Ma wants me to make a paste of garam masala i.e. the Indian
spices which contain cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and black pepper.
Ma always tells me make them one soul.
So I take cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper in the
mortar and pestle and start pounding them.
See the play of mortar and pestle.
As I start grinding and pounding, few of them jump upto my
face.
Black pepper simply keeps on pouncing up and down and doesn’t
want to be grounded.
Cardamom and the cloves are not so innocent, they too are pouncing
by the side of mortar and making me sweat more.
The cinnamon sticks are giving me hard time, grinding them
down.
Cloves are very stubborn and they require extra and continuous
pounding and pounding.
After ten minutes of hard soul crushing pounding, I take up
the pestle and see that only half of the spices have been ground.
Ma looks at my work and she starts laughing.
I tell Ma-“Ma why are you laughing? I am working so hard.
The spices simply don’t want to be grinded.”
Ma says-“How much longer will you take?”
The moment Ma says this I start grinding at breakneck speed. In five minutes or so nearly everything of those spice have become one soul, except for a small part of cinnamon stick. I start pounding again.
Finally I got the paste done.
Ma was still laughing at me. I said -“Ma all are not the same. Ma please see my
soul.”
Ma gave me a hug and all was well.
Each and everything has a soul. By the way those hot spices
were dancing and not getting grinded proved that too have souls. They were
simply protesting. Maybe they wanted a spa before being grinded.
Adios!
Before You Travel. 