Teaching and parenting

What would I be doing 10 years from now ? Tough to say, but I think I would like to do some element of teaching. Could be to my daughter, for all you know :-)

Trying to teach or explain something to a 6 year old can be a lot tougher than you think. Often I find myself losing patience with my little one. I hope I can remember these wonderful lines by Yeats, immortalized by Sir Ken Robinson’s closing comments in his second lecture on TED.com ( see the video below)

“Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

I hope I can remember this every time, I should do alright then ….

The festival of lights

Diwali, Deepavali, Devali .. whatever you want to call it. Festival of lights, that is what I am talking about.

The whole country is taken over by decorative lights, crackers, fireworks, festivities, sweets ……….. Except the state of Kerala, that is. Well, there is a token celebration, but none of the color or excitement that you would see anywhere else.

I wonder why is that ??

I saw some theories floating around on the net. One of them being that Onam and Deepavali are celebrated almost along similar lines and since Onam has more regional roots, it has prevailed. Maybe that is true. Onam does have its own charm, but ever since I have been in Bangalore, I have begun to love the colors and life of Diwali.

It just seems to be a happy and bright festival, nothing much can be wrong with that !!

The Confession

The latest in the series of books from John Grisham, one in which he goes back to what he does best : Create scenarios based on the US justice system that gets you wondering “Just hold on a sec, is that really possible ? What if it really happens like this ? “

The theme of the book is around an innocent man who is executed by the state of Texas, and the mayhem that breaks loose once the real killer admits his crime. It triggered a lot of thoughts about the death penalty, which sadly is also a practice allowed by the Indian judicial system and laws.

I thought a bit about the rights and wrongs of the death penalty, here are some of my thoughts

I do not believe we can pass a judgement on whether a fellow human being should live or die. Nor do I believe that any civilized form of governments should have the blood of its own citizens on its hands.

I am aware that once a person breaks the laws established by society, he has to pay the price for that. The price however cannot be his life. Keep him in prison for his entire life if you want, but let us not pass a judgement to kill.

And surely the issue of sustaining the cost of the prisoner for his life should not be too much. After all, at least in India, the death penalty is supposedly reserved for the rarest of the rare cases. I saw that currently we have around 300 prisoners on death row. We are a country of over a billion, we should be able to take care of 300 more without breaking our budgets too much.

Nursery Rhymes

Lot of miles , they say , has flown past by my car’s wheels. What used to be an immensely enjoyable drive to Calicut has been reduced to a slightly bitter experience due to the condition of roads in Kerala.

But that is not the point I am trying to make. I was listening to my wife sing some nursery rhymes with my daughter and I am startled how violent some of these are !!

Take Goosey Goosey Gander

Goosey goosey gander,
Whither shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs
And in my lady's chamber.
There I met an old man
Who wouldn't say his prayers,
So I took him by his left leg
And threw him down the stairs

And of course there is poor old Humpty Dumpty who seems to have met a rather violent end

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again

Now there can’t be a problem with Jack and Jill, can there ? Multiple fractures at the bare minimum, the following lines would suggest ..

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.

What about the three little blind mice ? Listen to this ghastly tail chopping tale ….

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
See how they run. See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
As three blind mice

Hmmmmm, looks like we should be more worried about the nursery rhymes than about violence on TV :-)) Now I know why I always had a soft spot for Twinkle Twinkle little star :-)

The robot

Finally watched my first ever Rajni movie, Endhiran . I sort of liked it !! :-) The first half is very watchable, the second half becomes a bit too much of special effects and action.

What else , apart from that ?

Well, we recently celebrated our little one’s 6th birthday back home in Calicut. Her school has closed for Puja holidays here , so she is back home with my parents now. She was overjoyed to be back in the surroundings in which she grew up for the past 4 years.

I guess one of the good things about the 4 years I spent separated from my family is that my daughter has formed very close bonds with both sets of grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. That can only be good.

6 years, time does fly !!

