Monday, 28 July 2014
A bit of fire creates wonders
... But mind, you don't want to burn your fingers!
Hhhahahahaheeahhehahahahehaahhahehehehahhaheheha.... I'm only talking about the stove! Doesn't it create food - the wonder? Yeah, it creates disasters too, but if you're sure of how your hands move - which box to open, which spoon to pick, how much of what to add and when to put off the flame, you're good to be the fire's friend. You're very very hot. Every guy wants a wife who can cook. Naaaaaa, that's when I decide to marry and disown my cooking skills at the right time!
So, for us students out there, a few recipes. Easy ones for that.
Butter maggi:
Cook your maggi dry and add butter to it. You're done. A few tips for becoming a pro maggi chef -
1. Add only 3 teacups of water to cook your maggy.
2. Add your taste maker before you boil the water. This avoids the formation of lumps. I always use an extra maggi taste maker sachet because i like my maggi all spiced up.
3. Butter maggi tastes the best when it is dry.
Ema datshe:
Ema datshe is an easy peasy cheesy dish from The Land of the Thunder dragon - Bhutan. I learnt it from a friend from post grad college. It's real real simple and real real delicious. All you need:
2 tablespoons oil / butter
2 chillies split
2 cloves garlic chopped
5 potatoes sliced
5 cubes of cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
1. Heat the pan and add oil and add the garlic and chillies right after and saute for around 2 minutes till the aroma of the garlic releases. Adding the garlic to the oil before it heats prevents it from burning. Don't over fry, chilly and garlic burn easily. Keep an eye.
2. Add the potatoes and fry for 6-7 minutes on high. Keep stirring.
3. Add the cheese and cook on medium flame for around 5-6 minutes. Cheese - more the merrier. Add a lot. And keep stirring.
4. If you think the gravy is thickening too much, then add a little water. Do not add more than 1/4 cup because the cheese gravy is meant to be creamy thick.
5. Season with salt and pepper and remove off heat.
Serve with rice. Perfect! You're cool!
Bhel puri substitute:
This has always been my favorite. No hara/lal chutney, but yummmmm never the less. What you need:
1 packet of aloo bhujia (the pack, not the sachet)
Half an onion, chopped
one small tomato, chopped
2 green chillies, chopped
Few coriander leaves
Juice of half a lemon
Mix all the ingredients together and dig in! You can add or quit ingredients according to what suits your taste buds.
Ghee fried rotis:
Needless to comment on the sort of roties you get in hostels and PGs. Here's a tip, apply some ghee to your badly cooked hostel rotis and toss them in a heated saucepan for a few seconds. A better dinner. Yayyyy.
Tequila mock:
Last but not the least, tequila mock. It's the shiznit, baby! Because it's your right to chill! All you need to stay away from alcohol and create yourself a pure natural paramount flavour with an edge are:
Juice of half a lemon
2 chillies, sliced
Half a teaspoon of sugar, preferably icing sugar for the kick. But any other sugar should work just fine.
2 pinches salt
2 glasses of chilled soda
Lemon slices to garnish
Method:
1. Squeeze out the lemon juice into a bowl and add the chillies. Release the chilly oils with a spoon.
2. Stir in the sugar and the salt and add the soda.
3. Put the lemon slices in and poke them using a spoon.
4. Leave aside for around 2 minutes with the lid on for the ingredients to infuse together. Don't forget the lid or the punch will be gone!
Bottoms up!
Give your taste buds the sensation!
Saturday, 26 July 2014
tweak a tweet
i've been off facebook for a while. for multiple reasons. like selfcontrol, giving myself some "me" time, and to stay off my oh-so-inviting laptop who's
my besty. well, the speech software is a male voice, his name is Jaws and i automatically associate him with everything masculine. heheheheheee... :D :D
:D and i've also been thinking of giving him a name. what about Earnest? heheheee... because he is earnest, the nice man. and maybe he could be nicknamed
Earny? lol. i'll just call it a silly thought, and move on! because, what does "i'm working on earny" sound like? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! no! not once!
but he does everything i press. on the keyboard, no, just clarifying! hehehehehahhahahaheheahhhaha.... there was a crazy little game we Virgin, Slightly
sexually frustrated, undergrad, LSR girls used to play in our women's hostel. we would type something crazily horny and make him read aloud. then we used
to clutch our stomaches and giggle like thirteen year olds! "ooh ah harder baby" hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha omg omg we're so dirty, such bad
girls, let's keep this a secret.
