Wisdom Pearls...

Ever since my baby sister got engaged to get married, all the world and his wife has taken it upon themselves to find me a husband. To say it is frustrating is putting it very tamely. As the wedding date nears the stakes seems to be getting higher and people are getting more desperate to add a 'Mrs.' to my name. Forget my criteria bar, the governing principle driving the mis-match-makers seems to be 'Burn the Bar, love, anything goes now'. I shall go into the gory details at a later date when it is quite safe to place the facts before my public.

In the midst of all the madness sometimes you get 100% pure gold advice from the unlikeliest source, take for instance the advice I received from an acquaintance, she told me 'Sen, don't ever go into a relationship unless you are 100% sure about it in your mind, cause once in the relationship you realise that the person who you thought was your 100% soul mate is actually only 60% of what you imagined him to be, so if you settle for someone who in your mind is only 50% - 60%  of your expectations, when you get down to brass tacks, you will find that the person is only 20% - 30% of what you expected, then you will be in a soup as you got to live with that for the rest of your life'.

You rock X, I remain eternally indebted to you for this...

Walkathon...

Last Thursday the bus drivers here in Mumbai went on strike and thanks to them I was finally able to scratch out item number 148 on my things-to-do-before-I-die-list - Walk all the way home...from office. I live in Andheri, which is a suburb in western Mumbai and commute to work to Powai, a suburb in central Mumbai. It is a distance of close to 15 kms ... a little less than ten miles (the shortest route is 12 Kms, but if I walked that route, I would need to sterilize my feet in DETTOL for a week...the less said the better) and it took me a little under three hours to complete the feat and a beaming me arrived home, with only a bad shoe bite and a slightly hurting right foot, but none the worse for wear.

I have been with my current company for over five years now, my longest stay with any organisation and have survived the one year completion gift -a plant, I don't know the name, it lasted only three days in my company, the three year completion gift - a desk top organiser which had a pen stand, small clock and mobile holder and am now awaiting my five year completion gift which at the current time I'm told is a back-pack... but I digress, during these five years, have had the opportunity to work out its many offices, starting out at Powai, moving to Scotland, back to Powai, a bit of a stint at the Vikhroli office, back to Powai, then a few short stints at the England and Singapore offices, but always coming back to the Powai office and all throughout I nursed an ambition that one day I would walk all the way home from the Powai office. I don't know when this nut-case idea first infected me, but somehow it was always there in the back of my mind that I wanted to do this and now I can sleep easy as I FINALLY DID IT!!!

The day didn't begin on an auspicious note and my brother who off late kindly drops me to office was down with a flu and I was left to fend for myself. The journey to the office was accomplished quite easily as there was no traffic, thanks to the buses being off the road. The journey back was a nightmare. It began all tame and easy, as I tried to coax and cajole the rickshaw drivers to ferry me to Andheri, which is a feat in itself on normal days, what with them pulling faces at me when they hear that I want to go to Andheri,  it makes me feel as if I have expressed a burning desire to go to hell and was asking them to go with me.

Today with the buses on strike the rickshaw drivers were the uncrowned kings of the roads, spoilt for choice as they were they just shot off like scalded cats when I said I wanted to go to Andheri. I waited at the usual spot for rickshaws but when after 15 minutes I was still rickshawless, I decided to take drastic action, and accordingly began walking outside the complex towards the highway, where I usually manage to get a rickshaw. Once on the highway I noticed that the situation was grimmer than I thought, It had begun to rain like there was no tomorrow and there was water logging everywhere, people where literally pouncing on empty rickshaws. The traffic was also exceptionally bad.

I walked a little further, by now I was soaked to the skin and saw an empty rickshaw parked by the highway and eagerly went up to the driver. The man lounging on the drivers seat lost in thought and wearing one of those Gandhi topis with "I am Anna Hazare" written on it. He must have been in deep thought about the state of the nation or some such important issue, I don't know, I politely inquired whether he would take me to Andheri and he surfaced from the depth of his ruminations long enough to pull a face at me and went back into his coma.

