About a mouse

Our house in Canada is on an acre lot.  We have a large backyard and the vegetation in the form of trees and bushes is not too well tended, given I travel a lot.  The grass is cut, the perennials come and go and generally front and back yards are somewhat unkempt because some patches do get overrun with weeds and stifle the growth of the perennials that I have lovingly planted over the years.  The tulips inevitably show up in surprising spots and in multiple colours, and the peonies are steadfast, as are the lilacs.  The tiger lily and lily of the valley have been faithful thus far but have taken over the flocks that I planted a few summers ago.  The hostas are sturdy and form a nice cover close to our septic tank at the back.  We have raccoons as any rural property worth its salt in Canada should.  They rummage through the garbage if it is left out overnight, creating a mess.  They also make scratchy noises on our roof, in competition with the large black squirrels.  It is all part of Canadian life just as much as the four seasons.  They remain vestiges of this beautiful land and make us aware that we humans are intruders.  I am not bothered by any of these sights and sounds of nature’s beauty, even though they annoy the daily rhythm of my life sometimes.  However, I had not bargained for the extreme reaction that my Taiwanese tenant had to this cadence.  I mistakenly rented the upstairs to them for a month.  They begged and seemed responsible and low maintenance.  I rationalized that it was nice to have people and movement in the house than to leave it empty for long periods of time, so I capitulated.  My downstairs is rented and my friend who co-hosts with me takes care of the renters’ needs when I am not in the country.  

Things appeared to be going well with both renters.  Suddenly one day she called me about my upstairs renter.  She got a call late one night asking her to go over and clean the garbage which the raccoon had toppled over to create a mess!  She patiently advised them about the ways of the raccoon and went over the next day to calm their jangled nerves.   A day later, all hell broke lose when they spotted a little field mouse in the house.  Their fear and outrage knew no bounds.  They asked that she go over immediately to catch it.  She told them that this happened sometimes when the weather turned cold, especially given all the vegetation and vast expanse of land around the house.  She asked them to set a mouse trap and instructed them on setting one.  They would not hear of it.  She got a call later that day, stating they had killed the mouse, but could she go over to clean the mess.  It was her turn to be outraged.  As the owner of the space, I felt responsible and helpless that she was having to deal with this nonsense.  When she refused to go over, they emailed me asking me to immediately engage a pest control company since they suspected there could be one more and that they were avoiding the kitchen and were not going to use the stove, oven or dishwasher till they were sure the mouse did not emanate from the kitchen!  I was amused that a little field mouse had the power to order their life, constrain their activities and confine them to certain parts of the house.    I told them that they had a week left in their stay and I would be there the following week to take care of it.  I assured them that the mouse did not want to be around them as much as they did not want it around and they should relax.  But alas, that mouse, though dead, has firmly lodged itself into their heads with no escape!     

 

 

 

 

The adventures of a tech idiot

These travel experiences of mine come in different flavours.  However, front and centre to everything is technology.  This one had the flavour of a skill test.  Ok so let me back up.  I took the Uber at 5 am to London St. Pancras train station.  My train was at an ungodly 6:15 am.  This was my first trip on the Eurostar. I was bound for Ghent, Brussels, to give a talk there.  I thought I was so well packed and prepared!  I had ticked off all items on my checklist!  I was feeling pretty smug as I boarded the train.  Little did I realize I would have to bring all faculties my small brain could conjure up, to bear.  I took the laptop out to review and edit my presentation.  I had saved it on my  desktop and found to my dismay that I had packed my laptop without the power cable with battery pack.  I had left it at home.  The cable had been plugged into an extension which was behind the bicycle beside the bed.  It had taken some awkward maneuvering to get the cable plugged in.  In my early morning bleariness, I guess I had not bothered  to unplug and pack it! So now I had to think clearly.  My laptop battery would drain fast giving me no access to my presentation!  Assuming the worst, that I would not have access to my desktop, I tried to email the presentation to myself.  The wifi on the Eurostar kept going in and out, so I tethered my phone to access wifi on the laptop.  The phone signals were weak.  I was counting down to the power going off on my laptop.  I had to somehow email the talk and PowerPoint or connect to VPN and save it on the server.  I grew a little frantic as neither option worked.  I always carry a USB, this time I did not.  So saving on a USB was not an option either!  I made a mental note for the next time.  I texted my co- workers who had gone ahead and asked them to help me find a store that sold laptop chargers in Ghent.  After all the conference was at a university. As I was nearing Ghent, my attempt to email the presentation proved successful.  However, neither of my colleagues had come with their laptop for me to be able to use their cable or laptop, for that matter to do last minute edits.  What a strange confluence of unhappy coincidences! I had no choice.  I had to buy a new cable.  I somehow knew everything would work out.  

