"If you plant a tree you plant a hope"

Bead tree found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trees_of_India

Yesterday my daughter told me she is a forest kind of person, and I told her this is true for me too.

One thing I find especially moving about Indian people is their love for trees. And one thing I find astonishing is their courage and willingness to change things from grass root level.

Every now and again I read stories of simple people who dug roads with their own hands or planted forests one tree at a time. It really humbles me, and at the same time it gives me hope for the future. 

Here are a few.

A story about TIST Tree Planting India programme, an organisation started by 6 farmers in 2003 and has now more than 6.000 members. This private company has successfully raised more than a million trees on private lands in five districts in Tamil Nadu and recorded a survival rate of 90 per cent. They paid farmers for planting and taking care of trees, using carbon revenues.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/1-million-trees-raised-in-5-districts/article4640431.ece?homepage=true

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A story about  R.Kannan, the man who for three decades has been teaching villagers and farmers across Tamil Nadu how to “hold the forests”. Having grown up in a coffee estate near Palani, he believes healthy forests in the hills mean healthy crops in the plains, as well as more drinking water for people. He is a founder of the Palani Hills Conservation Council and has gathered knowledge of plant species by working with local tribes and farmers and distributed more than 2 million trees to farmers.

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/the-tree-hugger/article4698960.ece?ref=sliderNews

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A story about P.K Saru who went from door to door to prevent his neighbours from cutting down all the trees in their street. He convinced them that the trees would not damage telephone lines and sewage and would instead bring them many benefits. Here is how the neighbourhood is like today : 

"Today, there is absolute peace and quiet, occasionally interrupted by a bird call or a rustle of leaves. Residents who take an evening stroll gather under the canopy of trees to chat.

Hot pink bougainvillea, bright yellow flowers of the golden shower tree and red roses add a splash of colour to the houses. The mango trees here offer generous numbers of alphonsos, banganapallis and malgoas during the monsoon.

In the month of May, gulmohar flowers carpet the road. The layout has tamarind trees that shower you with ripe tamarind fruits. There are also the neem, amla, coconut, sapota and rose apple trees, date palms and teak.

Every day, residents wake up to the calls of swallows, mynahs and cuckoos. However, the sparrows have stopped coming to the neighbourhood for the past four to five years. “Their nests are now occupied by the squirrels,” says Dilip. If you are lucky, you can spot parrots with bright red beaks, perched on the branches of the mango trees. Fruit bats, kingfishers and crow pheasants are frequent visitors too."

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/treebaythe-green-brigade/article4702536.ece?ref=sliderNews

Doesn't this sound like Paradise on earth to you ? It certainly does to me.

The sari incident

A few weeks ago I asked my embroidery teacher to show me how to wear a sari. My husband has often asked me to wear one, but I felt nervous about this and was convinced western women in sari look foolish. It's true the first demo of how to wear a sari had been made to me by my husband trying to show it on himself with a green chiffon sari and we laughed a lot.

Little by little, seeing pictures of other western women married to Indian men wearing saris, I changed my mind.

My teacher explained that often on the end of the sari, some extra material is included to make a blouse, and showed how to recognize it. She also explained that you must line the bottom front of the sari. I came home very excited and showed my husband what I'd learnt.

Then I decided to have a blouse and petticoat made for my favourite sari. We went to a tailor shop in the Indian quarter and I tried to explain that I wanted lining for the sari and a blouse. The man spoke very little French so communication was difficult but I trusted my husband would do the translating.

However, it seems in Tamil Nadu they don't line the sari if it has a heavy border (my teacher is from the North East) as my MIL confirmed.

Then a few days later, we went back to the tailor shop. The blouse was too tight, and they had stitched the sari into a kind of skirt ! I was furious. Later a friend told me in India they prepare saries in that way only for very young children grrr....

A lot of talking followed, the blouse was enlarged. More talking followed and a lot of laughing. I asked DH what that was all about. It turns out he was feeling bad for the shop owner and to make him feel good he'd said now the owner was OK but that he would be getting more tension at home from me. And the shop owner replied "give her a kiss, it will be alright".

Isn't that sweet ?

In a way maybe the reason I got so many surprising good experiences in India was because my husband is smoothing things up all the time :o)

Bon appétit

In the beginning, food was a nightmare. DH is a Hindu, lacto-vegetarian twice a week for devotion, and loves his chili 7 days a week, and I had a hard time trying to find recipes that he would like and that would also please the kids.

I suppose I am what you call a flexitarian. I try to eat less animal flesh, and I sometimes go on vegetarian diets for a period of time. It can be for philosophical and economic reasons, or for health reasons. I firmly believe that health starts with food, so it is important to use spices and herbs as much as possible. In this I take example on my mother, who claims to be a big meat eater but often goes on strange mono-diets following her intuition. I remember how after a few trips to Italy she went into the habit of doing meals out of red bell peppers and white bean and french bean salad.

My children however thought food was a good way to make mummy remember daddy. 

And for a while they rejected anything remotely Indian. Fair enough.

During the journey I found out that for my husband salads and soups are definitely not favourites, he even thinks it's not food but snacks. However I converted him to charcuterie and wine easily. About this I have mixed feelings ; if you eat too much of that stuff it's bad for health and at the same time extreme right parties have been trying to use charcuterie (made of pork mostly) against muslims and immigrants lately.

It also took me time to realise, he will accept to eat beef but not cow, and preferably when they are cooked outside the house. In fact, as my Tamil teacher explained later, most Hindu Tamils don't like to consume meat from a female animal. My Indian colleague however loves her steack unconditionnally.

I tried many recipes from many books but DH didn't especially like my Indian recipes until I found out this remarkable website which describes tasteful yet simple Indian family recipes :

http://ramkicooks.blogspot.com/

I had to buy a pressure cooker and that felt so empowering. 

Then the day I freely adapted a vegan chili using the One Page Cookbook, I got a lot of praise and felt very smart. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship with the One Page Cookbook. At last I feel I understand the basics of Tamil cuisine !

However I do feel slighly alarmed by these specific recipes intended for hotel rooms, using such ustensils as a kettle and an iron. Next time I go to a hotel I'll have to remember to check the iron before using it on clothes !

http://ramkicooks.blogspot.com/2009/08/cooking-in-hotel-room-or-just-about.html

One year

This week-end was our first wedding anniversary. I organized a week-end to the French Riviera, so that my hubby could discover a different aspect of France.

He noticed two things :
- it's beautiful
- people are not used to seing Indians around here.

On the last day, we had some time to kill before the train. We were wondering what to do. He was expecting me to decide since "we always do what you decide dear" and I had just told him that was not a nice thing to say and we would do what he decided, when, suddenly a Tamil guy came by in the tiny village street and started to talk to my hubby. It turns out that man was a sailor with a broken-heart.

So we ended up spending the afternoon listening to the guy's story of how his arranged mariage got cancelled. Actually, I don't know enough Tamil to understand what was said but it seems there was a long debate about love marriage vs arranged marriage. Meanwhile I took a sun bath and tried not to stare at the Chinese middle-aged man who was singing to the sea.

The sailor thought I was not happy. I was tired and didn't know what to say and was passing time observing people. The sailor told me my hubby is a good man, and that he has a heart under his black skin. I don't know why Tamil men keep telling me this. I'm beginning to find this suspicious.

Later I tried to find out about my hubby's point of view and couldn't understand what he told me.

It seems Coyote and the Monkey spirit were part of the journey :)