Edible Shoots

     Happy memories can heal.Strangely, sometimes of a thing that can cause a bleeding wound.A word before I tell you what I wanted to. This photo was shot this evening as it caught my eyes in a traditional market, popularly known as Tuesday Market in Abha. It opens all days but for their big day is Thursday.The Arabic word for this decorative object is  Jambiya .The one in the frame is a wooden model displayed in front of a honey vendor.This stall sells honeycomb too, interestingly.       It did bring all the memories back again.You are less likely to forget that. Don’t worry though. I can take you for a walk.A lovely piece of accessory you gifted me the day before I left for Saudi Arabia. It was a beautiful keychain holding a small replica of a silver-colored-knife, the kind that traditional Arab tribesmen wear on their waist belt. I hadn't thought of it in years, nor could I even remember where I had left it when I was in a h...

It was Nasarka, a family friend of ours for years, who recommended the dish for the first time. He put it in such a way that I had the urge to try it out then and there ... which I did. My taste buds judged the result to have come out perfectly, which was very unusual for my personality type, as I typically take time to befriend and love someone new I meet. But this was definitely love at first sight. The dish thrilled the neuroreceptors in all of the six tongues in our little family. It has been a firm favorite in our household ever since; a delicacy of Anatolian descent, but a guest no more.     If you still wonder what hummus really is, I can’t put it any better than the American Heritage Dictionary, which describes it as "a smooth, thick mixture of mashed chickpeas, tahini, oil, lemon juice, and garlic, used especially as a dip for pita". Let me add that the preferred oil is olive oil, since the original and authentic recipe calls for it. If you guessed tha...

      This is a show to which your entry passes have already been issued in unknown but specific numbers, whether you believe in predestination or not. You have no choice but to enter. However, you are free to use an eye mask or a pair of earplugs. It is totally up to you. Some do use them, consciously or otherwise.       Ever since I grew old enough to wonder about the phenomenon  of dawn and dusk, it has set my imagination on fire. In winter, mostly  on Sunday mornings, I would prefer to stay in bed: warm, huddled up,  wrapped in blankets, wide awake. I was all ears - though we can’t move  our ear pinnae – attentive to the crowing of roosters in the chicken  coop, the cawing of crows flying by, other birds’ chirping, the mooing of  the cow in the shed with its calf tethered, the bicycle bells of the  newspaper boy, the stirrings of my younger siblings, and my mom’s  never-ending quarrel with damp f...

Almost all of my friends I went to school with are now far away from me. Some are gone forever. Others (who were never in my immediate circle) stay in touch, as do the ones I went fishing, swimming, biking, cashew-nut-gathering and foraging-for-wild-berries with. A chance meeting would make the latter group reconnect inseparably almost instantaneously - an instant anti-aging medication. Nothing seems to bond people as strongly as good times shared with one another. We went around wading through run-off rain water during the monsoon, and diagonally crossing the tilled paddy fields, trampling solid dry-as-dust lumps of soils into a single-file walking trail. Roads were dusty in the summer, and muddy during the monsoon. That was a time when our village was not fully free from open defecation. It reminds me of a line from Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: “The excrement dried in the sun, turned to dust, and was inhaled by everyone along with the joys of Christma...

Before I tell you what I am really setting out to write about, let me remind you: I don’t endorse the use of bottles and disposable cups for storing, transporting, or even for drinking from. It is one of the losing battles I waged against myself after resolving to abstain from using non-biodegradable disposables.It is one of my only failures. All I have managed to do so far is to minimize their usage. It is certainly better than nothing, and a step in the right direction. Photo Credit: Dr. Ajmal Around 71% of Earth’s surface is covered in water. That doesn’t mean you will never go thirsty regardless of where you go. Forget about the 97% which is saline; the remaining 3% fresh water is mostly not in potable form as 68% of it is stored in icecaps and glaciers. I wonder how Samuel Coleridge Taylor knew all these statistics as early as the Romantic period when he lamented in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “Water, water, everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink”.  It i...