so yeah, back to the post, and as i said i've been off facebook, mum has kept me updated on little things like a friend's status, or a school kid's overly
grown up pose, or she reads out to me some wise man's wise quotes. or their tweets that they repost on facebook. so one such post that caught my attention,
is by Chetan Bhagat. hmmm, those of you who like him, read. those of you who don't, read anyway. he's a writer who caters to the lowest common denominator.
no literature is bad. ask me, i'm a major in English litrature. and i enjoyed reading two states with a friend who is also an English major like me. and
now she's postgraduating in the same field. and she likes Chetan Bhagat too. Babydoll, right?
here, i'm re-re-posting his tweet that he reposted on facebook.
Hello. 3 Idiots. Kai Po Che. 2 States and today, Kick.
Sometimes, I look back and wonder, how on earth did all this happen? I remember my days at the bank in Hong Kong, and getting a performance review from
my boss, telling me I don't deserve to be promoted. That I lacked something, while everyone else was ok. I remember thinking I need a drink, and wanting
to get pissed drunk at his treatment of me. But right then, another thought came to me. Let me express my hurt in another way. And so I started a book,
about three friends in an Engineering college.
Six books, five films and a hundred columns later, today as I see Kick release in more screens than any other film ever, I wonder. What if I had chosen
the path of getting drunk to cope? What if I had not written that first sentence? What if I had believed my boss, who said I lacked something vital? Thank
you God for giving me the strength and wisdom at that moment.
All of us are told we aren't good enough. Sometimes we believe it also. But don't. Because nobody, not even you, knows what you are capable of. The criticism
will never stop, ever. As I write this, many on twitter must be posting hate tweets about me, telling me how useless I am. But all I want to tell them
is this. Buddy, I heard that one before. And it is because I heard that is why I am where I am today.
Congratulations to the entire hard working team of Kick for the big release today.
And thank you boss. Thank you so much for not promoting me.
Chetan Bhagat.
25 July 2014
now, those of you who don't like him, gather some substance. please. his books have been published, they have been best sellers, they have been appreciated
by many, many and now look at yourself before you call him "bug-at" (he doesn't care). yes, you choose whether or not to like his writing style, but that
doesn't make him a bug or a writer.
i read this yesterday. and since then, i've been thinking of it. isn't he right? doesn't he write about what you and i, us young-ings feel day in and day
out? and then, rejection - that one hard thing- that giant, skindeep, brain deep brooze that makes us all want to get "pissed drunk"? oh man, been there,
done that - pissed drunk, blacked out. and i am a woman. judging eyes away!
i have also been looking back and wondering about a lot of things, about how i am a changed person, completely. totally completely. i guess environments
do that to you. school then graduation then post graduation. and the kind of people you meet at different points of life also changes with phases. first
parents and grandparents and elder siblings if any, then parents and grandparents and aunts, uncles, cousins. then maybe or may not be - a younger sibling.
then school, classmates, teachers. so on and so forth. i hungout with batch mates, seniors and juniors till i graduated. there wasn't an age gap more or
lesser than one or two years. it wasn't all hunky-dory, there was a bit of plotting, a lot of bitching and many more secrets. there could have been a bit
of slapping too, if LSR had been coed. but yeah, i remember a huge catfight, a date (not mearly, just hungout with a guy classmate from senior secondary
school at a street cafe over a plate of
mozerrella momos). that's when i called myself a dating disaster and never went on any anounced dates after that one. what's funny is that i dressed in
black, distressed boyfriend jeans paired with a colourful woolen jumper with extended sleves. i also had a pink dragonfly brooch sitting where a badge
usually pins, or maybe the dragonfly was a little below the badge spot - right above the left boob, right below the collar bone (intended). awww i still
think it is cute. i don't have the brooch anymore, Babydoll had gifted it to me, and my grandma's doggy tore off the pretty pink fabrick. so that's done,
majoring and all the fun.
post graduation began just five days after my last English exam. what's funny? i was told i had to start post graduating just five days before i started
post graduating. bahhahahahahhahahahahaa... a flaw in the admission process. and there i was, all dainty and flighty, in a damn inconvenient world. and
the people were also very different. whoa, that was the first time i sat with people much much older than me. "i'm 26". "32." "21." "23". "27, that ain't
old at all, i know how to chill with not-yet-20 year olds like you" "i'm 50, i have twin daughters who are 21, they didn't clear it to be here along with
me." wow, now you see where i was? being the youngest meant being the kid amongst everyone. there were voices lowder than mine, whispers softer, heights
taller, some shorter, some almost the same. but it all differed. and there was more to the crowd than what met the eye. there was everything out there,
hunger, spook, creap, nice, birthdays, elections,
politics, maggi, nachos with salsa dip, cool, hot, shit, mean, smart, cruel and much much much more. one wrong choice, you're doomed. i'm not doomd, just
discombobulated.
