The Good Housewife

I said I was going to talk about meditation but let me just start by saying I have no real point (no quirky sit-com ending) other then the fact that I really don't think I am altering the cosmos of the universe with my meditation because I don't really get "meditation." I like the idea of it - going deep within yourself to a happy place and finding inner peace and harmony. Training yourself to have supreme awareness and concentration...all that bologna sounds good to me but really, when it comes down to it, maybe it's just bologna.

I like to think I can focus pretty well on one thing - get in "the zone" (of whatever task is at hand) but I don't know. Inevitably when I am sitting or lying on my yoga mat and the instructor is going through all the body parts I need to relax, there is always one where they lose me. Yesterday it was the eyebrows (but at times, it has been the cheek bones, my fingernails...) how exactly does one relax their eyebrows or a cheek bone for that matter? This is the beginning of the end. Like the thread on a sweater that's been caught on something and pulled, my thoughts begin to unravel with "how do I relax that?" From there it's a pretty quick spiral. Because I'm busy wondering if I've relaxed my fingernails, I miss the next couple of body parts and might catch up somewhere around the forehead but then I think I must have missed my shoulders. But then I think my shoulders feel relaxed so maybe subconsciously I did relax them and I am meditating. But then I think if I was meditating, I wouldn't be thinking about if I was or if I wasn't. About this time the instructor is usually going on about how we should relax our minds and let all our thoughts go, so I try to get back on track by picturing my anxiety about my relaxed eyebrows floating above me and I tell myself to concentrate on the black. I have to tell myself to think about nothing or else I'll be trying to picture how it would look to see someone's thoughts floating about them. So I try again to think about nothing. And I can't help but think about thinking about nothing and how impossible that is and it's about then I just get annoyed (or if I'm sitting, uncomfortable) and give up. Then I peek around the room to see if everyone else is in some sort of zen moment but usually someone else is squirming too and I tell myself they're all fakers. But there is always that one women, who upon leaving will remark, wasn't that just amazing! After this new class I tried, the instructor asked me how I liked it. I told her I like the yoga part but I don't like the meditation. I got a brief lecture about how they are intrinsically linked but that it takes some people years to even begin to "understand the power of meditation." This may very well be true but in the meantime, can someone please explain how to think about nothing? I'm hoping a trip to the Taj Mahal will feel me with some kind of spiritual awareness.

But enough of that. Seven weeks into our journey, I decided it was finally time to try our stove. Like a good housewife, after my yoga class, I went to the grocery store to get dinner, then home to do the laundry and cook. Aside from the fact that I don't really know how to cook, the fact that there is a large tank of gas beneath a device to start fire, was a little frightening.

But I've seen other people use their stoves and this is totally the norm in India so I resigned myself to the fact that it must be safe. Still, I ran up to Vivian's for a quick lesson. To say that I felt like an idiot would be like saying, "I felt really embarrassed when I showed up for that board meeting totally naked." She lit a match, put it near the burner, turned the knob and voila, a small ring of blue flame. No explosion, no burned (relaxed) eyebrows, not even a scorched thumb. She asked what was on the menu and I told her I had found a recipe for palak paneer, a popular Indian dish with spinach and cheese. She said she has tried to make that but it's hard to get the consistency right without a food processor and then asked what I was making with it. I told her rice. She said, "oh, so that's the main dish?" (I was at the board meeting naked and on the wrong day...) I told her I was easing into this cooking thing so yes, that was it. "I also bought some pasta too in case it all goes wrong." She left me with an inspirational, "you've got to start somewhere. It'll be delicious."

The worst of the cooking was cleaning the spinach. I found a bug on one of the leaves and almost called the whole thing off and got out the Cornflakes. But I convinced myself that there were probably other bugs on it at one time, just like there was once dirt and bugs on any vegetable I have eaten. (Well, it actually took a call to Sir to convince me of that.) But from that point on, I was meticulous about cleaning it. Some might say, I was in the zone. And yes, I did use a touch of soap and then boiled the spinach for longer than it needed but this made me feel a little better. I boiled it then cooked it again in the saute pan just to be sure. In the end, it wasn't that bad. It was only really like palak paneer in so much as there was palak (spinach) and paneer (cheese) in it but for a first attempt, not bad. And best of all, I didn't hate making it. Now we have a couple of other staples, including a cutting board, salt and pepper so perhaps I'll take to this cooking thing better than meditation.

A couple of other things I noticed on the way to (or from) the grocery store:

• There are quite a few public restrooms/wash stations in Bangalore. They are fairly large and enclosed, like you might see at a public beach, and there is a man that sits at the entrance. I'm not sure if he collects money, makes sure people aren't living there, or for security but I've seen people use them. As you can imagine, they seem to be frequented by women mostly, since the men are free to go where ever they please. (There are signs that claim men can be fined but the fine is about $10 and clearly not enforced.) So I'd like to think all these public restrooms are an attempt to help clean up the city but I think it might be having the opposite effect. They appear to be about as clean as a row of port-o-potties after a 3-day concert and I've only ever seen (presumably) homeless people entering or leaving.
  

• In addition to the people trying to sell mini chess sets, toy snakes and maps of India on the sidewalks, there are people who stand at street lights and corners and when traffic stops, they swarm the streets. They weave between the buses, scooter, rickshaws and cars trying to sell tissues and baby dolls. Sometimes you'll see them selling rags (like dusting rags) and magazines but 80% of the time tissues and dolls. Who stops at a red light and thinks, "you know what, I do need a doll!"?