It simply does not add up

Incident-1: One of the all under one roof home furnishing stores.

The conversation goes something like this

I like this chair, I will take it , how much is it ?
940 sir
Here you are, I have a Rs.1000 note
Sir can you pay me 60 more ? I can then return 100 to you 
Errr …. Why do you say you want 60 ? Are you planning to pay me back 120 ?
No, sir I will give you back 100. See the chair is 940, you paid me 1000, so if you give me 60 more, i can give you 100
If I give you 40, you need to pay me back 100. If I give you 60, you need to give me back 120 !!

Total confusion, 2-3 minutes of patient explaining on how addition works, finally she gets my point. Well it is late in the evening and she must be getting tired, I think

Incident-2: A famous retail store

How much is the total bill ?
309 Sir
Here is 1000
Do you have 9 Rs change ?
Nope, but here is a 10
Here is your balance, 601
601 ??? Haven’t you missed a hundred ????
No sir it is correct. The bill is for 309, I gave you 601
And if you add the two what will you get ?

System crash. Cashier just froze. She calls her manager to figure out this tough math problem. Manager thankfully is an older guy who can still add 2 numbers in his head, so I get my 100 without too much hassle.
Surely this must be a coincidence, I think. Our math skills have not gone so bad, have they ?

 Incident-3: Yet another famous retail store

Your bill is 240 sir
Ok cool, take this 500 note
Your change sir, 160
What the …., aren’t you making a mistake, I should get back 260 !!

Again 2 minutes of confusion, but finally I get my additional 100. Man , surely something is stinking, and this time it has got nothing to do with the food in my refrigerator !!
------------------------------------------------------------------Common trend between all three stores
(a) The cashiers did not enter the amount I paid to their billing machine and did the math on their own.
(b) All cashiers are kids in the 18-21 age group

Question I have is this. Has the proliferation of Cell-phone calculators and computers affected our basic math skills so much ??? 

One thing is for sure, gone are days when I used to take my change and blindly shove into the purse without counting !! I am counting every note from now on !!

Death of English

Sad to read about the death of English Language ;-)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/13/AR2010091304476.html

And its not over still ….

18 years is time enough, you would think to find a solution to the Ayodhya dispute. But no, Supreme court has now stepped in to defer judgment till 28th. It is done in public interest, they say ..

Which public is this and what interest do they have ? 99% of the population just want to move on with life, we have other things to worry about.

Irrespective of what the court decides, whether to build a mosque or a temple or something else on the site, what likely impact would it have on your or my daily life ?

And everyday the commonwealth games fiasco seems to throw up even more stink. Lalit Bhanot , what an absolute idiot. Thanks for letting me know the difference in hygiene standards between India and rest of the world. I am tempted to deliver the “one tight slap” advocated by MTV , rarely has someone been more deserving than you, Sir.

What makes you happy ?

A nice meal ? Company of friends ? A good book ? A funny movie ? Time spent with family ?

Well, my daughter has provided a clear answer to that question over the past three days – Time spent with grandmother !!
And of course she has got a brand new bicycle as gift from Grand-mom as well. I was watching her sleep a few minutes back, her facial expression says “What more do you want from life ?“

Buying time : From Paulo Coelho's blog

Gem of a story on Paulo Coelho's blog. http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/09/11/buying-time/

A man came home from work late again, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year-old son waiting for him at the door.
“Daddy, may I ask you a question?”
“Yeah, sure, what is it?” replied the man.
“Daddy, how much money do you make an hour?
“That’s none of your business! What makes you ask such a thing?” the man said angrily.

“I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?” pleaded the little boy.
“If you must know, I make $20.00 an hour.”
“Oh,” the little boy replied, head bowed. Looking up, he said, “Daddy, may I borrow $10.00 please?”

The father was furious. “If the only reason you wanted to know how much money I make is just so you can borrow some to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. I work long, hard hours everyday and don’t have time for such childish games.”
The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. The man sat down and started to get even madder about the little boy’s questioning. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?