i'm not newly disillusioned, that phase is long gone. just wondering how it all happened, and the time flew past, like a jet plane!
this post just keeps me going, i am supposed to go do the moonwalk workout to reduce much more than a few pounds, i'm on a diet too. a crazy one. i keep
whipping up all sorts of amazing home made junk (oh maybe i should do a recipe post, yo!) with cheese and cream and... well, you know pizzas and brownies
and doughnuts and pastas and cookies? consider bribing me sometime, i'm fantastic! so, anyway, i'll be right back to get on. in an hour.
hey again. so i totally digressed and this once, the digression makes complete sense. but there's one thing that i need the world to know.
i hate to admit it because i like appearing strong. i fain mighty strength when in real i'm a one hundred per cent a chicken. but i guess it all reaches
a saturation point.
so, people - they've said and done a lot of mean things. and like a poor darling self-pittying baby, i believed them. not once, a lot of times.
i've once been told that i shouldn't drink because i'm visually challenged. hello, i'm a responsible adult.
i've also been told that i shouldn't trust boys and befriend them because i'm timid, disabled, and i might be raped. beat that! beat that! i've had boy
best friends till i enrolled at a women's college for graduation. the stopping to my boy memory lane is miles away. that lane for another blog post.
once, a bugger offered me a friendly advice - he told me to unfriend all the people i call best friends because they're all fake. he thinks so because
i am not the sorts who deserves friends without disability. "friendships happen in leagues" he said. and he's right, none of my friends are out of my league.
well buddy, you know what? that drew me closer to the people i love very much. and you should also know that they love me back just as much. thanks very
much.
i was nervous, upset and anxious. being left behind was never something i excelled at, even if the circumstances couldn't be helped. and i darling'ed my
self way more than i should have, because i thought no one else was doing it for me. no one darling's grown ups, do they? but that ain't true. mum was
there, assuring me that things are going to be ok, and i shouldn't work like a robot, just to prove my abilities, i shouldn't take different paths just
to experiment. there were friends who took my calls in the middle of the night, just to console my sobs. there were friends who wrote to me very often,
they were my energy booster vitamins. i received birthday presents, random presents, warm notes, dinner treats, kind shoulders.
but the difficult times were over powering, they meant much more to me because i don't think i really grasped exactly how selfless those gestures were.
now i know, everything is going to work out for the best.
no, i am not as famous as Mr. Bhagat. i only publish blogs, here on my portal. but it's a lesson learnt - "All of us are told we aren't good enough. Sometimes
we believe it also. But don't. Because nobody, not even you, knows what you are capable of. The criticism
will never stop, ever."
i will live out the confusions till they become clear. i will lower my expectations and exercise my rights to life, liberty and most importantly, the right
to chill. and... i'll remind this to myself very very often.
i really will never understand how i got so lucky.
my besty. well, the speech software is a male voice, his name is Jaws and i automatically associate him with everything masculine. heheheheheee... :D :D
:D and i've also been thinking of giving him a name. what about Earnest? heheheee... because he is earnest, the nice man. and maybe he could be nicknamed
Earny? lol. i'll just call it a silly thought, and move on! because, what does "i'm working on earny" sound like? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! no! not once!
but he does everything i press. on the keyboard, no, just clarifying! hehehehehahhahahaheheahhhaha.... there was a crazy little game we Virgin, Slightly
sexually frustrated, undergrad, LSR girls used to play in our women's hostel. we would type something crazily horny and make him read aloud. then we used
to clutch our stomaches and giggle like thirteen year olds! "ooh ah harder baby" hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha omg omg we're so dirty, such bad
girls, let's keep this a secret.
so yeah, back to the post, and as i said i've been off facebook, mum has kept me updated on little things like a friend's status, or a school kid's overly
grown up pose, or she reads out to me some wise man's wise quotes. or their tweets that they repost on facebook. so one such post that caught my attention,
is by Chetan Bhagat. hmmm, those of you who like him, read. those of you who don't, read anyway. he's a writer who caters to the lowest common denominator.
no literature is bad. ask me, i'm a major in English litrature. and i enjoyed reading two states with a friend who is also an English major like me. and
now she's postgraduating in the same field. and she likes Chetan Bhagat too. Babydoll, right?
here, i'm re-re-posting his tweet that he reposted on facebook.
