MLD Shifting again- 3rd time in as many years! This will be a quick hurried post as we are in the middle of half empty and half packed houses once again.
I am tearful as there has been a lot of love and good work poured into this base office and temporary home that we used for the last 2 years.
There have been quite a few interesting experiences in learning more about food, recipes, stories around food and setting up kitchens. I also learnt a lot more about plants and gardening from setting up a small balcony kitchen garden myself.
But above everything else, I learnt about how much harder it is to execute on your plans. Especially when they involve multiple third-party suppliers and collaborators. Sometimes it gets more complicated when some of them are actually part of your family or friends circle.
Navigating through it all has been a huge opportunity in terms of experimenting and creative solution seeking. But at the same time rather painful for someone who worked in a corporate set up with a few clearly demarcated rules, regulations and boundaries.
May I add that this can be a limitation or a scope for further development. Sometimes you grow even when you lose or you degrow even when you succeed. That’s a deeper point to ponder as I pack a few remaining boxes and suitcases.
Prompted update on MLD Shifting
From hunting for projects I actually turned into a farmer albeit briefly. 🙂 Grew tomatoes, chillies, lemons, spinach and coriander among other things in a couple of pots.
I find it harder to laugh sometimes and cry freely in the presence of perfect strangers. Was that something that was unnerving for me a few years ago? I have already visited the police station a few times. I have been forcibly carried strapped down in an ambulance by perfect strangers to an unknown location.
My own mother and brothers have questioned my sanity or wellbeing while forgetting to take their own medication on time. Let’s say this path towards a new way of living and working is not for the faint hearted.
MLD Shifting to Hometown
If I had a daughter or son, I wouldn’t wish this fate upon them. However, this is a hypothetical point since I was abused as a mother, a wife/partner, a sister and a child by all and sundry. Never allowed a moment to be a person or a human being without any particular label or role in a larger societal context.
Feminist spiels aside- how can men even understand or judge how we are judged when they leap from one side of the table to the other to attack freely. Even other women joined in the attack- that was even more shocking! The question raised about fairness was deemed to be an unfair, irrelevant and aggrandising one. By all who silently cursed me for perceived superiority or inferiority.
How on earth do we even talk on equal terms in a context where we want to have a different experience? Either typecast into a superwoman or a shrinking violet infront of a tyrant. Are there no spaces left for common everyday normal men and women going about life to the best of their ability and making regular (not life threatening) errors all the time?
Easy hack of error prone mothers
Now, I am worried whether the plants and the pots will survive the days on the road and when I will get to set up or cook in another kitchen. Most people are advising me against it- both shifting of plants and setting up another kitchen. Well, what do I do when I have very little choice in this matter?
I am thankful that I got to cook a few special meals in this homestyle kitchen. Among other things, I cooked for my mother on Mother’s Day after a week of very tense situation over the house shifting decision.
She arrived unexpectedly and there was a lot of disturbance. Mother’s Day is alien to her but over the years these customs have trickled down and through to her too.
For now, here’s a post from a special Mothers Day Celebration that I leave as a link for those who missed it. I do think many of us have enjoyed Biryani or pasta especially spaghetti in different ways and forms.
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Footnote
Blue Hydrangea & Brahma Kamal
This little note is one of a simple gesture
Contrite that I couldn’t do more
Hopeful that others didn’t feel the same pain
I wanted there to be a bouquet
Of flowers, fruits, herbs and spices
A basket laden with goodness of all that I planned
And dreamt of but couldn’t quite bring to life
May you see better days and better ways
To make your loved ones smile again.
I wept so many tears through the years
The skies are pouring forth in places
Yet I never made it in your good graces.
Melting Lemon Drop 31.05.2026