After an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think he may have been a little hard on his son. Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $10.00, and he really didn’t ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy’s room and opened the door.
“Are you asleep son?” he asked.
“No daddy, I’m awake,” replied the boy.

“I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier,” said the man. “It’s been a long day and I took my aggravation out on you. Here’s that $10.00 you asked for.”
The little boy sat straight up, beaming. “Oh, thank you daddy!” he yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled out some more crumpled up bills.
The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at the man.

“Why did you want more money if you already had some?” the father grumbled.
“Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do,” the little boy replied.

“Daddy, I have $20.00 now. Can I buy an hour of your time?”

Fashion

Maybe I am getting too old, but I am not a big fan of this low-waist jeans business.

I was in the Paris airport couple of weeks before, when I saw a young guy, maybe around 18 years old, wearing a jeans which was half way up his thigh !! It was almost on his knees, not even close to the waist !! And he was walking around in his boxer shorts essentially. Why he bothered to wear the pants, I have no idea.

After some googling, I have come to realize that this style is called Sagging, which apparently is a predominantly male fashion.

If this is fashion for the future, things look kind of “low”, don’t you think ?

Creativity and books

“The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources” . I have heard of this one before, still makes me smile every time I hear it. And with the power of Google at one’s disposal, I tend to agree with the above statement.

Finished reading a few books which have sort of disappointed me. The best of the lot was undoubtedly “Immortals of Meluha” by Amish. Based on Hindu mythology and a premise that what if the Gods were ordinary human beings like you or me who got elevated to a cult like status by means of their deeds. Shiva is the central  character of the novel and it is quite decently written. I did not find it moving fast enough for my liking though. And it is the first part of trilogy. As a rule, I hate trilogies, don’t think I have ever found the patience to even attempt completing one.

Also managed to plough my way through the massive autobiography of Steve Waugh : Out of my comfort zone . Well over 750 pages. Boring and irritating for most of the time and an incredible pain to hold in your hand and read ( nearly sprained my wrists just holding the book! ). Unkind readers may suggest that the book is not unlike Steve Waugh himself. A much better review can be found at the following location : http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/234157.html

Currently thrashing my way through In the Line of fire by Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf is genuinely un-aware of world history or is a blatant liar. His portrayal of India is as the rogue state and Pakistan is the friendly neighbor who is minding its own business. I doubt if he believes in this himself !! More controversies regarding the book can be read from the Wikipedia entry above. Overall he comes across as a pompous man who is desperate to prove to the reader that he was a great man. However the end effect is quite to the contrary. 

Must try and find better books. The growing collection of books in my home is again forcing me to look at e-book readers. In the next year, I hope the companies can sort out the pricing of the readers as well the e-books themselves.

Economy to Excess

So finally I am in the US of A. If Europe is the land of economy, this is the land of excess. The point hammered into me yet again when I went to the Hertz counter to pick up my hired car

"The car you booked is not available, so we are free upgrading you to a mid range SUV"
"Ok, what would that be ?"
"It is a Ford Explorer"

Ford Explorer ...... Mid-range SUV she says. Really, what would be a full range SUV ? This one itself almost qualifies as a bus !!

Flight into US was also eventful, I flew in the A380 . Plane itself is comfortable. Extra comfortable for me as I was seated in the exit row, with tons of leg room !! However getting into the plane is sort of a night mare. Takes a long long time, imagine 580 people trying to board the flight. And imagine the luggage collection area once you exit from the plane. Not very pleasant, I can tell you that.

Landed in JFK too, loud, dirty, crowded ... Should try and avoid it in the future.

Here for a week only this time, flying back on Saturday. Still some more electronics shopping to do. I am like a kid in candystore when I enter BestBuy. Controlling somehow, the $ x 48 conversion will really hurt when I go back :-)

Swiss expedition

Long time no blog ....

Well, I am in Switzerland now. Locarno to be more specific. Here on a business trip for a week.

