Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

Put that samosa down! It’s Ramadan!!

Ramadan Kareem, everyone! This year is going to be my first Ramadan away from home, in a different country with a fifteen hour fasting time. This will also be my first year making **iftar and preparing for *suhoor, and I’m already starting to appreciate my mother for all the years she cooked it for me. I now realize it’s a hard thing to strike  balance between your spiritual side and well, keeping house. I try to “keep” my house decent enough. It gets messy every few days and I do get lazy but I try to get by.

I know I will miss home terribly during Ramadan but I don’t want to admit it. I will miss the food and the bit of forced friendliness that Ramadan injects, both in society and family. We have suhoor together and break iftaar as a family. I will miss my annual iftar potluck with my girls (especially the one year where we went a bit wild, you know the one I’m talking about, ***Kuki). I will miss all the tiny traditions that I’ve done subconsciously. I only hope to continue with them and hopefully, create new traditions.

I will miss planning my Eid outfit. But that’s cause I already planned it in super advance this year.

Oh, I will also miss the samosas. Mmm.. samosas.

Have a blessed Ramadan, people. I pray we all come out of it as satisfied and better people.

*suhoor : Meal had at sunrise during Ramadan (fasting) time.

**iftar : Meal had at sunset during Ramadan (fasing) time.

*** Kuki : My stalker. I would named you the other thing but I don’t want people who read my blog to think I’m a pervert. Also, hi.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 1 Comment

Hello Interwebz,

Can you search in the vast expanse of your universe and let me know if there is an endless tunnel behind the washer where socks go to disappear?

Thank you,

Z

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 4 Comments

Today morning I peeped through the blinds expecting the harsh sunlight, instead I was greeted by pleasant weather – blue skies, a light breeze and just enough sunshine to brighten up my gloomy mood. I had enough reason to put on my shoes and go for one of my mini runs. I had my shoes on and music blaring in my head. So off I went, enjoying the wind tickling my neck, breathing in that fresh air that I love so much.

I ran on the side walk and saw something that hit me deep. Someone had spray painted the word ‘humble’ on the sidewalk and I thought how a small act like this could reminded me of a trait I should strengthen. Being humble doesn’t come easily but it’s what I try my hardest to be. It’s easy to get a bloated head and think of oneself as better than the rest, to flaunt what we’ve got. Arrogance is never appetizing. Sometimes we don’t realize when we’re being arrogant or prideful. We think that’s just the way we are, that’s just “me”. But it comes across as offensive to the other person. So to bring us back to reality and to burst that inflated balloon of ego over our head, we need a sidewalk to remind us of what we forgot.

image (19)edited

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 1 Comment

I’ve had enough sunshine.

The past few months I’ve been whining about the cold. But now, summer is here and it’s beautiful. Hot and suffocating at times, but still beautiful. I’ve been living in the Bay Area for nine months now and I think I can write a book about the weather. There are days when it feels like I’m living in an oven and the nights are so hot that I wake up with my shirt stuck to my back.

Like right now I’m sitting with all the windows open and it feels like time has reached a standstill. The leaves aren’t moving, the air is hot and the tap water is lukewarm. Only the birds are chirping outside. How are the singing when it’s so hot? All I want to do is put the air conditioner on high and float away in to a sublime siesta. I would do that if it didn’t make a sound that would bring the house down. Damn, all I ever do is complain about the weather! I annoy myself sometimes.

I used to think the weather had a big effect on my moods but my present status brings that theory to a screeching halt. We have learned that sunshine outside does not equate to a sunshiney Zarine.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 2 Comments

Mad Men Stories

I’ve started watching Mad Men and last night at the first season finale Betty Draper touched a nerve. Betty Draper is a bored, beautiful house wife and lives the life of every woman in the sixties. She takes care of her kids, makes dinner, is aware that her husband cheats on her, the usual. She visits a shrink to talk her life out. She lies down on a gorgeous leather couch, a cigarette between her delicate fingers, she is a thing of beauty. The shrink scribbles things in his note pad as she talks, never interrupting. But last night she did something that I’m sure everyone must have felt like at some point.