I then continued walking and reached the flyover, here I decided to skip the flyover as with the traffic was bad and the chances of being run down by someone in a fit of road rage was a possibility. Accordingly I took the service road and went towards Saki Naka, here I misjudged the distance that needed to be travelled, the distance is less than 10 minutes by car and today with the rain pouring in a steady stream it seemed like the road was endless with no sign of Saki Naka anywhere on the horizon. Finally after walking for what seemed like an eternity I arrived at Saki Naka.

After Saki Naka I encountered some of the worst stretches of the road, what with having to wade across huge puddles, gingerly walk on the debris from the Metro Project, keep my eyes peeled to ensure that I don't step on anything unsavoury (I saw a man step on a dead rat, the look of horror on his face and the high jump that followed the discovery were some of the lighter moments of the journey). J.B.Nagar, Marol, The International Airport and Charat Singh Nagar passed in a blur. All the while I kept looking for an empty rickshaw.

Finally I arrived at the Western Express Highway - Bisleri Junction Andheri -East (which in my mind is where the boundary of my area or my Andheri begins) here my feet began feeling a little tired and I seemed to have pulled a muscle or nerve in my right foot so progress was essentially at a very slow pace. I had been walking for over two hours now and was just putting one foot in front of the other and picturizing myself sitting at home with a hot bowl of soup in my hands and my feet in hot DETTOL water, cause god alone know what I had waded through.. I'm a little crazy like that. Finally I reached home to a very worried mum a little before nine thirty in the night after having walked for two hours and fifty minutes!!!

Mangalorean Prawn Sukka

This is an easy way to make Magalorean Prawn Sukka, thank you Leela Akka for sharing this fabulous recipe with me :)

Ingredients:

20 medium sized prawns

2 large tomatoes(chopped)

1 large onion (chopped finely)

1 inch piece of ginger (ground)

3 cloves of garlic (ground)

1 cup grated coconut (blitz in a mixer, don’t add water)

1 tbsp cumin powder

1 tbsp coriander powder

1 tsp chilly powder

1 tsp turmeric powder

Salt to taste
Oil
½ tsp Mustard seeds

Method:

1) Heat oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds, let them crackle.

2) Add the chopped onions and fry well.

3) Add the ground ginger and garlic paste and fry till the raw smell disappears

4) Add the cumin powder, coriander powder, chilly powder and turmeric powder.

5) Add the prawns and salt and toss for a few mins.

6) Now add the chopped tomatoes and let it cook till the tomatoes are soft.
7) Last add the coconut paste and cook till the coconut is well done, simmer for a couple of mins.

8) Serve with rice, chapatti or bread.

Old Spice...

Somehow I just cannot say Old Spice and leave it at it... the words will automatically be followed by the humming of the music from the Old Spice Ad with mental images of a raging sea, a fearless surfer, an alluring woman and the ultimate tag line "Old Spice, the Mark of a Man" ringing in my head. Before I go any further, let me clarify that I may be a witch at times but I don't need to shave and my orientations are all in the right direction... but I love this ad :-)

Recently this phenomenon happened again. I spied the Old Spice bottle left unguarded by my brother and in a moment of insanity I found myself reaching for the bottle and splashing out a few drops on my hands like the model in the advertisement. Though I instantly repented it as the liquid hit a paper cut I had on my finger, all the while humming the Old Spice Tune.

My sister was in the room and she inquired where the perfume smell was coming from, sheepishly I told her that I had handled the Old Spice bottle and she goes "Oh that's why the accompanying music!"

For all my readers who were not born when the said Ad used to be aired, please see the link...Old Spice video.

India@64...

Today as we celebrate 64 years as a free nation, I can't help but wonder are we better off at all ?... OK, we are free from the raj granted but what have we gained in the 64 years since Independence ...has the toil of the freedom fighters gone to waste...