A trip that started of well in Bangalore with Air France upgrading me to premium economy. Basically means more leg room, slept very well in the flight after a long long time. Why the airlines can't provide a tad more room in economy class, I don't know. If you are any taller than 5'10'' you would know what I am talking about.

For a change my flight landed 45 mins ahead of time. Unfortunately it meant a 5.5 hour wait in Charles De Gaulle airport. Terminal G is the designated terminal for connection flights to Zurich. Not very big, but still enough room to ensure that people can remain comfortably seated. Something for Frankfurt airport to see and learn.

Swiss railway network is a work of art. Typical itinerary leaves you around 3-7 minutes to catch a connection train. And usually all of them run on time. On this particular occasion, I missed my first connection, caught my second connection , but that got delayed, which caused me to miss my third connection again. But trains run at frequent intervals, so if you miss one, usually you can catch another one in 30 mines or so.

Reached my hotel late evening on Sunday night, only to find that the elevator had broken down. Had to lug my suitcase up 4 level of stairs :-(( Shoulder and Back ache after that. Swiss hotel rooms are .... well, they are economical in terms of size. The door to my room opens in and it just about clears the foot of the bed. Had to struggle to pull my suitcase in through the narrow gap. The feeling of claustrophobia gets amplified in the shower stall. My hands are constantly banging the sides as I am trying to take a shower :(

Had a stroll outside to grab some dinner. Locarno is a tourist destination, so I am faced with this sight of couples everywhere. No one is eating alone, every restaurant is filled with families or couples. Looks very odd if I go in and sit at a table alone. So I hit the McDonald's nearby. Consistent taste around the world - consistently bad, that is. I have no idea why people find this to be tasty food !!

The sights that I saw on the train from Zurich to Locarno were good. Nice mountains, steep valleys, big lakes, mountains again, valleys, lakes, mountains, valleys, lakes …… That is all this whole country has !! But very impressive all the same ...

More on this to follow

The number one

After the farcical F1 race last weekend at Hockenheimring and a brutal press conference later ( see especially the section saying Questions from floor in this link), Felipe Massa has now come out and said he is not the number two driver in Ferrari.

Barring Massa, I am not sure how many other people in the world would share that belief. But I agree completely with the temperamental Brazilian. Sure he is not number two, Fernando Alonso is number 1 and 2 in Ferrari !!

Hope someone gives poor old Felipe a hard slap so that he wakes from his state of denial :-(

Tour de France

What better to fill the void left behind by the World cup football, Paul the Octopus , Jabulani et.al than Tour de France ??

Surely one of the purest forms of human suffering that you can witness in sports. 3 weeks of sprints, crashes, lung bursting mountain stages and exhilarating descents. I have been a follower ever since I read Lance Armstrong’s books.

Armstrong, sadly had a disastrous tour this year. But the battle between Andy Shleck and Alberto Contador has been enthralling  so far. I just witnessed a brutal attack by Shleck up the Col du Troumalet that tore up every other cyclist except Contador. After nearly 3 weeks just 8 seconds seperate them. The time trial on Saturday will be interesting. Contador is the favorite on the time trial, but this has been a tour full of surprises.

One of the things that I find very different about cycling is this concept of fairness. If the leader of a race crashes, the rest of the pack would wait for him to catch up. The concept being that Le Tour should be won by the strongest rider, not the luckiest.

The other is the total commitment of the team towards their leader. I saw Shleck’s team mates sacrificing themselves one after the other to set up a brutal pace to propel their man to the front

Both these are quite unlike any other sport that I have known.

Makes for fascinating viewing all the same ….

Life is like that

Flashback to some Friday around 6 months back. I am tossing an turning in my bed, it is 11.30 in the night. Sleep is distant. I feel restless and tense. I try to read but I cannot focus. What is happening , I wonder ?

