Blog by Aashifa | Digital Diary

What is the boy now who has lost his Ball what what is he to do i saw it go

He stalks in his vivid stripes   the few steps of his cage.        On pads of velvet quiet in his quiet rage

The moon was coming up in the east behind me and stars were shining in the clear sky above me 

The House ___ the only one in the entire valley - sat on the crest of a low hill.

Writing in a dairy is a really strange experience for someone like me. 

Soon after my wife died- her car slid off an icy road in 1985-a school psychologist warned me that my children and I were not mourning in the right way.we felt angry the proper first stage he said is denial  In late august this year my 38 year old son Michael died suddenly in this sleep leaving behind aa 2 year old son and a wife expecting their next child there is no set form for grief and no right way to express it there seems to be an expectation that after a great loss we will progress systematically through the well known stages of grief it is wrong we are told to jump to anger or to wallow too long in this stage before moving towards acceptance . But I was and am angry to make parents bury their children is wrong to have both my wife and son taken from me for forever and a day is cruel beyond words  A relative from  Jerusalem' who is a psychiatrist brought some solace by citing the maxim we are not to ask why but what the what is that which survivors in grief are bound to do for one another following that advice my family close friends and I keep busy calling each other and giving long answers to simple question like how did your day go today we try to avoid thinking about either the immediate past or the bereft future .                                        We take turns playing with max Michael 's two -year old son friends spend nights with the young window  and will be among those holding her hand when the baby is born . Focusing on what we do for one another is the only consolation we can find.    

Early in the new year of 1956 I travelled to southern Iraq by then it had crossed my mind that I should like to keep  an otter instead of a dog and that camusfearna ringed by water a stone' s throw from its door would be an eminently suitable spot for this experiment. When I casually mentioned this to a friend, he as casually replied that I had beter get one in the tigris marshes for there they were as common as mosquitoes ,and were often tamed by the Arabs With the opening of that sack began a phase of my life that has not yet ended and may for all I know not end before I do it is in effect a thraldom to otters an otter  fixation,that I have since found to be shared by most other people,who have ever owned one. The creature that emerged from this sack on to the spacious tiled floor of the consulate bedroom resembled most of all a very small medievally-conceived dragon from the head to the tip of the tail he was coated with symmetrical pointed scales of mud armour between whose tips was visible a soft velvet Fur like that of a chocolate brown mole he shook himself and I have expected a cloud of dust, I made a body belt for him and took him on a lead to the bathroom where for half and hour the went wild  with joy in the water plunging and rolling in it shooting up and down the length of the bthtub underwater and making enough slosh and splash for a hippi  This I was to learn is a characteristic of otters every drop of water must be so to speak extended and spread about the place a bowl must at once be overturned or if it will not be overflows water must be kept on the move and made to do things when static it is wasted and provoking.

BolCHAI GARAM..... Garam chai a vendor called out in High pitched voice he come up to their window and asked chai sa ab give us two cups Pranjol said they sipped the steaming hot liquid almost everyone everyone in their compartment was drinking tea too do you know that over 80 crore cups of tea are drunk everyday throughout the world Rajveer said whew exclaimed Pranjol tea really is very popular the train pulled out of the station paranjol buried his nose in his detective book again Rajveer too was an ardent fan of detective stories but at the moment he was keener on looking at the beautiful scenery it was green green everywhere Rajveer had never seen so much greenery before then the soft green paddy fields gave way to tea bushes it was a magnificent view against the backdrop of densely wooded hills a sea of tea Bushes stretched as far as the eye could see dwarfing the tiny tea plants were tall sturdy shade trees and Amidst the orderly rows of Bushes busily moved doll like figures in the distance was an ugly building with smoke building out of tall chimneys hey a tea garden Rajveer cried excitedly Pranjol who had been born and brought up on a plantation did not share Rajveer excitement oh this is tea country now he said Assam has the largest concentration of plantation in the world you will see enough garden to last you a lifetime I have been reading as much as I could about tea Rajveer said no one really knows who discovered tea but there are many legends what legends well there the one about the Chinese emperor who always boiled water before drinking it one day a few leaves of the giving it a delicious flavour it is said they were tea leaves tell me another  scoffed Pranjal we have an India legend to BaddhiDharma an ancient Buddhist ascetic cut off his eyelids because he said sleepy during meditation 10 plants grew out of the eye lids  the leaves of these  plants when put in hot water and drunk benefit slip t was first drunk in China Rajveer added as far back as 2700 B .C.! In fact words such St chai and chini are from Chinese t came to Europe only in the 16th century and was drunk more as medicine than as beverages the train clattered  in to Mariani junction the boys collected their luggage and pushed their way to the crowded platform Pranjal parents were waiting for them soon they were driving towards dhekiabari the tea garden managed by pronjol father  An hour later the car veered sharply  off the main road. They crossed a cattle bridge and entered dhekiabari  tea estate  on booth sides of the gravel road were acre upon acre of tea bushes all neatly pruned to the same height groups of tea pluckers with bamboo baskets on their backs wearing plastic aprons were plucking the newly sprouted leaves.

                   I                        There was a girl name is villiammai who was called valli for short.           She was 8 years old and very curious about things   Her favourite pastime was standing in the front doorway of her house;         watching what was happening in the street outside There were no pyramids of her on age on her streat, and this was about all she had to do but for valli standing at the front door was every bit is enjoyable as any of the eliborate games other children plaWatching the street gave  her many new unusual experiences.                           The most fascinating thing of all was the bus that travelled between her village and the nearest town.                         It passed through her street it hour, once going to the town and ones coming back. The site of the bus filled each  time with a new set of passengers was a search of Unending Joy for Valli Day after day she watched the bus and Gradually a tiny wish crept into her head and grew there wented to ride on that bus event if just once this wish become stronger and stronger until it was an ourwhelming desire. Valli old star wistfully at the people who got corner there faces world kindly in her logings drums and hopes if one of her friends Happened to ride the bus and tried to describe the sights of the town to her Valli would be to jealous to listen and would shout in English proud ,proud neither she not her friends really understood the meaning of the word, but they used it often is a slang expression of disapproval.                          Our many days and months Valli list and carefully to conversation between her neighbours and people who regularly used the bus and she also asked a few discreet questions hair and there this y she picked up various small details about the bus journey the town was 6 miles from her village the fare was 30 paise on why which is almost nothing at all she heard one way dressed man say but to Valli scarcely saw that much money from one month to the next it cement a fortune the trip to the town talk 45 minutes on reaching town if she is stayed in her seat and paid another 30 paise she could return home on the same bus this meant that she could take the one clock afternoon bus reach the town at one fourty five and be back home by about two 45 on and on went her thoughts is calculated and recalculated planned and replanned        

Veg biryani recipe