A little boy
Last time, our friend’s little boy played magic tricks to entertain us. That was nearly two summers ago. This time, he showed off his knife skills on chives, and then he played the piano. He had displayed showmanship two summers ago. With time, the showmanship has only become more natural. He wanted to drink his apple bubbly from a cocktail glass. And then he noticed a pomegranate in our fridge, and wanted to eat it. He hadn’t eaten much during dinner. He claimed that he was a picky eater but could eat all the pomegranates in the world. He first wanted a bowl of water and asked for the pomegranate to be cut in half. He then proceeded to de-seed the pomegranate in the water, so the kernels wouldn’t fly off everywhere. Then he asked for five cups and spoons. And finally he proceeded to serve us all, the two of us, his parents and himself. The seeds were nicely picked and no white bits were left on the kernels. His father asked how many pomegranates would it take to keep him busy for 3 hours and he promptly answered 300.
What does not kill you …
Someone very dear, left us. It was a purposeful and thoughtful departure. She was a child when we met her. Child of a best friend, a friend who is as close as family. She would be a vibrant, beautiful woman if only she were allowed to thrive. We have been angry with the healthcare system in this country for the last many years, a system that refused to help her heal. There is no more anger left, only sadness. We are crying but is crying grieving? I think we were grieving before, for a brilliant mind stuck in a body that couldn’t heal.
I think this is how she saw herself. This is how I saw her. The words on the right represent her thoughts.
The Face, a checkpoint
I am not in the habit of looking at my face. I am not sure why but it is probably not one reason. As a girl child, I thought it vain. As a young adult, my gender made me self-conscious. As a busy career professional, the reflection staring back offered nothing to engage my curiosity. I have noticed some rapid changes in the last few years. The face that looks back is starting to look different from what I had imagined it to be. I find that I am avoiding eye contact with my reflection even more, I turn my back when brushing my teeth or hair.
Perhaps it is time to take on the exercise of carefully looking at my face, so I can reacquaint myself. An extensive power outage in the area gives me the necessary pause to get started on this exercise. In art appreciation, there is a practice to stare at a museum piece until you exhaust all possibilities. I decided to start with that approach, but instead of a single long shift, I decided to do the observation in phases, each lasting 20-40 minutes, each time focusing on one or two aspects.
Read the rest of this entry »Welcoming daylight saving with this, that and the other
We move forward by an hour today. In 2018, Californians overwhelmingly voted to stay permanently with the daylight savings time. Yet, the ritual of biannual moving clocks forward and back continues. Nearly every clock at home is digital these days and they move themselves. A few that are still manual have stayed permanently in daylight savings since 2018. Instead, one lives with the mental math now – call it an iota of personal protest.
This daylight saving we are in the 12th week of heavy rains in California. Footage of Pajaro river levee breaking and flooding Monterey county was scary last night. Today the sound of rain on the rooftop is generating anxiety and we are playing Nina Simone to soothe our souls. Can’t really get out on a hike so here are a few things we are doing to keep ourselves occupied.
Memory of a holi from my childhood
One of my strongest holi memory is of my father in my childhood. It has to do with sweets and mischief. My dad was the outgoing, vibrant, extrovert in the family. The rest of us took after our introvert mom. It is hard to not love holi although I used to treat it as spectator sport. The kind where you stay close enough to the periphery of the crowd and keep a lookout for the fastest escape routes dodging the hands and water balloons. My formative years were spent next door to a temple where they celebrated Holika and that was more of my thing. Holika is celebrated the night before holi, at the temple it was a respectable family gathering huddled around a large bonfire. I was that kid that wanted to watch bonfire all night long. Anyways, back to dad. He was short and agile with a wonderful head of curly hair and he would go out in his white Kurta-Pajama (must do for holi so colors show up) and be front and center of the procession that moved from one house to another, bringing colors and loud cheers, and cajoling people to join the crowd.
It is also customary for receiving families to present sweets to the crowd. One of the loved sweets is rasogolla, fluffy round (“golla“) cheese balls in sweet sugar syrup (“ras“). The cheese balls bob around in the sweet syrup, and you simply pick up the balls, squeeze lightly to get rid of excess syrup and pop it in your mouth. The leftover syrup is often used in making other things like chutneys.