She suspects her husband of having an affair, in fact she knows but never confronts him and her shrink doesn’t offer her too much of a consolation. The bottom line is she is disturbed. Not depressed, disturbed. She holds the hand of a young boy and cries. She asks him, “Please tell me I’m going to be okay”. At that moment I wept inside for myself and for the hundreds of people who have felt helpless at some point. There are so many instances in life when it feels like we are standing in quick sand and nothing can go right. We don’t need comfort or a shoulder to cry on. All we want is for somebody to tell us were going to be okay. Just a tiny bit of reassurance that can go a long way and I know cause I have felt that too many times in my life.

The young boy in the episode doesn’t know why she is crying and says a simple I don’t know. She quickly gathers herself and leaves. I’ve never liked TV characters as much as I’ve liked book characters but Betty Draper, I love her character. And January Jones whom I’ve  often thought of as an ice queen is perfect in this.

I know how many times I’ve wanted someone to give me the tiniest bit I reassurance. If that’s what you’re looking for right now then trust me, you’re going to be okay, everything is going to be okay.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 10 Comments

Dosa and I have a wild ride.

Today was like Christmas. The tattooed FedEx employee was Santa Claus and my present was a Preethi mixie my Mama sent. I immediately tear the packaging apart and spend a minute marveling at this mixie which is everything an American blender isn’t. The mixie seals what’s for dinner – chutney and godumai dosa. I’m really excited right now as this is my first time making godumai dosa. I check hungryandexcited to brush up on the how to’s of the dosa and I’m confident enough. I make the thokku for the chutney, cool it and grind it in a second with my new Preethi mixie. I then temper it with mustard seeds and enjoy the smell of the curry leaves. Also, tempering is like my favorite part of cooking.The first few sodas are clumpy. I don’t wait too long before I flip it and it forms a paste on the tava. I don’t let that deter me, I soldier on. Finally I make soft dosas. I’m ecstatic. It’s 7.00 pm by then and husband walks in through the door, “Mmm.. You made dosa and chutney! So good!”

I beam proudly, so happy of my achievements. After we eat our spongy dosas and spicy chutney in front of the TV, I clear the table and take the dishes to the kitchen AND I SEE THAT I’VE LEFT THE STOVE ON AND THE PLASTIC DOSA FLIPPER THING HAS MELTED AND FORMED A PLASTIC GOOP ON MY BRAND NEW TAVA.

Someone please tell me how I’m going to flip my eggs tomorrow morning.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 2 Comments

Liquid Chocolate

“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”

– Joanne Harris, Chocolat

image (7)edited

Hazelnut chocolate milkshake, Max Brenner, The Forum at Ceaser’s, Las Vegas

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 2 Comments

Safe House

Imagination. That’s what enveloped the better part of my life. When I was a little girl the only ‘play time’ I ever had was in my head. Hence, I was a bit of loner although I grew up in an apartment full of kids playing around every chance they got. I was perfectly happy reading and living in my imaginary world. I visited beautiful places in my head and the adventures I had, well, I couldn’t explain them to anyone. My mother would always coerce me to go play with the other kids but I was more interested in wearing a beaded dupatta over my head pretending I was a princess locked in a castle from which I had to fight my way out.I was a part of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five solving mysteries, I sneaked out of boarding school like the girls in St. Claires and Mallory Towers, I was Jasmine from Aladdin, I was everything and I was happy. I could spend hours by myself and company distracted me. Playing with the other kids didn’t excite me. I was also the youngest and the other kids wouldn’t include me in their games. I was always considered uppu chappa. The only kid who wanted to play with me was a boy who was much older than me and he was more interested in my Barbie dolls than I was.

So my imagination was all I had, all I needed. It made me feel happier knowing that there was a place I could go to escape and all I had to was just push a switch in my head and I’m there. My imagination was what helped me get through some of the most darkest phases of my life. When the going got tough I would zone out and perpetually live in another place, a much happier place. This led me to avoid dealing with my present.

Consciously extracting myself from my head to live in the now is something I have to deal with every day. Is it a sickness? Or am I over thinking this? I don’t know. But what I do know that the safest place to be is in my head. When I don’t have the energy to deal with my life I’m glad to know that I have a safe house.

So tell me, what is your safe house? Where do you go to escape reality?

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

“The best thing for being sad”, replied Merlin, beginning to  puff  and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then – to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust , never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

-T.H.White, The Once and Future King