I stayed calm and enjoyed the bus ride from the train station to the hotel, where I had requested early check in! In an hour I was at the conference site.  We went to the electronic store.  The charger that I was looking for was unavailable.  It was not available anywhere in Ghent and with the presentation the next day, there was no way I could get one online delivered to my hotel on time.  But the young man at the counter appeared really smart.  With words of encouragement from me about his apparent ingenuity and my trust in him to find me a solution, he appeared determined to help me out!  Finally after many minutes of pondering and unpacking devices that did not work, he landed on an adapter which was wattage compatible with my laptop and with plug in provisions for USB b, c ports.  He also found me a long cable to connect adapter to my laptop with the “c” head.  Such serendipity, since I had not brought a compatible plug to charge my iPhone.  65 euros later, everything worked out!  I thanked the young man profusely for going against store policy and opening several sealed packs  to check until he landed on that adapter.  I was very persuasive and he wanted to help out his “mom” age person.  He broke rules to get the job done.  And he sold product for his store.  He had known he would if he landed on the right thing.  Such acuity, empathy, flexibility and awesome customer service from an obscure corner of Belgium.  He was a leader.  I wondered if all kids were trained this way and got my answer the next day.  After a nice Indian dinner that night, I polished up my presentation, also waking up early.  The only constraint was I could not work without my laptop plugged in.  The presentation was a resounding success, provoking conversations on AI and ethics.  It just took one curious, bright and passionate geek to make all the difference.  

The next morning on my way to Brussels, I asked a young man for train information since the electronic board was unintelligible to me.  He admitted having difficulty reading the board himself and whipped out his phone, looked it up on the app and provided me the right information.  He even got on the train to confirm with someone else!  Long live geeky young technophobes who want to help!  The world is safe in their hands in the age of AI! 

Just another flight - not! August 28, 2023

On August 28th morning, I was chuffed. I was all packed and organized for my trip from London to Chennai. I felt totally in control. The Uber driver came within 3 minutes of my calling him. Usually it’s a hassle getting one to Heathrow. Today was different. For the same reason, we breezed through with no traffic. It was a bank holiday in England. The weekend before the September Labour Day weekend in North America. Check in and security were a breeze. I found myself in the Aspire Lounge, Terminal 5 enjoying a sumptuous breakfast. I made my calls to my sisters. Utta called and everything was just going swimmingly. I made my way to my gate thinking I would be boarded in an hour. Wrong. Things began to get really hairy at this point. The entire Air Traffic Control system in London was down. Hacked for ransom or for jollies? Cyber terrorism of some form? Benign system failure with not so benign consequences grounding hundreds of planes in one swell snoop? So many questions and no answers! No one was saying anything to help us make sense of the situation. It made the news. Social media and all news media outlets were buzzing about this unmitigated catastrophe. The pilot used the word “unprecedented” to explain this unusual occurrence. With the dawning of the AI era, this catastrophe brought to the fore our sheer vulnerability in a world where we are at technology’s mercy. The worst had happened! Hundreds of planes grounded in London airports, thousand of passengers stranded. The airport, passengers and airlines in a tailspin, the effects of which would linger for days. 

We were given food vouchers worth 10 BP each and told there was no take off time. The pilot, however, wanted to do right by us and give it his best shot to get us out of London. We were on a long haul flight that deserved to be prioritized by the much slower manually managed replacement Air Traffic Control system in effect, he said. He seemed like a man on a mission, capable of taking charge. He boarded us, had our bags on-boarded and started up his fully fueled aircraft. Now it was a waiting game. We were served food and drink. The crew was super sweet but had no answers except to say there was a legal time limit for them to fly us. The count down was on now with few minutes to spare. I pieced together that the pilots had to be relieved so as not to risk fatigue. Anyway the legal time limit expired. By this time, we were 3 hours on the tarmac. The pilot still held out hope saying that he was trying to get replacement crew who would fly us out. We waited for another half hour. Then we heard the not so good news that we would be off boarded. But there was some good news. One, our bags would not be offloaded. Two, we could pick up hotel vouchers as we disembarked. And so we followed instructions. In the midst of such grave uncertainty it was nice to witness a flight full of troopers. My English neighbour and I made our way out of the plane, grabbed vouchers to get us to the Holiday Inn Express. 