Hello. 3 Idiots. Kai Po Che. 2 States and today, Kick.
Sometimes, I look back and wonder, how on earth did all this happen? I remember my days at the bank in Hong Kong, and getting a performance review from
my boss, telling me I don't deserve to be promoted. That I lacked something, while everyone else was ok. I remember thinking I need a drink, and wanting
to get pissed drunk at his treatment of me. But right then, another thought came to me. Let me express my hurt in another way. And so I started a book,
about three friends in an Engineering college.
Six books, five films and a hundred columns later, today as I see Kick release in more screens than any other film ever, I wonder. What if I had chosen
the path of getting drunk to cope? What if I had not written that first sentence? What if I had believed my boss, who said I lacked something vital? Thank
you God for giving me the strength and wisdom at that moment.
All of us are told we aren't good enough. Sometimes we believe it also. But don't. Because nobody, not even you, knows what you are capable of. The criticism
will never stop, ever. As I write this, many on twitter must be posting hate tweets about me, telling me how useless I am. But all I want to tell them
is this. Buddy, I heard that one before. And it is because I heard that is why I am where I am today.
Congratulations to the entire hard working team of Kick for the big release today.
And thank you boss. Thank you so much for not promoting me.
Chetan Bhagat.
25 July 2014
now, those of you who don't like him, gather some substance. please. his books have been published, they have been best sellers, they have been appreciated
by many, many and now look at yourself before you call him "bug-at" (he doesn't care). yes, you choose whether or not to like his writing style, but that
doesn't make him a bug or a writer.
i read this yesterday. and since then, i've been thinking of it. isn't he right? doesn't he write about what you and i, us young-ings feel day in and day
out? and then, rejection - that one hard thing- that giant, skindeep, brain deep brooze that makes us all want to get "pissed drunk"? oh man, been there,
done that - pissed drunk, blacked out. and i am a woman. judging eyes away!
i have also been looking back and wondering about a lot of things, about how i am a changed person, completely. totally completely. i guess environments
do that to you. school then graduation then post graduation. and the kind of people you meet at different points of life also changes with phases. first
parents and grandparents and elder siblings if any, then parents and grandparents and aunts, uncles, cousins. then maybe or may not be - a younger sibling.
then school, classmates, teachers. so on and so forth. i hungout with batch mates, seniors and juniors till i graduated. there wasn't an age gap more or
lesser than one or two years. it wasn't all hunky-dory, there was a bit of plotting, a lot of bitching and many more secrets. there could have been a bit
of slapping too, if LSR had been coed. but yeah, i remember a huge catfight, a date (not mearly, just hungout with a guy classmate from senior secondary
school at a street cafe over a plate of
mozerrella momos). that's when i called myself a dating disaster and never went on any anounced dates after that one. what's funny is that i dressed in
black, distressed boyfriend jeans paired with a colourful woolen jumper with extended sleves. i also had a pink dragonfly brooch sitting where a badge
usually pins, or maybe the dragonfly was a little below the badge spot - right above the left boob, right below the collar bone (intended). awww i still
think it is cute. i don't have the brooch anymore, Babydoll had gifted it to me, and my grandma's doggy tore off the pretty pink fabrick. so that's done,
majoring and all the fun.
post graduation began just five days after my last English exam. what's funny? i was told i had to start post graduating just five days before i started
post graduating. bahhahahahahhahahahahaa... a flaw in the admission process. and there i was, all dainty and flighty, in a damn inconvenient world. and
the people were also very different. whoa, that was the first time i sat with people much much older than me. "i'm 26". "32." "21." "23". "27, that ain't
old at all, i know how to chill with not-yet-20 year olds like you" "i'm 50, i have twin daughters who are 21, they didn't clear it to be here along with
me." wow, now you see where i was? being the youngest meant being the kid amongst everyone. there were voices lowder than mine, whispers softer, heights
taller, some shorter, some almost the same. but it all differed. and there was more to the crowd than what met the eye. there was everything out there,
hunger, spook, creap, nice, birthdays, elections,
politics, maggi, nachos with salsa dip, cool, hot, shit, mean, smart, cruel and much much much more. one wrong choice, you're doomed. i'm not doomd, just
discombobulated.
