Earth Connection

"Trees and humans are in an intimate relationship. What they exhale, we inhale, what we exhale they inhale. 
This is a constant relationship that nobody can afford to break or live without." - Sadhguru 

How beautiful and simple is this quote and how easy is it to live our lives completely oblivious of its truth. 

We buy, We eat, We throw.

We buy more, We eat more, We throw more.

What we throw gets hauled away by municipal trucks, ending a short lived, meaningless food journey.

I needed to fix my relationship with nature and  make an earth connection. Like every other relationship, it demanded time and attention. A way to make both ends meet. A change of course, a quick and effective process...... a 'Jugaad'.

And so I started Composting. Or, watching food-waste break down into black gold.

I began segregating my daily household waste. My cook looked at me utterly confused as I separated each day's food waste from all the rest. Soon I realized that about 50% of my day's waste was compostable! 

I began with a measly 1kilo of kitchen waste a day. By the end of the month 60kilos of kitchen waste had turned into 8kilos of nutritious compost in my home! (Yaay!)

It took some convincing and a few attempts to figure out the right recipe and the right compost-er. But the effort paid off! The simplicity of composting is what makes it such an enjoyable experience. 

Theres so much written about composting but nothing comes close to the feeling of running your fingers through fresh, fully done compost. Ready Compost looks like black soil and smells like the earth after a drizzle. I created this soil myself!

"My whole life has been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God's presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that let's you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first compost heap "  -Bette Midler

Couldn't agree more.  Keeping all that food waste away from the landfills feels like a great achievement. My experience really brings home the point that sometimes small changes can make big impacts.

Like a mother with a newborn, I showed off my freshly made compost to friends and family. But then came the big question... "Now what do we do with this?"

Thats the fun part..... Time to grow and nourish!

I used my 1st load of compost to grow herbs (Since they are fairly easy to grow). 

Basil to be specific. 

  

The quick success of my 1st crop brought home some delicious homemade pesto!

 My next crop was tomato. Completely organic tomatoes. 
Nourished with homemade compost.

From Buy, Eat, Throw I'v made a change of course to... Grow some, Eat Fresh, Compost everything I can. Making a successful Earth Connection.

More on veggies, greens and a lot more Compost (to be continued...)

Dancing to my Tunes

Dance

Prayer, pleasure, happiness, grace, speed, precision, science, math, art, exercise, beauty, respect, love.

Imagine every one of these emotions drift by you in 2 seconds. That's what dance feels like to me. I'm humbled by the capabilities a person can push himself to with discipline. Married to an athlete, I understand the amount of love and dedication it requires to keep our body going. I think of my body as a stubborn little child. Hungry for food, lazy to move around, longing for pampering and being forced to be something she never wants to be (thin!)

Body image today has done nothing but make us hate the way we are. It forces us to ignore the heart and becomes slaves of fashion magazines and movies.
The only one word that truly defines the person I am - Dancer. I love the physical exertion, the seductive eyes and the dialogue I share with God with every muscle in my body. Those 5 minutes and nothing else make me feel like the woman that I truly am. We as humans love to be appreciated. Dance lets me experience that in people's eyes. The growth of a girl into a woman is sketched out so beautifully in every form of dance.

Art and artists for generations have appreciated women in their most curvaceous forms. A dancer uses her eyes to engage, fingers to describe, torso  to emote and hips to communicate. Every artist has tried to capture the very essence of a woman through painting, music and dance. How has body image managed to ruin the true beauty of a woman and driven her to believe that 'size Zero' is the route to ultimate happiness.

I will live my life in gratitude and thankfulness to my parents for having introduced me to a beautiful life of a dancer. The best gift a mother gives her child is the art to love herself. My mom truly defined that for me.

Hungry Traveller

New cultures, new people, new sights and smells. The overwhelming feeling of discovering something for the first time. Every journey leaves me more enriched  and simultaneously empty with a longing for another discovery. Are we really as different as we claim we are? Cultures lay the same ground rules in every land. Music gets our hearts pacing, dance transcends language barriers and brings of all together as one. Food in a very subtle and understated way that connects us to the chef, culture, love and warmth of the place.

How different we think we are with just a few man made boundaries is surprising.

I luv the blend of languages, history, food and dressing in every place that I visit. The world only seems to get bigger as I race against life itself to see every corner of the world. I guess this is what really defines the world having no corners.

How different is my Dodamma (aunt) from the fat Brazilian lady (I imagine) who cooked my Maqueqa. Or how different is my mother from the loving lady I met on the streets of Nathdwara. The happiness on an Italian restauranteur's face in London reminded me of my dads love to feed the entire world.

My dad once said that nature is something that could be absolutely stunning to one and ridiculously boring to another.

Every traveler gets out on a journey looking for something. I would like to believe that I'm nothing but a hungry traveller. I luv how lost I am without a map. How clueless I am of how much my money can buy. How dumb I look to people by my inherent Indianess and dressing. How exciting street food feels to me. And how I need to fill up the emptiness in me with another journey.