Rekha's Ramblings

  On this Christmas day, filling a void & missing my family dearly.  Christmas wasn’t the same as it is here,there was no wish list,no gifts to exchange,no Santa clause, no cold dreary winters but just happy times with family, a feast of food that we won’t see again until Easter,new set of clothing to go to church for the midnight mass, with may be a new pair of shoes.  My mom, grandma & aunt would be in the kitchen from 5 AM cooking the many items that they would put on the table by noon, us children having nothing to do would be just singing some Christmas carols swinging on our front porch, munching on some of the delicacies being prepared in the kitchen that morning or would watch TV if we were lucky enough to have electricity on that day.  By noon, we would gather around the table, men with the beer in their hands. We were just thrilled to have all the meat such as chicken, pork & even fish, all at the same time. Later, would gather as a community, t...

  This year the children are demanding an American Christmas dinner, I have never cooked traditional American Christmas dinner that includes ham and different casserole etc., that’s because either we aren’t home for Christmas or if we are home, husband is vegetarian and prefers Indian food. I went to Kroger this morning, yucky rainy day, traffic jams, and packed store. I have ordered turkey for Thanksgiving meals from Kroger in the past so secretly hoping that they would be open on Christmas day; sadly they aren’t, so no readymade ham, I will have to make my own, I don’t blame them, they want to be home with their families so what if my husband has to work. I go around the store looking for ingredients to make the meal , Sweet potato casserole too demanding , too many things which I will never use again, crossed it off my list, made the children agree to scalloped potatoes instead (comes in the box), corn casserole check, green beans casserole check, ham check (evidently it’s alrea...

  Once again, it takes the “bad” for the” good” to come out in people. Chennai, a major city in India is experiencing major floods, many have died, and many are still stranded. I read a few posts about how people are helping each other despite their race or religion, people from all walks of life coming forward to help in whatever way they can;  heartwarming posts; but I wonder how mentioning people of different religion helping each other  was even an issue. The issue is the safety of the people, meeting their basic needs, for food and drinking water, who the heck cares about their race or religion? Why is it even worthy of a mention? People helping other people, is that not enough? I also wonder if people in real life really think about all this before helping the person who is stranded, who needs their help or even vice versa, person who is stranded thinks about taking the help being offered to him. I have never experienced a situation like this myself where I either h...

Reflections: I love reflections and reflecting. Reflections because they are just beautiful and reflecting because it allows me to be a better person, to better understand others, other situations and prepare myself for the things that I cannot change, change the things that I can change. I have come to do this a lot lately and I think have come a long way from where I was a few years ago. I always saw things as they were, as they appeared and said what came to my mind, I only knew black or white; there was no room for gray. But a few years have been added to my age, more experiences, some good, some not so good and have learnt to find gray areas, not everything can be black or white. I don’t blurt things out as I used to; have learnt to add a pause , think about what I am going to say . In most cases, I still revert to my old self but in some cases, I end up not hurting their feelings, I guess you could call it a victory. So, every time I see a reflection of something, I pause and...