In this memory, one of the receiving family brings out a large pot of rasogollas. My dear pater along with the rest of the crowd, partakes in the enthusiastic process of consuming them. As soon as the rasogollas are depleted, he picks up the bowl of syrup and dumps it on the head of the unsuspecting family member who was holding the pot. Don’t get me wrong, by this time, practically everyone is wet with the colored water balloons and there is color everywhere. But that action draws a gasp of horror (“OMG”) from me. The crowd starts cheering, the syrup soaked family member is grinning sheepishly.
This memory is gem in my collection. My other memories of dad are almost all academic in nature, all about education and career and being hardworking, just and honorable. I don’t have another memory where he is causing mischief.
This is a photo of my father and mother I have been working on restoring. My dad has been very sick the last several years, and my parents are often on my mind. Working on their photo has given me a chance to surface some of these cherished memories instead.
This one was taken over 50 years ago, when my parents were first married. The town is Moirang in the Indian state of Manipur. It is situated close to state capital Imphal. Even today it has a population of ~60,000 people spread across 67 villages. Dad started his career in Indian government as a doctor and it was customary to be posted in the remote corners of the country.
This is a posed photo with a professional photographer. My mom is a very accomplished photographer, but I guess this ritual was required for newly weds then. Probably a good thing too because my newly wed photos are self taken and while they are creative they are otherwise a disaster as far as image quality is concerned.
My dad isn’t wearing his glasses even though he is fairly myopic, but if he were, the eyeglass frame would be considered fashionable today. I am glad he isn’t because I see a bit of the mischief in his eyes that goes into explaining the holi story. My mom’s eyes capture the curiosity that I associate with her personality.
I am no longer sure how much of this memory presents truth, but now that the photo-editing course is behind me, I am also no longer worried if this memory is embellished.
An asana that makes me smile
The Sanskrit name of the pose is Ardha Chandrasana or Half (“Ardh”) Moon (“Chandra”) pose (“Asana”). One of my teachers, Tara Judelle in her Glo class, Liquid Viscosity, has me imagine a starfish bobbing up and down in calm waters. The class starts with imagining oneself surrounded by the body of water one loves the most. And throughout the class, we imagine shapeshifting as we move from one asana to next, being buoyed up by the water around us. Isn’t that wonderful?
I love water and yes, I am still loving the rain after nearly 12 weeks of what feels like incessant rain in otherwise dry California! But one of my fondest memory is a warm pool in a generic motel in Florida. It was some academic conference or other. At the end of a long day busily overloading the grey cells, I remember getting into the warm pool and floating. And then it started to rain. It was one of those pitter pattern rain drops where you can feel each fat drop as it makes contact. The rain was cooler than the warm water of the pool which created a wonderful sensory contrast and made me tingle head to foot.
Playing with old and new school photo editing
Just finished an introductory course on photo-editing. The primary content of the course work was gaining familiarity with Adobe Lightroom. But like all good courses we meandered, we spent time thinking through the ethics of photo editing and dove into generative AI as well. Perhaps my eye opening moment, and an untethering moment, was learning about Ansel Adams’ darkroom magic. I had thought that there was one perfect photo (what the eye saw or wanted to see) but what I learned during the class was that the possibilities of photo-editing are endless. Perfection is sought in the moment. It is quite liberating to not have to bear the load of a single perfection. A good photo edit is what feels good today.
Black History Month, Celebrating with a special hike
This week we had strong winds, rain and snow resulting trees and branches falling, and power outages yet again. Yes you heard that right, snow! Since our hiking boots have been holding up, we decided to explore another park during the lull between the storm. Last weekend of February, with just a few days to pay tribute to Black History Month, we chose Sam McDonald Park. Our chosen hike was the Heritage Grove Loop – spanning heritage grove trail and towne fire trail – from main parking lot to trail marker 25 to 30 to 26 to 20 and back to the mail parking lot. It is a 4 mile hike but we went off the trail – from trail marker 26, we went off towards 6 and then backed up. We ended up walking a little more than 5 miles and 65 stairs.
Read the rest of this entry »Spending Mardi Gras time with pots and pans
Like me, you probably make jambalaya and gumbo at home and it never tastes anything like it does in Louisiana. These are everyday dishes, and when they don’t turn out right, you gotta ask yourself why. The reason is simple and a bit sad. No one here in Bay Area makes tasso and andouille like they do back there. So, this February, we decide to set aside the anxiety that comes from counting our carbon footprint and order in some. We followed the online ordering recommendations from Serious Eats article “Missing Louisiana: 8 Ways I Bring the Bayou State Home” and ordered in Tasso, andouille, and boudin from Best Stop in Scott.