Now back to the present. Friday evening around 9.30 pm. I am settling down in by bed. My daughter is snuggling close to me, her head on my shoulder, arm clasped across me. I look down at her and see two expectant eyes staring back at me.

“Story”, she demands.

I start off with some impromptu story, my daughter keeps giggling. I keep asking her questions during the story and she keeps responding. Suddenly there is no response to a question, I look down and see that she has fallen asleep.

I have probably mentioned this before, but the feeling of having a little one snuggle up and go to sleep in your arms is the most relaxing feeling ever !!

My bed-time story time is over, the story of my life continues. Only things seems suddenly so different from 6 months back. I cannot find a single word to describe the difference. It’s as if everything that I wished for came true … Complete, maybe that is the word, I feel complete again.

World Cup

World cup football and my daughter – 2 strong reasons that have kept me off the blogosphere.

World cup has been a pleasant surprise, I was not too sad to see Brazil and Argentina go early. I don’t like their attitude, always whining to the referee, overacting when fouled, they act more like a bunch of kindergarten students than professional football players.

So finally it is Oranje vs La Furia Roja. My prediction is for Netherlands to nick it. I like watching Spain play, but they are one dimensional. They could be choked by the Netherlands midfield. van Bommel and de Jong have been the best defensive midfielders on display this world cup.

Just a couple more hours and we will know the winner !!

Also busy with my little one. I am in charge of sending her off to school and receiving her once she comes back. A few minutes with her is the best stress reliever  ever !!

Wonderful Wuhan

June 22nd, 2010 : Wuhan, China
If Beijing revived my deeply hidden fear of skyscrapers, Wuhan bumped it up a couple of notches. The city looked every bit as big as Beijing, with insanely tall skyscrapers everywhere.

Courtesy of the late flight from Beijing, we reached there pretty late. Checked into Ramada , they upgraded me to a suite room. Very luxurious. But alas, they had to do this when my time spent in the  hotel was going to < 10 hours :-((

In the morning we ran into couple of Delhi-ites in the hotel lobby. They were from an Indian firm supplying plastic fuel tanks to variety of car manufacturers. They do manufacturing in China. Indian company, manufacturing in China, supplying parts to German and US companies. World is so small …….

The place was called optics valley, I am told that there are like zillions for optics and laser manufacturers in that area.  The “optics valley” comes from Wuhan National Lab for optoelectronics, one of the five national laboratories in China. The Laboratory is managed by Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), which has about 50,000 students !! A more comprehensive look at this impressive university is found on the following Wikipedia article. Among others, it also house the National Center for High Magnetic fields, another impressive feat of planning and Engineering. When fully commissioned, it can do pulsed fields of up to 80 Tesla, possibly the largest capability in the world

This is another thing that I notice about China, there is no chest thumping or boasting. People are quietly building up world class research, science and engineering facilities. Very focused vision, with loads of government support. There are surely lessons to be learnt from them.

To crisply summarize Wuhan – World class !!

The only downside being the Smog that hangs over the city at all times. You get an acidic sort of smell in your nose all the time too :( Massive urbanization does have its de-merits in terms of air quality.

Left in the evening from Wuhan to Nanjing, my mental image of China as a low cost manufacturing hub has rapidly altered in the past couple of days.

Let us see what Nanjing has in store

Beijng Bites

20th June
12 pm Hong Kong time: I am sitting in the massive Hong Kong airport. The approach for landing offered the most breathtaking view I have see so far from air. The Hong Kong high rise and Harbor are lovely to watch from air.

1 pm : My flight to Beijing is in couple of hours. The airport is definitely a bit warm, I am beginning to sweat slightly. 

6.30 pm : Landed in Beijing, yet another huge airport. I have been forewarned by my colleagues to ask for a hotel pickup. The cab drivers do not understand English well.

7.30 pm : I am finally out of the airport. Beijing is pretty warm. I see a lady holding up a printout with my name. I follow her to the parking lot, which is underground. Surely she won’t be able to drive a car in those heels  ???!!!  Sure enough there is a car waiting for me with a Chauffer. An Audi !! I can play football in the rear seat.

