Musical Therapy

"If music be the food of love, play on."

-William Shakespeare

        I don’t when I fell in love with music… For me music means songs of Hollywood and/or Bollywood. Maybe after my brother’s death, I found some solace in music to cope up with the loneliness due to staying away from my parents and brother’s untimely demise.

        So addicted had I become that even while studying and doing college work I used to listen to songs. In absence of which, I couldn’t concentrate. My parents, friends used to ask me “How could you study while listening to film songs?” To which I would reply “It’s my way of relaxing and concentrating.”

“For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.”

Reba McEntire

      

        

          Even today whenever I feel stressed out or sad or defeated, I just plug in my earphones and listen to the songs on my mobile. It really clams me down. I don’t have a good voice, but whenever I feel bit anxious I play a song through speaker and sing out loudly, and believe me it really helps me distress. Though my daughter goes into shock hearing my voice.

“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.”

-Lao Tzu

        Give me a good book, a snack, hot cuppa tea and some good music and I am in the seventh heaven for sure. Nothing soothes me down as music does.

One of my favourite and also my daughter’s favourite song 

       

      Music is therapeutic. Soft music calms down nerves. But now-a-days the kind of songs that are being made, I am sure next generation will never understand the real meaning of soft, soothing music.

 “Where words fail, music speaks.”

-Hans Christian Andersen

I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words 8th – 14th December 2013.

Books, books and more books

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

-Ernest Hemingway

Ask any book reader and they’ll agree to the quote…

My affair with books started when I was in primary school. We had shifted to our own house from rented one and there were not many residents in the building. Moreover I was bit of introvert and shy. Since my brother was also an avid reader and he had his huge collection of books, my parents advised me to start reading.

And true enough, I fell in love with it. Initially my friends were “Tinkle”, “Champak”, “Chandhamama” and “Amar Chitra Katha”. My hunger for books increased as I proceeded to secondary school. With books, my friend circle also grew, as we used to exchange our collections.

My brother was a huge fan of “Hardy Boys” and “Alfred Hitchcock”. Believe me, after reading couple of them I stopped reading comics and moved to detective and suspense.

Even now I have weakness for detective and suspense stories. Luckily my affair continued even after marriage, as my hubby dear had a huge collection of novels of Jeffery Archer and Sydney Sheldon.

Luckily I married a person who also loved reading and had a huge collection of novels.

On a dull day give me an suspense or detective novel, a cup of ginger tea and soft music playing through headphones, and I am lost in that novel world…

Though now-a-days I don’t find time to read, occasionally I do make a point to grab a novel and complete it.

“ Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.”

Maya Angelou

I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words 8th – 14th December 2013.

Dates and Dink laddus

Come winter and we get busy cooking winter food like undiyo, gajar halwa or burfi’s etc etc… But I thought this time why not try something different.

So this time I thought of making Dink laddus or edible gum laddus which is especially eaten in winter and given to mothers who have just delivered.

Dink (before frying)

Dink (after frying)

Dink or Gaund or edible gum is eaten especially in winters as they are known to generate heat and strengthen bones. Aliv or Halim or watercress seeds are added to relieve pain and are rich in Iron and folic acid. This with dates, badam and walnut create a healthy and wholesome snack for all age groups.

Aliv or Halim seeds

Though typical dink laddus use dried dates or karik as it is called. I thought “who is going to spend so much time and energy in deseeding dried dates and then pounding them to make a fine powder?”…

So instead I substituted it with seedless, black dates, due to which I didn’t need to add additional jaggery or sugar to make laddus sweet, since dates are naturally sweet. So in this way it’s safe for diabetics to have it once in a while.

One laddu and a glass of milk in morning gives you enough energy and stamina till your next meal… especially during fasting or when you are in hurry and have no time to sit down and eat at leisure.

The original dink laddus contains more of dink, less of dry fruits, little bit of roasted coconut and they add jaggery for sweetening. I have made a slight variation.

Ingredients (For approx 50 laddus)

100 gms dink/ gound/ edible gum

500 gms seedless black dates

1 cup almonds/badam

1 cup walnuts/ akrot

½ cup pista/ pistachios

½ cup aliv/halim/ water cress seeds

2-3 teaspoon dry ginger powder

2 teaspoon khus khus / poppy seeds

Ghee for frying

Method

1.    In a thick bottom kadai heat the ghee for frying.

2.    Once ghee has melted and has come to medium heat, start frying dink/gound in small batches.

3.    While frying remember to keep stirring as gum tend to stick to one another and form lumps.

4.   After the entire dink is fried drain the excess oil from dink on tissue paper.

5.    After it cools down crush the fried dink using back side of a spoon or any glass and keep it aside. No need to make fine powder. Just crush lightly so that it gets easy for binding laddus.

Dry fruit powder

6.   Next lightly roast all the nuts separately and keep them aside to cool.

7.    Once cooled completely grind it into fine powder or cut into small pieces.

8.   Once all these are ready, in a non stick pan, add 2 teaspoon ghee and start with roasting of dates.

9.   Once the dates start to soften add crushed dink, nuts, aliv, dry ginger powder and khus khus. Keep them stirring till the form a nice mixture.

10. If you are adding coconut add with you add nuts.

11.  Allow this mixture to cool.

12. Once mixture comes to room temperature, mix nicely using hands and make laddus.

13. Allow them to cool fully before storing.

14. These laddus can be stored in air tight container for near 1 month (if you add coconut). If you didn’t add coconut it can stay for nearly 2-3 months.

