Tanjore Art: Aalilai Krishnan

Until recently, this adorable Aalilai Krishnan art work was hanging in my parents' home in India, and I had forgotten all about it. This trip, when they came to help out with Oggie's birth, they decided to bring it for my home here. This art work depicts Krishna as a baby, sucking on his toe, floating on a Banyan Tree leaf.

This is a potent representation of Vishnu, the manifest Preserver of the Universe, floating on the water after the deluge that destroyed the corrupt and decomposing old Universe, free to create a pleasant new Universe. I am not sure of the entire mythological significance of His baby form, and the reason for His toe-sucking. But, this representation of Krishna has always been my most favorite among the depictions of Baby Krishna.

Krishna as Partha Sarathy, the charioteer for Arjuna, is another of my favorite representations of adult Krishna, especially when he assumes Vishva Roopam while delivering what we now know as Bhagavadh Geetha.

I learnt Tanjore Art, as it is called, from a master when I was in Madras (aka Chennai, India). I love the gold foil and stones, but, more importantly I love the style of rendition of the Gods in this art form.

When my master asked me if I wanted to do the traditional Ganesha for my first independent work, I hesitated... I was eyeing the Aalilai Krishnan sample longingly. And that's what he guided me to finish - starting from preparing the board, to tracing the figure, to making the base outlines with the paste to adding gold foil and stones and finally painting the image.

I was terrified of ruining the laborious work by jerking my nervous hand when painting the eyebrows and mouth, and I remember appealing to my master to finish it for me.

When my mom decided to use it for the Krishna Janmashtami decorations a few days ago, I was quite touched. So far, it was just art work, despite the divine subject. But slowly it has begun to exert a mesmerizing influence on me, almost teasing me with images of this Baby Krishna getting up from the leaf and coming to me!

I have done a couple of small ones since - just elephants, not Gods - and am still not confident of taking on a large project. But, someday, when kids are older and I have a ton of patience, I hope to take it up again...

all at once I saw a crowd

Perhaps not ten thousand, but, about two score at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance, not much unlike what Wordsworth tells us he saw while walking by Ullswater on a stormy day...

The daffodils have decided to spring up in the garden to fill my heart with pleasure again this year.

After all, 'tis the season for the perennials to push up and start gracing us with their beauty.

The gladioli are poking through, but, it will be a few months before they shoot to full form and bloom.

However, the tulips are half-way there already...

So are the rhubarb. The fresh first spring stalks are supposed to be the tastiest... I made a batch of rhubarb scones, more of a flatter soda scone than the thick biscuit-like ones.



The pear blossoms are refreshing and uplifting... they seem to skip a year and bear fruit only on alternate years. Have to wait and see if they've changed their minds this year and will treat us to their bounty...

Conservation Policy

The Toilet Lid Sink pictured above is a new discovery for me, even though it has apparently been around for years in other parts of the world.

It has tickled my interest a tad bit: I am more interested in the water-saver aspect than on the space-saver aspect. However, I dread washing my hands, let alone brushing my teeth, in ice cold water all the time. Plus, leaning over the toilet to use the sink could become cumbersome.

So, I guess I would consider it as an additional sink, useful more in summertime than in winter, rather than think of it a replacement sink. And, I can see myself at least washing my hands after using the toilet, winter or summer, perhaps a few times a day, thereby saving some water.

We have been gradually making our house energy-efficient: upgraded dishwasher, washer/dryer, water-heater, oven, more out of necessity since they started giving up one by one.

If we can afford to get our windows upgraded, we'd save so much on heating/cooling.

As soon as we moved in though, D put in spanking cool 1.5 gallon tanks, replacing the old 3.5 gallon behemoths in 2 of the 3 bathrooms (well, more like 1, ½ and ½ bathrooms, actually). All by himself. One fine afternoon, I returned home with my wee tot after a round of shopping for supplies and found the new toilets ready to use!

Well, this New Year's Eve, about half hour to midnight, D and I started talking about things we can start doing in the New Year - New Year Resolution of sorts - everyday, practical things - sort of lifestyle change... just casually, no stress...

We both agreed we need to cut back on our food indulgences. Not that we don't eat healthy, we just don't exercise enough. Winter is a terrible demotivator for us.

And then, somehow, the talk turned to Community Flushing!

We were both gung-ho about conserving water, being environmentally (and water-bill) conscious and what-not. As our philosophies agreed, time came for us to chalk down the plan of action for implementing the community flushing in our home.

We blurted out in unison:

"We should totally do it, as long as I get to go first, and you get to flush."

back to basics

Our water heater started leaking from the bottom and it was time to get it replaced by a newer, more energy efficient one.

