes. She felt his mouth near her ear, and she turned to him, prepared to be kissed, at seventeen, for the very first time. But he had not kissed her. He had only looked at her, and said, "You're going to break hearts, you know." And then he leaned back, in his own seat this time, removed his hand from her lap, and closed his eyes once again. She had stared at him in disbelief, angry that he assumed she'd not broken any heart yet, and at the same time flattered. For the rest of the journey she kept her skirt unbuttoned, hoping he would return to the task. But he didn't touch her after that, and in the morning there was no acknowledgment of what had passed between them. At the demonstration he had wandered off, paid   her no attention. On the way back they had sat apart.
          Afterward she returned to the university every day to try to run into him. After some weeks she saw him striding across campus, alone, holding a copy of The Man Without Qualities. They shared some coffee and sat on a bench outside. He had asked her to see a movie, Goddard's Alphaville, and to have Chinese food. She had worn an outfit that still caused her to wince, an old blazer of her father's that was too long for her, over jeans, the sleeves of the blazer rolled up as if it were a shirt, to reveal the striped lining inside. It had been the first date of her life, strategically planned on an evening her parents were at a party. She recalled nothing of the movie, had eaten nothing at the restaurant, part of a small shopping complex off Route 1. And then, after watching Dimitri ate both of their fortune cookies without reading either prediction, she had made her error :  she had asked him to be her date to her senior prom. He had declined, driven her home, kissed her lightly on her cheek in the driveway, and then he never called her again. The evening had humiliated her ; he had treated her like a child. Sometime over the summer she bumped into him at the movies. He was with a date, a tall freckled girl with hair to her waist. Moushumi had wanted to flee, but he'd made a point of introducing her to the girl. "This is Moushumi," Dimitri had said deliberately, as if he'd been waiting for the opportunity to say her name for weeks. He told her he was going to Europe for a while, and from the look on the date's face she realized that she was going with him. Moushumi told him she'd been accepted ar Brown. "You look great," he told her when the date was not listening.
           When she was at Brown, post cards used to arrive from time to time, envelopes plastered with colorful, oversized stamps. His handwriting was minuscule but sloppy, always causing her eyes to strain. Ther was never a return address. For a time she carried these letters in her book bag, to her classes, thickening her agenda. Periodically he sent books he'd read and thought she might like. A few times he called in the middle of the night, waking her, and she spoke to him for hours in the dark, lying in bed in her dorm room, then sleeping through her morning classes. A single call kept her sailing for weeks. "I'll come visit you. I'll take you to dinner," he told her. He never did. Eventually the letters tapered off. His last communication had been a box of books, along with several post cards he'd written to her in Greece and Turkey but not managed to send at the time. . And then she'd moved to Paris.
           She read Dimitri's resume again, then the cover letter. The letter revealed nothing other than earnest pedagogical intent, mentioned a panel Dimitri and the professor to whom it was addressed attended some years ago. She could not bring herself to write down his address, though she didn't want to forget it. In the Xerox room, she made a copy of the resume. She stuck it in the bottom of her bag. The she typed a new envelope and put the original in the professors mailbox. 


At home that night, after dinner, she secretly dialed Dimitri's number, wondering if he would even remember her, listened as the phone rang four times.
          "Hello ?"
           It was his voice. "Hi, Dimitri ?"
           "Speaking. Who's this ?"
           She paused. She could still hang up if she wanted. "It's Mouse."

