Life, Lilies and Surf

Chapter 11

"It is good to be merry and wise,

It is good to be honest and true,

'Tis well to be off with the old love,

Before you go on with the new.   

                                                                   Anon. (modern verse of an old song)

"And if I loved you Wednesday,

      Well, what is that to you ?

I do not love you Thursday -

     So much is true."                    Edna St. Vincent Millay,   Thursday.

"To say that you can love one person all your life is just like saying that one candle will continue                          burning as long as you live."

                                                           Tolstoy,  The Kreutzer Sonata.

"We walk by faith, not by sight."             New Testament, II Corinthians, V 7

"One by one, like leaves from a tree,

All my faiths have forsaken me."                 Sara Teasdale,  Leaves

"But the noblest thing that perished there 

Was that young faithful heart!                   Felicia Hemans,  Casabianca,  st 10

The office hours in those days were only from ten in the morning to five in the evening with lunch break for  half an hour.   It never used to be half an hour in reality.  It used to be one or one and a half hours.  So, Latha could go to office without hurry and her mother cooked food in the morning for Latha and Bhaskar.  Old time practice was eating a breakfast of idlies, pongal or dosas followed by good filter coffee.  At noon one would take  a regular south Indian meal of rice mixed  with sambar and then with rasam and finally with curd, accompanied by dry and gravy vegetable preparations;  appalam and pickles of mango or lemon were additional attractions.    This regimen was suitable in earlier times because after the breakfast at seven to eight in the morning, people would start work at eight.  They would open their shops or go to their workplace  and, government district officials would go for site inspection and outside assignments. Engineers, as a practice would  start the day at eight to go to the construction site to give instructions for the day's work.  Even office goers with desk jobs in collector's office, accounts offices would follow this pattern of breakfast of tiffin and coffee or tea in the morning.  As south India is a hot region, people used to prefer attending  their outside work in the morning  and then go to their offices by eleven or so, to meet people.  At noon, lunch would be of items mentioned above and it was the main stay as a meal. It was a sumptuous  meal, making the man happy and  sleepy after eating.  There was no great fear nor any catastrophe that overtook the people by eating  fried things and taking ghee with rice. The food was traditional and was well balanced. Pepper, dhania, jeera, methi, kari and coriander leaves and tej patta, turmeric and tamarind used in proper proportions in the side dishes and sambar, rasam, kootu, porial, etc kept at bay the proliferating modern life suckers like cholesterol, diabetes and digestive disorders.  Rice  and dals were mostly unpolished and in virgin state for cooking;  vegetables and fruits were not grown with copious chemicals and sprayed with toxic pesticides; spices were not cleverly adulterated.  Hence the people did not land up in unhealthy miserable state though they ate well to their satisfaction. The agricultural produce were without traces of pesticides and fertilisers.  The grains had nature's healthy  coating over inner pulp, whether it was rice, wheat or dal. The unpolished rice did not make rice the culprit for diabetes, as of now, because the present highly polished grains and lentils ensured quick digestion coupled with high adverse glycemic index.