We joined a group of Indians, appointed one man, who seemed good at following instructions, our leader. We made our way out of Terminal 5 taking the Heathrow Express to T4. It was somewhat convoluted in that we had to go to T 2,3 first and then retrace back to 4 in another train. We joked our way through a maze of tunnels and literally as a light at the end was the Holiday Inn Express, our haven for the night. It was massive. Hundreds of rooms visible over several floors through an atrium. With quiet efficiency we were handed card keys. I gathered that it was probably routine for the hotel staff to process rooms for hundreds of stranded passengers on short notice. Anyway, the buffet was closing so we had to eat before we made it to our rooms. There was salad, nice tadka daal, rice and some steamed veggies. I made myself a plate and joined two of my co- passengers at their table. I bought myself a cider and enjoyed the meal. Then to my room, a nice hot shower and bed. Put it down to clairvoyance, I had actually packed spare clothes in my carry-on! I had everything I could possibly need for an overnight stay. Odd. I had a good sleep with the temperature set to 17 degrees C. 

I woke up at 8 am, showered, made all my phone calls and meandered through an interminable hallway to the elevator down, for breakfast in the cheery dining hall.  The place was buzzing.  The waiters were harried but I witnessed grace and kindness in the middle of utter chaos.  I got my oats and vegetable sausage, a nice cup of coffee and some fruit.  Terminal 5 was a sea of individuals in fleece jackets that said "Heathrow - here to help"! An army had been deployed and no expense spared to ensure customers navigated safely through the confusion to their flights. The folks at security were patient and cheery even though they had to figure out how to get us through with boarding passes dated August 28.   I thought I should treat myself to a nice perfume to mark this day! So I splurged on a Van Cleef Pachouli, even proudly boasting to Utta on the phone. However, in my excitement to board my flight, I ended up leaving it on my seat at the Starbucks right by the gate.   I only realized this post boarding, and the crew could not get it for me since it was inside a store and not at the gate! Someone needed that perfume more than me, I said to them. They were profusely apologetic even though it was entirely my fault! To make up for my disappointment, one crew member snuck me a nice large bottle of Prosecco, another brought me two bottles of white wine and treats and everyone stopped to condole my bad fortune.  They offered that I should call Heathrow's "lost and found" when I returned.  I made a mental note.  So much kindness!

Needless to say, this adventure actually enriched my flight to India and renewed my faith in the good in all. So many new people and experiences. Also never had the energy on a plane been so good. Everyone displayed remarkable calmness and patience on both days. There were no complaints and no crying babies. An atmosphere of joy and conviviality. We felt like a tribe of chosen ones! And we were white, black, yellow and mostly brown, given our destination.  Doctors, sales people, motorcycle enthusiasts, young mothers, pregnant women, couples, young and old.  Maybe it was me, seeing what I wanted to see? Anyway, this was yet another experience the universe had thrown my way that I would never have wished for and, yet, I was so grateful for!  I landed safely with lovely memories of this unusual flight and a happy ending!

Being adaptive while making sambar...

I am visiting my friend in the country this week.  I brought my sister along because she is visiting me in London.  My small cooking escapade illustrates how I have tried to incorporate adaptiveness to the everyday mundane.  

I brought farm fresh vegetables that were beginning to languish in my fridge in London, for a potential cook-in here to our gorgeous Midlands get-away.  We ate out all day yesterday and it seemed fair we should eat in today.  But I did not want to burden our host, my best friend from my high school days.  Maybe this morning I could delight her with some South Indian fare.  So I spontaneously offered to cook. I chopped up capsicum, carrots and onions and peeled shallots.  I had to wait for tuvar daal and curry leaves which the girls were bringing in from the store.  I usually cook a big batch so my friend and her partner, a Yorkshire man who loves sambar, have enough leftover for a couple of additional meals.  Now, on her way to grandmother-hood, my friend is cooking and freezing for her pregnant offspring, a busy London based doctor who picks up the food on her trips for R and R at mummy’s. Maybe there would be enough leftover to freeze for the mum to be as well?! 

