The Rebelle blog

Here I am, a couple of weeks after my birthday. I decided to put all my love for baking into a blogpost.  I bake a lot. It all started in 2013 when my mother got home a microwave oven. Until that point, she would bake cakes and biscuits in a cooker. I recall the number of experimental desserts and baked goods we attempted. Every weekend, My mum and I would scoop through her older recipe journal and begin working in collaboration. Some days were good, some were feisty, there were days when we had arguments over tweaking the recipes for lack of ingredients. The coolest part was however when the kitchen would be filled with the baking aroma. It made all that bickering worth it. Immediately both of us would be discussing the brown crust and texture, the color, and the aroma. Mum would scarcely need to time the baking. I am not so fortunate. I go by the book, the measuring spoons, and cups, the fancy mixing apparatus, and utter concentration. In the earlier phase of my baking, I ...

I am embarking on a new journey this year. One that takes me through herbs, spices, lots of vegetables and images that satiate my thirst for something I have never attempted wholeheartedly or given any consideration previously. I am going to try my hand at Cooking. I hope I stick to this idea. Never been a big fan of food or kitchen antics despite seeing this passion in my mother and younger sister. Both of them go balsamic(intended with a pun) at the thought of creating new recipes. I have forever been the person who dives her nose deep into books especially when the ladies are on a cooking expedition. Lately though, I feel my senses are stimulating themselves to smells and fragrances drifting from above our kitchen. My Dad recently gifted my Mom a big, heavy set Julia Child-ish book of Indian Recipes. True to her passionate self, we have been eating wonderfully creative dinners and Sunday lunches for the past few weeks. I knew some of my mother's passion must have rubbed off on...

I can't stop laughing over a little joke between my mother and me. I just cannot. She's giving me a bad glare, even reprimanding me for my non-stop laughter. Suddenly I feel so light headed and free of any burden. I haven't laughed this crazy in a long time, not especially along with my mother. It's amazing how these little things add up so much energy into everyday living. I am always taken by surprise by my mother's wit. She has a lively very hilarious sense of humour, one which she uses far less frequently because of us. I believe we are the reason she has turned into this worrying warrior. Well, all of us are warriors, fighters with seriousness hanging dead pan around our persona. But when the laughter hits our home, we are uncontrollable. And I am truly happy to feel this happy zing. All the worrying and misery that we (me, that is) seem to be carrying within us disappeared for a while. I love it when home turns out to be more than its expected share of miser...

1996- This is the year I most vividly remember from my childhood. I was eight years old and had started acquiring a new taste for literature and visual mediums then. This was the year I remember having seen Thoda sa Aasmaan that starred Deepti Naval. She was a big name then. My parents were huge fans of her cinematic work and TV was generously allowed to be explored by kids like me by parents back then. The end credit shot of a wooden door with a white lattice was permanently etched in my eyes. Years later whenever I saw latticed windows and doors I always thought of Deepti Naval standing in solitude and frozen in time. I also clearly recall watching Swabhimaan and loved Svetlana. Don't know if it was the unusual sound of the name or I was just smitten by Kittu Gidwani! I did not read Russian Literature until I was ten, so, Svetlana charmed me for a long while. I remember watching YUG based on India's Freedom Struggle and its catchy title track ringed in my ears for a long...

I sniffed Jasmine fragrance while rummaging through my mother’s beautiful sarees. I took it in and immediately a series of images floated through my mind like those childhood days when we had lots of flowering plants in our house garden. I called a friend to share this memory and she asked me about the things that make me smile. I kept thinking later and here’s a small list of happiness that I will probably read again in the future and see if the reasons that make me smile have remain unchanged. - A random pleasant memory - Remembering my Dad’s jokes - My mom’s childhood memories she sometimes shares with me - Getting hold of a book when I am not looking for it - A phone call from a long lost friend - My handwritten notes from school/college days - Rereading letters from my uncle and grandpa - Looking at kid photographs from my grandpa’s collection - Fragrance of Fresh Flowers while passing through the market - Rereading excerpts from some be...

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”  ― Anaïs Nin Something odd happens around this time every year. If I am not in good spirits and feeling low, I instantly get rejuvenated and a new energy engulfs me. If I am already doing good, then, I become more focussed in whatever task I am accomplishing at that moment. Somehow, September has always been a month of anxiety. And, that oddball song "Wake me up when September ends" finds more relevance each passing year. My mother has been unwell since a week. This is the first time I've ever seen her so weak and sick. Her two older sisters have also been battling health problems, and I only hope she isn't taking too much str...