I really shudder at what my kids will read in History... Scams...one bigger than the other... fodder scam, 2G scam, 3G scam, the shameful CWG scam that effectively ground India's integrity to dust in the international arena... everyday a new scam is unearthed by the media... imagine having to remember the magnitude of each of the scams and having to vomit it out in the exam papers...

I recently read in the papers that India is fourth on the list of "Most dangerous places for women" , something that I've always maintained, now I stand vindicated... should we really be in such lists when we are dreaming of world domination... shouldn't we be an evolved race...

Back then the British Raj stopped the erstwhile Indian National Congress Leaders from going on a Satyagraha, ironically today it is the same Congress that is stopping Anna Hazare from going on a Satyagraha in support of the Lokpal Bill... lets wait and watch the political circus and see to what levels it will stoop...

 Everyone seems to have his own agenda, his own axe to grind and all at the expense of the exchequer... I USED to be very proud to be an Indian, NOW....

Mum's new Pet!!!

As far as I can remember I've been my mum's pet so when a intruder tried to invade my territory I wasn't too happy initially, however I have relinquished my throne to this new contender as the bond between my mum and the crow is really too cute to take offense.

Yes, you heard it right, my mum's new pet is a crow who is absolutely crazy about my mum's cooking. This brings to mind the fact that crows have always been fond of my mum's cooking, back in the time when us kids were little and my mum had just got her first oven, she went on a baking spree and we had cakes, cookies, nankhatais, you name it for high tea. It so happened that one day she baked a cake and my brother seemed to be finishing his share a little more than enthusiastically and coming back for second and third helpings, something which he never did. My mum helped him to another piece, to which he demanded a bigger piece saying "The crows are absolutely loving the cake", he had been feeding her precious cake to the crows!!!

Now the hero of this piece, the new pet crow arrives every day around mid morning for its due, and is quite vocal about advertising its arrival, making a perfect racket until my mum walks into the kitchen and offers some kind of food to it. It has been a regular arrival for the past few months and these days has become quite spoilt for choice. If you offer it plain crusty chapati or a plain biscuit, it will look quite disdainfully at it and then at you as if meaning to say "You got to be joking right, you expect me, the royal Highness of Crowland to eat this crap ???"

Today I decided to write about it and wanted to attach a picture of the crow so became a wild life photographer and stalked the crow, but the wily crow just wouldn't put up an appearance when I was around pointing my trusty blackberry at it. Finally after a few hours of playing cat and mouse, his royal highness relented and allowed me to capture a few images. I really admire the patience that wild life photographers must possess when they are waiting for the perfect picture.

Mozzarella and Tomato Sandwich

This is an absolutely divine sandwich which is very easy to make...  my friend made this sandwich for me while I was in the US and I have become a sandwich lover ever since, she also added thyme as she is lucky to have a garden patch at her place in DC and grows vegetables and herbs... we who live in matchboxes in Mumbai learn to improvise and the recipe below is how I made it once I got back to India...

Ingredients:
4 Burger Bun (toasted)
2 Tomato (thickly sliced)
Thick Slices of Mozarella Cheese

For the Pesto:

Corriander leaves (about 4-5 tbsp)

6-7 Nuts (Almonds or Walnuts)
2 large cloves of Garlic
Olive Oil

Method:

1) Place all the ingredients for the pesto except for the olive oil in a mixer or pestle and grind coarsely.

2) Remove the pesto  into a bowl and add the olive oil.
3) Take the toasted bun ans apply the pesto to one side
4) Place a couple of slices of tomato and one slice of cheese on top of the pesto covered piece.

5) Cover with the other piece of the bun and serve with chips.

6) You may want to grill it before serving... but I like it just as it is...

Stone Jewellery....

I am not your regular jewellery loving girl and jewellery made of stone and beads is something that I have always appreciated on others, so much so that I've never owned any. But on a recent trip to Colaba Causeway the pieces on display just blew my mind, as you can see I went mental. The best part being that I paid less than Rs.500/- in total for the three pieces that I bought, the fourth one is a gift from a dear friend.