Read the rest of this entry »Coal Creek OSP, Feb 2023
In the winter months, after the rains, it is nice to go see the seasonal waterfalls in our forests. We went on a 4 mile hike through Coal Creek Open Space Preserve. Our hike started on Alpine road trailhead, and we climbed the bypass trail, the Crazy Pete’s trail and climbed down via the Coal trail back to the trailhead. The milkmaids were in bloom. From parts of Alpine, we could see the Corte Madera Creek which was also flowing enthusiastically. The trail intersects with coal creek on Crazy Pete’s road where there was a seasonal waterfall. I recorded the sounds, both upstream and downstream of the bridge and it was distinctly different. How obvious, but how so wonderful. There were a number of bikers and the trails were muddy. All in all, it was a welcome getaway.
Episode 4, In absence of silence
Episode 4 of our podcast, Archy and I, is now out. It is titled “Search for quiet“.
The world feels noisier and not simply from the decibels generated by human activity. It is the frenetic pace of modern life. I often think of what Dr. Martin Luther King wrote from Alabama jail in April of 1963 in the context of injustice – “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” His thoughts also feel apt in the context of the anxiety I feel at times being part of this human network. Escaping to Death Valley is an excellent option, but that offers temporary respite. Lately, I have been searching for everyday quiet. This episode is about how that search looks like, right now.
The extra good thing in this episode is the podcast, “The Wild” by Chris Morgan. Our search for quiet is inspired by these two episodes, “The hunt to find just one square inch of silence” and “The quietest place on earth“, both aired in 2019.
Slow recovery from the recent flooding
Not that Pithe needs updating but it continues to get updated even in Bengal. Our experiments whipped up a kaya (coconut jam) smeared rice crepe with maple syrup roasted grated fresh coconut. The rice crepe is made with rice flour, coconut milk, and egg. We had coconut sugar at home and could have used that to sweeten the grated coconut but we chose maple syrup instead. The maple syrup replaced nolen gur, both are saps that can subsequently be hardened into sugar. Neither of the syrups is a replacement for other, but they are sprit sisters. Black seeds of cardamom perfumed the rice crepe batter as well as coconut stuffing. We had learned about kaya watching Ms. Beryl Shereshewsky try a singaporian toast. Our grated coconut filling was sweetened with maple syrup alone and not too much at that, so the kaya helped balance out the sweetness while enhancing the coconut flavor even further.
Read the rest of this entry »A cooking adventure this Lunar New Year
This Lunar New Year, we wanted to bring some Cantonese cuisine home. Many years ago, we were in Hong Kong and the memories of a breakfast congee is one we fondly recall often. We made plans to make turnip cakes (Lo Bak Go) and sticky rice lotus leaf wraps (Lo Ma Gai). Traditionally they are dim sum dish, but for novices like us, they were to be proper meals, one lunch and another dinner. It was all a little last minute and last minute plans to tend to go awry.
Read the rest of this entry »Palo Alto Baylands, Jan 2023
This is a six mile hike starting at Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve Trailhead. We walked to South Adobe Creek Loop Trailhead on to Adobe Creek Trail, past the bowl, almost all the way to North Adobe Creek Loop Trailhead and back. We did take a minor detour through the Byxbee Park art installations, the pole field and wind wave. The park is beautiful and located on a sanitary landfill. Apparently, due to the nature of the land and sensitive habitat, there are no impermeable surfaces and all paths are of crushed oyster shells. There are no trees whose roots might pierce the clay cap. There is no irrigation so only native grasses are used! This Bay trail offers a longer walk, a lot more people as well as bird species compared to Bair Island.
Read the rest of this entry »Episode 3, Listening to the stars
Episode 3 of our podcast, Archy and I, is now out. It is titled “No two blackholes sound alike“.
This episode is an ode to the universe and the amazing human species that lives on this “mote of dust” that we call home. Universe is brilliant, whether we live or die. But the fact that we can explore the universe makes us ultra special. This episode has been swirling in our head for nearly a lifetime, but was made possible during the pandemic years.