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

ABCDs ; The Culture-Conflict. 95



                                          (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


              One day Moushumi went to her mailbox for her class roaster, a business sized envelope caught her eye. She took the letter into her office, shut the door, sat at her desk. The envelope was addressed to a professor o Comparative Literature, who was teaching German as well as French. She opened the envelope. Inside she found a cover letter and a resume. For a minute she simply stared at the name centered at the top of the resume, laser- printed in an elegant font. She remembered the name, of course. The name alone, when she'd first learned it, had been enough to seduce her. Dimitri Desjardins. He pronounced Desjardins the English way, the s's intact, and in spite of her training in French this was how she still thought of it. Underneath the name was an address on West 164th street. He was looking for an adjunct position, teaching German part-time. She read through the resume, learned exactly where he'd been and what he'd done for the past decade. Traveled in Europe. A job working with the BBC. Articles and reviews published in Der Spiegel, Critical Inquiry. A Ph.D in German literature from the University of Heidelberg.
          She'd met him years ago, in her final months of high school. It was a period in which she and two of her friends, in their eagerness to be college students, in desperation over the fact no one their own age was interested in dating them, drove to Princeton, loitered on the campus, browsed in the college bookstore, did their homework in the buildings they entered without an ID. Her parents had encouraged these expeditions, believing she was at the library, or attending lectures - hoped she would go to the Princeton for college, living with them at home. One day, she and her friends were sitting on the grass, they were invited to join a student coalition from the university, a coalition protesting apartheid in South Africa. The group was planning a march on Washington, calling for sanctions.
           They took a chartered overnight bus to D.C. in order to be at the rally by early morning. Each of them had lied to their parents, claiming to be sleeping over at one another's homes. Every one on the bus was smoking pot and listening to the same Crosby, Stills, and Nash album continuously, on a tape player running on batteries. Moushumi had been facing backward, leaning over and talking to her friends, who were in two seats behind her, and when she turned back around he was in the neighboring seat. He seemed aloof from the rest of the group, not an actual member of the coalition, somehow dismissive of it all. He was wiry, slight, with small, downward-sloping eyes and an intellectual, ravaged-looking face that she found sexy though not handsome. His hairline was already receding, his hair curly and fair. He needed a shave ; his fingernails needed paring. He was wearing a white button-down shirt, faded Levi's with threadbare knees, pliable gold-framed spectacles that wrapped around his ears. Without introducing himself he began talking to her, as if they were already acquainted. He was twenty-seven, had gone to Williams College, was a student of European history. He was taking a German course at Princeton now, living with his parents, both of whom taught at the university, and he was going out of his mind. He had spent the years after college traveling around Asia, Latin America. He told her he probably wanted to get a Ph.D., eventually. The randomness of all this had appealed to her. He asked her what her name was and when she told him he had leaned toward her, cupping his ear, even though she knew he had heard heard it perfectly well. "How in the world do you spell that ?" he'd asked, and when she told him, he mispronounced it, as most people did. She corrected him, saying that "Mou" rhymed with "toe," but he shook his head and said, "I'll just call you Mouse."
            The nick name had irritated and pleased her at the same time. It made her feel foolish, but she was aware that in renaming her he'd claimed her somehow, already made her his own. As the bus grew quiet, as everyone began to fall asleep, she had let him lean his head against her shoulder. Dimitri was asleep, or so she thought. And so she pretended to fall asleep too. After a while she felt his hand on her leg, on top of the white denim skirt she was wearing. And then slowly, he began to unbutton skirt.
     

Sunday, May 20, 2012

ABCDs ; The Cultue-Conflict. 94



                                            (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


            Two days later , a new semester began. It was Moushumi's eighth semester at NYU. She was finished with classes, would never in her life take a class again. Never again would she sit for for an exam. This fact delighted her - finally, a formal emancipation from student-hood. Though she still had a dissertation to write, still had an adviser to monitor her progress, she felt unmoored already, somehow beyond the world that had defined and structured and limited her for so long. This was the third time she'd taught the class. Beginning French, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, a total of three hours a week. All she had had to do was look ahead in her calender and change the date of the class meetings. Her biggest effort would be to learn her students' names. She was always flattered when they assumed herself was French, or half-French. She enjoyed their looks of disbelief when she told them she was from New Jersey, born to Bengali parents.
           Moushumi had been given an eight A.M section, something that had annoyed her at first. But now that she was up, showered, dressed, walking down the street, a latte from the deli on their block in one hand, she was invigorated. Being out at this hour already felt like an accomplishment. When she had left the apartment, Nikhil had been still asleep, undisturbed by the persistent beeping of the alarm. The night before, she had laid out her clothes, her papers, something she had not done since she was a girl preparing for school. She liked walking through the streets so early, had liked rising by herself in semidarkness, liked the sense of promise it lent the day. It was a pleasant change from their usual routine - Nikhil showered, in his suit, flying out the door as she was just pouring herself a first cup of coffee. She was thankful not to have to face her desk in the corner of their bedroom first thing surrounded by by as it was by sacks full of dirty cloths they kept meaning to drop off at the laundry but got around only once a month, when buying new socks and underwear became necessary. Moushumi wondered how long she would live her life with the trappings of student hood in spite of the fact that she was a married woman, that she was as far along in her studies as she was, that Nikhil had a respectable if not terribly lucrative job. It would have been different with Graham ; he had made more than enough money for the both of them. And yet that, too, had been frustrating, causing her to fear that her career was somehow an indulgence, unnecessary. Once she had a job, a real full-time tenure-track job, she reminded herself, things would be different. She imagined where that first job might take her, assumed she would be in some far-flung town in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes she joked with Nikhil about their having to pick up and move, in a few years, to Iowa, to Kalamazoo. Buth they both knew it was out of question for him to leave New York, that she would be the one to fly back and forth on weekends. There was something appealing to her about this prospect, to make a clan start in a place where no one knows her, as she had done in Paris. . It was the one thing about her parents' lives she truly aadmired ; their ability, for better or for worse, to turn their back on their homes.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