We talked to the plumber and it seemed like a fairly simple task, not taking more than a few hours, during which time the hot water will be shut off, of course.

We scheduled it and awaited the plumber. He came as expected, shut off hot water, drained the tank, disconnected the electrical input, was about to remove the old tank and put in the new tank, turn back the power and fill the tank so we will have good hot water again without batting an eye-lid, so to speak, when things sort of decided to take a wrong turn.

Alas, Life is not always magical.

Work got stalled for fairly good reasons. Plumber wanted an Electrician on board to do some extra work that Plumbers are not authorized or certified to do or something like that...

Anyway, the outcome is that we have not had hot water for two days.

Well, I must say, we have not had hot water running from our pipes for two days, that is.

I am amazed at how many things we take for granted, but, when need arises, we try to revert back to basics, at least temporarily. We just started heating up water we need on the stove and use it for just the necessities.

About 3 gallons of super hot water mixed in with about 3 gallons of cold water gave two adults enough water at just the right temperature for a fairly good rinse of ourselves:-)

This is how I remember taking a bath in India when I was little: a bucket of hot water, and a bucket of cold water, and a mug with a handle is all i needed.
1. scoop some hot water and some cold water in the mug - the amounts of each come naturally with experience - and I have a perfect mug of water at the right temperature to pour on myself
2. soap up
3. then repeat step 1 until thoroughly rinsed

Doing the dishes is a bit more tedious this way, but, it is either that or dirty dishes piling up till we can have hot water flowing again. Besides, I never used a dish washer until my wee tot arrived when I had my hands too full to manage it all; so, not a big deal now:-)

Laundry can wait, unless I do a cold cycle, which is fine for all our clothes anyway.

Rather than kick up a fuss and get all upset, we thought we would try the glass-is-half-full approach and so far it is working. I am not sure how long we can keep this up. Hopefully we will have hot water running in our pipes again before Christmas.

So, back to basics it is, till then.

hwyl, gardd

Garden 2006

Finally, after a good 6 months, our vegetable and herb garden is laid to rest. All the plants are dug up, soil tilled a little, and a lot of compost piled up in the compost bin.

It was a good run this year - better than I expected. We just used compost, no pesticides, no fertilizers on the vegetable garden. We even thought about introducing some praying mantis and ladybugs in our garden to keep aphids and such in check. But, luckily this year, we didn't need to. All the plants survived fine, and yielded well.

Planting a bunch of peas first helped prep the bed for herb garden later. Also, thanks to the good prep work over late last winter and early spring, tilling and checking the soil composition and adding recommended natural items to balance the soil, the garden stayed quite healthy.

We had quite a few varieties of veggies and herbs and about 90% of them did well:

• Eggplants: calliopes, ichiban, black beauty, kamo
• Tomatoes: about 14 plants in all - some cherry, some grape, some super sweet, some purple, some yellow, some regular roma
• Chilies: superchilies (green turns red), balloon chilies (sort of shaped like a flower or a bell), serranos, thai chilies
• Capsicum (Bell Peppers): a couple of varieties, some turned yellow to red, others remained green
• Peas: a ton of peas early on, which prepared the bed for planting herbs mid-season
• cucumbers, zuccini, pumpkins
  
• Squash: butternut, sweetmeat, crookneck, summer squash
• Herbs: mint, cilantro, chives, lavender, shiso, rosemary
• Greens: tons of mesclun salad greens and spinach
• Onions: red
• Potatoes: regular, red and purple

It was a lot of fun to just look in the back yard and plan a simple menu all summer - like mint and spinach rice, baby eggplant curry, eggplant and tofu, smoked eggplant pachadi, sambal terong, mint chutney, green tomato dal, and plenty of salads.

I managed to stew a bunch of tomatoes and can them. Also, made some marinara sauce and canned them for this winter. It was quite a bit of an effort, but, I managed to make some Tomato Thokku (an Indian side, aka achar) and can them as well. Tomato Thokku mixed in with some cream cheese makes a great sandwich spread.

Hmmm.. What else? Oh, ya, the currant bush did well - my wee tot loved running to the backyard and picking the ripe currants and snacking on them. The blueberries and raspberries didn't yield much, but they are brand new, and we figured it will take a couple of years before we start seeing more.

And, of course, Rhubarb, how could I forget? We made a few pies with them, and I decided to get creative and made rhubarb sambar (unfortunately, no picture of it), which turned out surprisingly good.

Well, that's it I guess...

It has gotten pretty cold and wet here in the Pacific Northwest.

As my husband says, Hwyl tan flwydd nesa, gardd, or something like that...