First we see a blackhole and then we hear one. And it takes hard work of thousands of amazing scientists to see and hear something that we have theorized mathematically for almost a century. Isn’t that the most wonderful thing! In the coming years, we will see and hear a lot more blackholes. No two of them will be alike. I expect that the frequency of their discoveries will be a bit like the discovery timeline of exoplanets – first there was one, and soon there were many and last year, we surpassed seeing 5000. It is a bit like walking. Once you learn how to walk, you don’t stop, do you? And in the case of blackholes, there are 40 quintillion of them, that is 40 billion billion, waiting to be seen and heard.
The extra good thing in this episode is not one but two items, one is the Universe of Sound project for visually impaired and the second is System Sounds, a sci-art outreach project that translates the rhythm and harmony of the cosmos into music and sound. The common theme between the two is a human, Matt Russo, an astrophysicist and a musician.
Starting 2023 with a hike
The year started with a glorious day, it was clear blue sky between the passage of two atmospheric rivers. We went for a short 2 mile hike with a friend on Skyline Ridge trail near Teague Hill. This section of Skyline appears to have a higher than normal density of manzanitas.
Read the rest of this entry »2022, the year we took on our first 52 hikes challenge!
After two years of being home bound, we started going out this year. Inertia had kicked in, so it took a lot more effort to get out. And we have a big reason to celebrate. We had decided to hike more frequently this year with a goal to hike new trails and explore new parks. Part way through the year, we realized that we could take on the 52 hikes challenge. And we did!
Highlights of our 52 hikes challenge: - Median number of hikes in any month: 3 - Maximum number of hikes in any month: 10 (in Dec) - Total miles: >200 - Median number of miles per hike: 4 - Median number of stairs per hike: 30 - Park visited most often: Edgewood (8 times!) - Number of unique parks visited: >30
While much has stayed the same – we started a few new habits, and improved upon some old ones. We adapted locomotoring tagline as it turned 16 this year. We added an audio blog (“Archy and I“) that explores and celebrates sounds. We hope that 2023 allows us to live with greater appreciation for good things in an increasingly complex world.
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Immersed in blue on Ravenswood Trail, Dec 2022
I bet it happens to you often enough that you see something for years, but you don’t really see it. The Don Edwards San Francisco National Wildlife Refuge protects the bay marshes, it has a number of trails and locations including Bair Island and Alviso. The trail we have been seeing for two decades is the Ravenswood Point by Dumbarton Bridge near Menlo Park. We finally walked this 3.3 mile trail. It was a morning hike, the sky was clear, the winds were low and the Bay tranquil. The sound from Dumbarton Bridge carries as there are no trees to absorb the sound. The noise isn’t enough to distract, but this trail isn’t a quiet spot. The noise doesn’t seem to distract the birds. By the time you get to the north most point of the trail, the cars sound more like ocean waves. We found someone fishing there. The trail is wide, well maintained, flat and easy to walk on. There were footprints of birds, humans, dogs, bikes and vehicles.
Read the rest of this entry »Water Dog Lake Open Space, Dec 2022
Our 3 mile neighborhood hike took us to Water Dog Open Space. The park is also known as Hidden Canyon Park. We parked at the Upper Creek Trailhead on Hastings Drive. Our route took us to Finch Trail, Ramber Trail, followed by the Elevator Trail, then Canyon Creek trail back to the trailhead. While the net elevation change could not have been more than 200-300 ft, short stretches of the trail are steep. Rambler skirts the back of San Carlos and Belmont homes and it does feel a little strange walking through someone else back alley. The park appears to be popular with bikers. This park made me feel as if I was elsewhere in California, perhaps because there were no noticeable poison oak.
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Laurelwood (or is it Sugarloaf) Park, Dec 2022
Another short hike with spectacular view through Laurelwood Park in San Mateo. The park seems to be around Sugarloaf mountain, it is more of a small 400 ft tall hill. Some of the trails are very steep or had very steep sections. We couldn’t find a trail map and used Google maps instead. The total hike was about 2 miles. Starting at the San Juan Canyon fire road, we went up the Gravity trail to Sugarloaf-Spur trail, then all the way to the east point of Sugarloaf peak to gaze at the Bay views, then back to Laurelwood Park trail and down the Saddle trail to Salson trail to San Juan Canyon fire road to complete the loop. We met a few dog walkers but otherwise had the park to ourselves on a weekday.