 

This time I had to vary the order in which I cooked the food. I chopped up cabbage for a nice side!  Since there was lots of it, I was a tad nervous about getting the proportion of seasoning spices right.  Cabbage not cooked properly can be rank! I seasoned it with mustard seeds, urad daal, green chillies, curry leaves, hing and salt.  The big batch got cooked no problem, as I had used just the right amount of water to cook the cabbage then raised the heat to ensure the water evaporated before I left it covered for some slow cooking.  I then sprinkled some dessicated coconut and left it covered till it was ready to be transferred to a serving dish, just before we sat down to eat.  I was thrilled that forces beyond my control had conjured up a perfect cabbage dish.  I never take for granted how, despite my imprecise approach to cooking, everything comes together for the perfect outcome.  Or maybe it’s my non critical acceptance that manifests as perfection?  In any event, the more I thrive in chaos and less I strive for perfection the more creative and daring I get to achieve surprisingly great outcomes.  I highly recommend getting out of the mind’s way! 

 

Then came the hard part, a big batch of sambar in the instant pot.   I usually cook the tuvar daal in the instant pot (IP)  and set it aside, before cooking the vegetables in the tamarind water, also in the instant pot.  This way, once the vegetables are done, the cooked daal goes in ready for the final mustard seasoning.  All achieved in IP, no fuss, no mess.  Today, I was under a time crunch.  So I went ahead with step 2 and sautéed the shallots, capsicum, onion and carrot chunks in a little oil before pouring in the tamarind water, adding sambar powder, curry leaves and salt into the IP.  I pressure cooked it with the 12 minute rice setting.  When the tuvar daal arrived I could not yet open IP, which had not released the pressure, so I took two cups of it in a vessel big enough to be placed in the spare pressure cooker.  I was adapting.  People were hungry from all the cooking smells.  This cooker, it seemed, could not deliver the cooked daal fast enough to be added into the tamarind water with vegetables.  I waited impatiently and when we opened the cooker - a disaster awaited.  I had predicted this outcome somewhat given the tuvar had not been given enough room to relax and expand, but had gone ahead and done it anyway!  Now I had to wear my adaptive hat because the tuvar daal, my key ingredient for my much awaited sambar, was half cooked and nowhere near ready to go into the tamarind water with cooked vegetables.  Some quick thinking was in order- especially given my hungry sister who had begun to nibble on salads (I perceived a form of psychological warfare here).  I was the hold up.  With some quick thinking, I poured the contents of the IP into a big steel vessel, transferred the half cooked daal into a larger vessel with more water, so it could breathe, and placed that in IP to pressure cook for 12 minutes.  Through all this, I could sense my impatience and that of the rest, mounting at this imperfection.  There was also a mess around me that I needed to clear quickly, especially given it was not my kitchen.  

But wait there was more messiness to come.  I decided to forebear through the chaos, maintaining focus and inner stillness, undeterred by the delay.  Of course the audience did go to great lengths to reassure me that they were in no rush to eat!  I forced open the IP with the daal, when it had completed the obligatory 12 minutes in the rice setting, by mercilessly venting it.  Thankfully, the daal was now perfectly cooked and just needed some mashing.  For the next move, I needed an abundance of confidence and nerves of steel.  I had to take the daal out of the IP, pour the vegetable and tamarind mixture back into the IP and mix in the daal since I needed the size of vessel as the IP steel pot.  All very clumsy, given the heat and sheer quantity.  I also had no idea whether the consistency would turn out right.  Alas, I kept the daal thick and in one bold move emptied all of it into the tamarind and vegetable liquid I had transferred to the IP  . I brought it to a boil in sauté mode and breathed a sigh of relief that years of experience had not let me down.  I prepared the seasoning on the stove with mustard seeds, red chillies, hing, methi seeds and curry leaves.  Lots of chopped coriander had gone into the boiling sambar already.  The final flourish with the seasoning gave me a sambar that ended up being exquisite.  Taste, flavour, consistency - everything! I lifted the steel pot out of the IP and poured half of its contents into a serving dish - another bold move where all of it could have missed the mark and poured over the counter.  It took confidence, an unshakeable belief that to surrender to the process with focus was all I needed to do - the rest would be taken care of by faith in my abilities, experience and a higher intelligence which took over when my mind got out of the way.  Lunch ended up being a success.  And it was all because I had focused on being adaptive throughout the process, and had deliberately not stressed over the outcome!