i'm not newly disillusioned, that phase is long gone. just wondering how it all happened, and the time flew past, like a jet plane!
this post just keeps me going, i am supposed to go do the moonwalk workout to reduce much more than a few pounds, i'm on a diet too. a crazy one. i keep
whipping up all sorts of amazing home made junk (oh maybe i should do a recipe post, yo!) with cheese and cream and... well, you know pizzas and brownies
and doughnuts and pastas and cookies? consider bribing me sometime, i'm fantastic! so, anyway, i'll be right back to get on. in an hour.
hey again. so i totally digressed and this once, the digression makes complete sense. but there's one thing that i need the world to know.
i hate to admit it because i like appearing strong. i fain mighty strength when in real i'm a one hundred per cent a chicken. but i guess it all reaches
a saturation point.
so, people - they've said and done a lot of mean things. and like a poor darling self-pittying baby, i believed them. not once, a lot of times.
i've once been told that i shouldn't drink because i'm visually challenged. hello, i'm a responsible adult.
i've also been told that i shouldn't trust boys and befriend them because i'm timid, disabled, and i might be raped. beat that! beat that! i've had boy
best friends till i enrolled at a women's college for graduation. the stopping to my boy memory lane is miles away. that lane for another blog post.
once, a bugger offered me a friendly advice - he told me to unfriend all the people i call best friends because they're all fake. he thinks so because
i am not the sorts who deserves friends without disability. "friendships happen in leagues" he said. and he's right, none of my friends are out of my league.
well buddy, you know what? that drew me closer to the people i love very much. and you should also know that they love me back just as much. thanks very
much.
i was nervous, upset and anxious. being left behind was never something i excelled at, even if the circumstances couldn't be helped. and i darling'ed my
self way more than i should have, because i thought no one else was doing it for me. no one darling's grown ups, do they? but that ain't true. mum was
there, assuring me that things are going to be ok, and i shouldn't work like a robot, just to prove my abilities, i shouldn't take different paths just
to experiment. there were friends who took my calls in the middle of the night, just to console my sobs. there were friends who wrote to me very often,
they were my energy booster vitamins. i received birthday presents, random presents, warm notes, dinner treats, kind shoulders.
but the difficult times were over powering, they meant much more to me because i don't think i really grasped exactly how selfless those gestures were.
now i know, everything is going to work out for the best.
no, i am not as famous as Mr. Bhagat. i only publish blogs, here on my portal. but it's a lesson learnt - "All of us are told we aren't good enough. Sometimes
we believe it also. But don't. Because nobody, not even you, knows what you are capable of. The criticism
will never stop, ever."
i will live out the confusions till they become clear. i will lower my expectations and exercise my rights to life, liberty and most importantly, the right
to chill. and... i'll remind this to myself very very often.
i really will never understand how i got so lucky.
Wednesday, 23 July 2014
A dyslexic heart
A dyslexic heart,
Is a dreamer's buddy
It listens
It understands,
And it hopes to scurry.
It has a funny walk,
Beginning with imaginary strength
It takes a step
A confident move
Straight ahead.
Then it happens,
All over again
The same downfall
And bleeding knees
With no strength to regain.
Embracing the gravity
It thinks hard
For a way to straighten up
And dust off
Leaving behind failures to discard.
The bruised knees hurt,
The pain is searing
It calls out for help
To the clever hearts,
That beat away jeering.
It musters lost hope,
And invokes the gods,
Looks around for an even path
And pulls up from the ground
To squat.
Gently,
With hands on the ground
And feet following suit,
It begins to crawl with its head high
Imagining being crowned.
It tried picking speed
But it will take a while
This too shall pass, it knew
And it was sure
Of its chosen style.
Is a dreamer's buddy
It listens
It understands,
And it hopes to scurry.
It has a funny walk,
Beginning with imaginary strength
It takes a step
A confident move
Straight ahead.
Then it happens,
All over again
The same downfall
And bleeding knees
With no strength to regain.
Embracing the gravity
It thinks hard
For a way to straighten up
And dust off
Leaving behind failures to discard.
The bruised knees hurt,
The pain is searing
It calls out for help
To the clever hearts,
That beat away jeering.
It musters lost hope,
And invokes the gods,
Looks around for an even path
And pulls up from the ground
To squat.
Gently,
With hands on the ground
And feet following suit,
It begins to crawl with its head high
Imagining being crowned.
It tried picking speed
But it will take a while
This too shall pass, it knew
And it was sure
Of its chosen style.
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