7.40 pm : We are on our way out. Already impressed by the roads. Airport is in the middle of nowhere, I can’t see anything on either side of road. No sign of the infamous Beijing smog as of yet. I am settling a bit apprehensively into my seat, I know that Beijing has lots of skyscrapers. I am mildly scared of them :-( Never been all that comfortable around skyscrapers, I don’t know why

7.55 pm : First wave of skyscrapers hit us, this is not too bad, I can hold on.

8.05 pm : We pass the Bird’s nest stadium in Beijing. Beijing looks massive and with a traffic to match its big city status. Roads look better than in the US. And the driving style worse than in India

9.00 pm : Checked into the hotel, headed out for dinner with a colleague. We go to one of these traditional Chinese places. Menu includes Chicken, beef, pork, fish, soup, noodles and rice. I decline the pork, I sample everything else. The food is very hot, I like it !!

10.30 pm : Back in my room, make a couple of calls home. Internet is not free, scandalous !! Hotel is very nice and comfortable though

21st June

7.30 am : Breakfast is not free either !! Tremendous selection for breakfast. I eat heartily.

8.30 am: We are checked out and ready for our university visit. Our colleague is held up in traffic. He stays only 5 kms away, but has taken him more than 30 mins to reach us.

9.15 am: We reach the university and start our meeting. We are served tea, black, with leaves floating at the bottom of the cup. No milk, no sugar. First sample tastes awful, manage to take in a few mouthfuls. The cup gets refilled at alarmingly regular intervals, Chinese seem to be very caring hosts !!

12.30 pm: We are off for lunch with the faculty. Lunches, I am told, are grand occasions in China. I can see why. Lots of food, wine and talking. Talking is all in Chinese, so I focus on sampling small morsels of everything. Tastes pretty decent, just looks and smells very different from what I am used to seeing everyday. The fish looks as if it has just been dunked in hot water once, almost looks alive :-(( But surprisingly taste is good.

3.00 pm : On our way to Airport, Wuhan is the next destination. Flight is delayed by almost 2 hours. I am deeply engrossed in a book that I picked up at Bangalore airport. Open : An autobiography by Andre Agassi.

Sports ?? and Indians ?? No way !!

Honduras, with a population of 8 million can qualify for world cup, not us.  We have 1000 million people in India, imagine that. 1000 million !! We can’t even get past the first round of qualifiers.

Did I hear a voice of objection ? Did someone shout, “But hey, we have Vishy Anand, who is the Chess world champion yet again”, “What about Abhinav Bhindra, gold medalist in Shooting?”, “Haven’t you heard of Geeth Sethi and Pankaj Advani, ace billiards champions ? “.

My point is all these sports are so called “stationary” sports. Any sport that requires us to get off our backsides and move around, we pretty much SUCK royally.

And please don’t mention Cricket to me. It is a more or less a stationary sport. And about 9 countries around the world play it seriously.

In the meanwhile, Switzerland, with a population of 7.8 million has defeated Spain. Slovenia has 2 million people, New Zealand has 4 million, Slovakia has 5 million.

And Mumbai alone has 13 million people.

Where are those 11 folks who can kick a @#$%^& ball ????

On Education

This is courtesy of another blog that I read often , two wonderful videos on education

Week of redemption

“All my memories from those days come gather round me
What I`d give if they could take me back in time
It almost seems like yesterday
Where do the good times go?” – Twenty years ago by Kenny Rogers

Good times are here again !! After 4 years of waiting, finally my family is coming back to be with me. June 9th is the day when I shall emerge from the ashes like a Phoenix and fly again.

Fly higher and higher, no limits now. I am floating in that unbelievable lightness that comes from a truly contented mind.

Finally my demons are vanishing and I am at peace.

May peace be with you too, wherever you are.

