It's been a wild week. Monday morning I turned on the TV to the live Oscar broadcast just in time to see my friend Bill Westenhofer win an Oscar! I think I was yelling loudly enough for him to hear me all the way from India. It was for R&H's visual effects on The Golden Compass. I felt so proud and excited and overwhelmed to have been part of it..in a small way. Through Gagan I heard all the celebrations at the Indian office... screaming and shouting... laughter. Such happy people. They worked really hard and deserved every bit of it. I was so happy for them... and sad to not be part of it. It's been an emotional week.
We have a really lovely maid Augusta who comes every day to clean and 'mother' us. If we are home she just loves to catch up and talk and talk (as Gagan would say 'she eats your head'!).... she has amazing tales of her life, living in Cyprus and her husband working in the UK. Her children are all studying hard and doing well.. and we talk a lot about the problems of the world, usually coming up with solutions in the hour or so we talk (just like a good tv show!). She is determined that I am going to eat well, and that I shouldn't eat 'outside' food so much. I dont have the energy, skill or interest to cook, so she has been so excited to do some for us. She'd been offering for so long, and I didn't want to trouble her. But as I've gotten to know her I realise she really *wants* to and feels better knowing I'm eating safely and that she's looking after me. My Indian mother :) How very lucky am I!
We buy fresh veges from a cart outside our building. I come home at night - peek in the fridge and - yippee - there are containers of tasty cooked sweet potato, carrots, string beans and artfully arranged slices of tomato and cucumber all awaiting my drooling taste buds! Nuke 'em and we're ready to eat! oh... well.. *I'm* ready to eat.. Gagan isn't a big fan of vegetables! ;)
Now we've added some simple Indian dishes to the list.. they're really breakfast things but I used to have them at R&H and loved them. Poha (pictured) and upma are made from rice and (to me) unidentifiable grains or pulses that I find in plastic bags on the kitchen counter and ogle over! Augusta is a great cook and she makes them without any spices so that it's safe for sickly old colitis-stomach me. All this healthy food has made my stomach so well... better than it's been in years! I miss Indian food very much... but I can see the pay off in how everything is 'working'... hehe. What I wouldn't give for a little chicken tikka masala though...
1 comment:
jude, just doing some catching up here -- love reading your stories! i have to point out something interesting: we have that expression, 'she eats your head', in persian too. (and i must admit, it's been said about me on more than one occasion! =)
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