Note :

1.    You can add finely grated and then dry roasted coconut if you like.

2.    You can add whatever dry fruits you want. Like cashew, currants, dried figs etc.

3.    I prefer non stick pan as it requires less ghee and it doesn’t get stuck to bottom easily.

4.   You can increase or decrease quantities of nuts as per your taste.

Enjoy winter .

Since  I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words 8th – 14th December 2013 I uploaded my recipe here. For more recipes visit my food blog http://www.fud4health.blogspot.in/

Childhood Memories

“Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us.”

Oscar Wilde

        “Memories”, we have all kinds of memories… happy memories, sad, painful.

        But of all the memories we have, childhood memories are the ones we cherish more.

        Childhood memories and a smile comes across our face, school memories and a twinkle in our eyes.

        I had a very secure childhood. And its memories are also sweet. Be it doing mischief with my elder brother or fighting with him, about who is parent’s favorite or for share of dairy milk chocolate which our Papa bought when he got his salary.

        No matter how old we get, we carry our memories with us, even to our grave. No one can take away our memories from us.

        I remember the last day of our school. It was our farewell party. All girls decked up in their mom’s saris. We had many rose plants in our balcony, and I would always give one to my 10^th standard class teacher, Usha teacher. She used to teach us English.

        On our farewell day as usual I had taken a rose for her. When I met her, she, as usual smiled and said “Thank you”. As I was about to leave, she called me and asked “Why are you not wearing any rose?” I just looked at her and told innocently “Ma’am, we had only one rose today and that I bought it for you”. She comes up to me and turns me around and told “it’s your day today, you should wear one. You have always got me one, today it’s for you”, while pining up the flower to my hair. I was touched and speechless. I never forgot that day or that incident.

In this snap I am standing behind my fav class teacher Usha teacher, (in green n red sari)

“Every man's memory is his private literature.”

Aldous Huxley

        Some memories bring tears of joy and some tears of sorrow in our eyes. I distantly remember the day which changed our lives 20 years back.

        It was the year 1993-94, which was very important year for any child. I was in 10^th standard. Also that year had been pretty bad on us as some or the other problem kept arising.  1^st Papa was diagnosed with high thyroid and had to be admitted. On that day of his discharge, my Mom who was waiting for my arrival from tuition class, got dizzy and lost her consciousness and hit her head, me meeting with an accident while coming from computer class so on and so forth.

        But the worst hit was the day I lost my only elder brother. It brought my whole secure world crashing and crumbling to pieces.

        I remember the day, at noon I was lazing around the house after my board exams. We were supposed to leave for our cousins’ marriage in 5 days. My brother had applied for 15 days leave. But since few days he was not happy with his current job and was looking for new one. That day he left the house at noon for an interview. Never ever before that day, he had told me bye before leaving the house. He always told mom what time to expect him home and would leave. But that day, he came up to me and told “bye, see you in evening”.

        He never came back home. Next day some police came to inform us about his body being found on railway tracks… what followed next, was unimaginable.

        It changed our life.

    Some incidents just fade away from our mind, but some remain in us as a memory.

I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words 8th – 14th December 2013.

Food Festival

A couple of weeks back Prerna’s school decided to hold a food festival at their premises, wherein parents have to cook and bring a dish representing their culture and the kids have to dress according to their culture and present the dish…

The main intention of this food festival was for the kids to understand various cultures and food related to that region.

Being a foodie myself, how could I miss the chance to display my culinary skill … So my mind started to work, thinking of all the dishes which represents Udupi-Manglorean culture…?

After coming home I consulted my food experts (My parents), who gave me a big list of recipes, which send my head reeling…Finally I decided to do “Manni” which is sweet prepared using rice, moongdal, coconut and jaggery.

Since this was my 1^st food event, I was pretty excited… But two days before event, my BP dropped and I decided to give the event a miss…  But then, previous day I told myself, “Being a foodie how can you miss a food event?” So next day I got up and made the dish and took it to school hoping the kids will love it (fingers crossed)…

When I reached the school, the place was abuzz with excitement of kids, staff and parents alike. We were given a table which had to be shared by 2 kids. My table mate was Yash and his mom who being a Sindhi had made “Dal pakwan”. 

Me n Peru with our dish

Junior MasterChefs

Welcoming Judges

Finally the judges came. The judges, 3 ladies worked for an NGO “Inner Wheel Club of Borivali” who with help of Rotary Club work for betterment of mentally retarded people, kids in orphanage and slums. The Judges were Ms. Meena Kaku (present secretary), Ms. Harsha Desai and Ms. Smitha Parekh (both ex-presidents).

They went on tasting all 15 dishes prepared by kid’s mothers asking how is it prepared, what are ingredients etc etc… 

They did like my dish and were surprised when I told it’s made from rice and moongdal …

Me presenting my dish

Dishes By Teachers

Finally when the time came to announce the winner, they told they were confused as all dishes looked and tasted good… So finally based on best dressed kid, best presented dish and best tastes dish they gave 1^st prize to Ajit who was dressed as a Tamilian and made Idli and chutney, 2^nd prize went to Harshal whose mother had made patholi and chattambado ( dal wada) and 3^rd to Rushikesh whose mom had made Misal pav…

Confused!!!

Declaring Winners

1st Prize

2nd Prize

3rd Prize

They also gave other kids consolation prizes …

Well I was happy as all kids, their parents, teachers and judges liked my dish… My hardwork paid off (phew)… Only regret was, I was not able to give 100% attention to that event, as my dear daughter who always plays spoilsport in functions kept crying and demanding my attention… but still I was a happy mom… couldn’t stop smiling, recollecting people’s reactions when told about ingredients of my dish…

Waiting for many more events to attend and participate…

Thank you Sol’s ARC.