ABCDS ; The Culture-Conflict. 93

 

                                            (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


            They decided to walk to the restaurant to celebrate the first anniversary, thirty blocks north of their apartment.  Though the evening was pleasantly warm, it was dark already. It had been a Saturday in November, they walked up Fifth Avenue, past the public library. Instead of proceeding to the restaurant they decided to wander up the side walk for a while ; there were still twenty minutes before their reservation. The street was found only with a handful of people. She had once come here with Graham and his father and stepmother to have drinks at the Plaza. They couldn't find the restaurant at first. The address written on a slip of paper in Moushumi's evening bag, led them only to a suite of offices in a town house. They pressed the buzzer, peered through the glass door into the empty, carpeted foyer, at a big vase of flowers at the foot of the stairs.
           "It can't be this," she said. They wandered partway up and down the block, looked on the other side. They returned to the town house, looking up at the darkened windows for signs of life.
            "There it is," he said, noticing a couple emerging from a basement door below the steps. There, in an entry way lit by a single sconce, they found a plaque nailed discretely into the facade of the building bearing the restaurant's name, Antonia. A small fleet gathered to welcome them, to tick their names off a list at a podium, to lead them to their table. The fuss felt unwarranted as they stepped into a stark, sunken dining room. The atmosphere was somber, vaguely abandoned, as the streets had been. There were a few wealthy-looking middle aged couples in suits. A well-dressed elderly gentleman was dining alone. She found suspicious that there were so many empty tables, that no music played. She had been hoping for something more bustling, warmer. Given that it was subterranean, the place seemed surprisingly vast, the ceilings high. The air-conditioning was too strong, chilling her bare legs and arms. She wrapped the pashmina tightly around her shoulders.
           "I'm freezing. Do you think they'd turn down the AC if I asked ?"
           "I doubt that. Would you like my jacket ?" Nikhil offered.
            "No, It's okay." She smiled at him. And yet she felt uncomfortable, depressed. She was depressed by the pair of teen aged Bangladeshi busboys who wore tapestry waistcoats and black trousers, serving them warm bread with silver tongs. It annoyed her that the waiter, perfectly attentive, looked neither of them in the eye as he described the menu, speaking instead to the bottle of mineral water positioned between them. She knew it was too late to change their plans now. But even after they placed their order, a part of her had a nagging urge, felt like standing up, leaving. She'd done something similar a few weeks ago, sitting in the chair of an expensive hair saloon, walking out after the apron had been tied behind her neck, while the stylist had gone to check on another client, simply because something about the stylist's manner, the bored expression on her face as she'd lifted a lock of Moushumi's hair and studied it in the mirror, had felt insulting. She wondered what Donald and Astrid liked about this place, decided it must be the food. But when it arrived, it too disappointed her. The meal, served on square white plates, was fussily arranged, the portions microscopically small.. As usual they traded plates partway through the meal, but this time she didn't like the taste of his so she stuck to her own. She finished her entree of scallops too quickly, sat quiet for a long ttime, watching Nikhil work his way through his quail.
          She was not able to enjoy herself. As they neared the end of the meal, it occurred to her that she was neither very drunk nor full. In spite of two cocktails and the bottle of wine they'd shared she felt distressingly sober and lighted her after-dinner cigarette.
         They were the last of the diners to leave. It'd been wildly expensive, far more than they'd expected. They put down a credit card. Watching Nikhil sign the receipt, she felt cheap all of a sudden, irritated that he'd left such a meager tip.