Read the rest of this entry »Eaton Park, Dec 2022
Eaton Park in San Carlos is a neighborhood miniature open space (~58 acres) and the Eaton Trail is a cute as a button trail with Bay views, tiny stairs, tiny bridges, and benches galore. We clocked about 2 miles and an estimated elevation change of 200 ft. From Loma Road entrance, to Hawk Hill trail to Eaton trail all the way to Brittan Avenue, up back, to 4 Bridges trail to Vista Trail to Canyon View Trail to Eaton trail back to start. It was a weekday and there wasn’t a crowd.
Read the rest of this entry »Trails of Russian Ridge, Dec 2022
Over last weekend, we completed two hikes. The first one started from the charming Mindego Hill trail parking by the Audrey Rust commemorative site. We traversed the relatively flat Ancient Oaks Trail, went down Charquin Trail and then climbed up the steep Mindego Hill Trail. Earlier in the spring, we had hiked along Ancient Oaks trail and it was covered with poppies. Last time, we had been on Mindego Hill trail, it was under fog cover and had very little visibility. The second hike started by the main parking lot and we did an out and back on the Ridge trail.
Read the rest of this entry »Locomotoring turns 16!
When we started, in 2006, world was inhabited by 7 billion people. We started with the tagline and during the 16 years, it continued to be “Seven continents, seven seas, seven billion people and seven thousand good eats …“. Many people think of the number seven as the lucky number. Did you know that seven is a mathematical Happy Number? In fact, it is the smallest Happy Number after the number 1.
Start with the square of the number: 7**2 = 49 Then take each digit of this number, square them and add them together: 4**2 + 9**2 = 16 + 81 = 97 and repeat: 9**2 + 7**2 = 81 + 49 = 130 1**2 + 3**2 + 0**2 = 1 + 9 = 10 1**2 + 0**2 = 1 The starting number that ends in 1 is a Happy Number. 4 on the other hand is not a happy number (it is a Sad or an Unhappy number!): 4**2 = 16 1**2 + 6**2 = 1 + 36 = 37 3**2 + 7**2 = 9 + 49 = 58 5**2+8**2 = 25 + 64 = 89 8**2 + 9**2 = 64 + 81 = 145 1**2 + 4**2 + 5**2 = 1+16 + 25 = 42 4**2 + 2**2 = 16 + 4 = 20 2**2+ 0**2 = 4 and so the process continues in an infinite cycle without ever reaching 1.
So much has happened in last 16 years. The Webb telescope happened. The pandemic happened. The m-RNA vaccines and CRISPR gene editing are fast tracking eradication of some seriously nasty diseases. AirBnB changed how we travel. Podcasts and streaming videos gave us many new artists we now adore. Estimated world population hit 8 billion. The smart phones and social networks have made the world a cozier space.
We also grew a little wiser. We have started appreciating untethering, freeing the mind from strings, and boundaries. We have started appreciating the in-between ideas, the ones that are nebulous, and hard to decode. We have started appreciating the stillness, the lack of fidgets, and the silences. We started appreciating the art of kintsugi, the mindful repairs that embrace the damage. We started appreciating time, a dimension that operates non-linearly, and runs away faster than we notice.
We hope our new tagline reflects who we are today. “Spending our time untethering the mind, getting the fidgets out, exploring the in-between ideas, and learning kintsugi.”
Episode 2, Archy presents the melody of human voices
Episode 2 of our newly minted podcast, Archy and I, is now available. It is titled “Melody is in the ears of the listener“.
DECEMBER 28 Happy Inspirations "excuse me if my writing is out of alignment i fell into a bowl of egg nog the other day at the restaurant down the street which the doctor says he is glad to hear you are keeping away from and when i emerged i was full of happy inspirations alas they vanished ere the break of day i am sure they were the most brilliant and witty things that ever emanated from the mind of man or cockroach or poet ..." Page 61, The annotated Archy and Mehitabel, Don Marquis
Earlier this year, we heard the podcast, The 11th. It left an impact. You may remember, Dear Reader, that we took the concept of Exhausting a Place and applied to a photo in the blogpost “An attempt at exhausting a photo“. Another episode that blew our mind was the The Happiness Project, we heard it in March this year. That was the inspiration behind our second episode. We want to experience all conversations like Charles Spearin does in his Happiness Project. There, we said it. Charles says that all of the melodies from this project are the melodies of every day life. To listen to all of the songs from this 2009 album, visit Charles, founding member of Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think.
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Locomotoring 