  

Friday, May 18, 2012

ABCDS ; The Culture-Conflict. 92



                                               (Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)


           It was in 1999 on the morning of their first anniversary, Moushumi's parents called, waking them, wishing them a happy anniversary before they had had the chance to say to each other. In addition to their anniversary, there was something else to celebrate : Moushumi successfully passed her orals the week before, is now officially ABD ;  The term all but dissertation (ABD) is a mostly unofficial term identifying a stage in the process of obtaining a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent research doctorate (Sc.D., etc.) in the United States and Canada. At this stage the student has completed the preparatory coursework, qualifying examinationscomprehensive examinations, and defended his or her dissertation proposal. To complete the degree, the student must carry out the proposed research which must be original research and write the dissertation that defines a Ph.D. or equivalent research doctorate.
          There was a third thing worth celebrating but which she hadn't mentioned - she had been awarded a research fellowship to work on her dissertation in France for the year. She'd applied for the grant secretly, just before the wedding, simply curious to see if she would get it. It was always  good practice, she had reasoned, to strive for such things. Two years ago she would have said yes on the spot. But it was no longer to fly off to France for the year, now that she had a husband, a marriage, to consider. So when the good news came she decided it was easier to decline the fellowship quietly, to file away the letter, not to bring it up.
           She took the initiative for the evening, making reservations at a place in midtown, which Donald and Astrid had recommended. She felt a bot guilty for all these months of studying, aware that with her exams as an excuse, she had ignored Nikhil perhaps more than necessary. There were nights that she told him she was at her carrel in the library when really she had met Astrid and her baby, Esme, in SoHo, or gone for a walk by herself. Sometimes she would sit in a restaurant alone, at the bar, ordering sushi or a sandwich and a glass of wine, simply to remind herself that she was still capable of being on her own. This assurance was important to her ; along with the sanskrit vows she'd repeated at her wedding, she'd privately vowed that she would never grow fully dependent on her husband, as her mother had. For even after thirty-two years abroad, in England and now America, her mother didn't know how to drive, didn't have a job, didn't know the difference between a checking and savings account. And yet she was a perfectly intelligent woman, was an honors student in philology at Presidency College before she was married off at twenty-two.
          They had both dressed up for the occasion - when she emerged from the bathroom she saw that he was wearing the shirt she'd him, moss-colored with a velvet Nehru collor of slightly darker green. She was wearing a black dress she'd worn the first time he'd come to dinner, the first time they'd slept together, and over it, a lilac pashmina shawl, Nikhil's anniversary present to her. She still remembered their very first date, liking the slightly untamed look of his hair as he'd approached her at the bar, the dark pine stubble on his cheeks, the shirt he'd worn with green stripes and thinner stripes of lavender, the collar beginning to fray. She still remembered her bewilderment, looking up from her book and seeing him, her heart skipping, feeling the attraction instantly, powerfully, in her chest. For she had been expecting an older version of the boy she remembered, distant, quiet, in corduroy jeans and a sweatshirt, few pimples dotting his chin. The day before the date, she hadlunch with Astrid. "I just don't see you with some Indian guy," Astrid had said dismissively over salads at City Bakery. At the time Moushumi had not protested, maintaining apologetically that it was one date. She had been deeply skeptical herself - apart from the young Sashi Kapoor and a cousin in India, she had never until then found herself attracted to an Indian man. But she'd genuinely liked Nikhil. She liked that he was neither a doctor or an engineer. She'd liked that he'd changed his name from Gogol to Nikhil ; though she'd known him all those years, it was a thing that made him somehow new, not the person her mother had mentioned.