And may peace be with all the boy soldiers ( former and current) like Ishmael Beah, author of the gut wrenching book A long way gone : Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. One of the most shattering books I have read, I could not  sleep for a day after I read this.

Books like these can often give you a much needed perspective on what true hardship in life is.

Brownie time ..

Tea cake, Chocolate cake, Raisin cake, Nuts and raisins cake, Cashew nut cake, Pineapple cake, Chocolate chip muffins and cookies, Black forest cake, Rum and Raisin cake … Hmmm, just about enough items in my arsenal to open a bakery !! Maybe one of these days I should do so .

I had been contemplating baking a brownie for some time. I have not eaten a brownie, or if I have, I have forgotten what it tastes like. I like undertaking these kind of experiments, because one can be very liberal in the interpretation of success :-).

I required a square cake tin for the same ( don’t ask me why, almost everyone says brownie should be made in one ), a brief trip to MK retail fixed that part.

When wifey was over here couple of weeks back, she was complaining about the lack of general purpose vessels in our kitchen. However I can proudly say that there is no way she could raise the same complaint about baking vessels. Muffin trays, muffin cups, rectangular baking trays, bread box, circular baking tray, hexagonal tray, I have them all !! I have no idea why, maybe I have a bit of blind-spot when it comes to baking ….

For the recipe, my US consultant stepped up to the plate yet again with this recipe on Hershey’s site. Only alteration was to use half cup cocoa instead of one-third mentioned. I did not bother with the frosting, in the past I have failed pretty spectacularly whenever I have attempted it.

All in all the brownie came out looking decent. Maybe more of a blackie than a brownie. It crumbled somewhat towards the center and it was not very easy to extract it out of my cake tin.

Nothing extra-ordinary about the taste, I don’t think it will be one of my favorite cakes. May be the walnuts spoiled the taste some what for me, I should have used cashews instead :(

Rain, Power and me

Not only is it raining here, but it is windy like crazy. And the strange part is the rain and wind exist only for a one hour stretch in the evening. After that it is perfectly calm and bone dry. But boy, the one hour more than makes up for the remaining 23 hours of calm. It has been total mayhem for past 2 days. Trees falling, windows getting shattered, roads getting flooded and what not

Plus the small issue of lack of power of course. The merest sight of a breeze and power goes off. I am supposedly a fully qualified electrical engineer and I can offer no explanation on why this maybe the case.
Is the power switched off to prevent trees from falling and shorting the wires ? Maybe , but underground cable is not exactly rocket science technology to implement, is it ?

More sadly the lack of power brings back two painful problems
1. Since the ceiling fan does not turn, mosquitoes have a field day in attacking me. Hence I cannot sleep very well
2. I light up a mosquito coil to shoo them away, but the smoke invariably triggers an asthma attack. Which in turn again means that I cannot sleep

Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

Among these raging insomniacal days, I have somehow finished Coming back to me by Marcus Trescothick. In one word- brilliant. 

Truly eye opening account on how devastating depression can be, and also on how under-diagnosed the condition is. It is very rare for a professional sportsman (who is still an active cricketer in the county circuit) to be so open about his problems. The story of his cricket life is very well written with a touch of humor present all the time. The book won William hill sports book of the year award in 2008 and I am not surprised at all.

Muffins and me

It is high time I launch my own bakery.

I was wandering in Forum Value mall the other day when I felt like eating a muffin( or a cup cake) . Strode into Cookie Man and ordered one, only to realize on piece is  Rs.60.  Imagine that !!! And it was not all that great either,pieces of it were under-cooked.

Later on I was in Hyper City when again I saw a pack of chocolate chip muffins, 2 of them being sold for Rs.50.

And to think I am giving away mine for free to the ungrateful lot in office !! Next time I am charging heavily for my creations …..

Learn from nature

A recent visit to the Mysore Zoo triggered some thoughts in my mind. There are indeed a lot of things that we can learn from animals.

For example take the Lion. The male lion does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. All it does is sleep the whole day, the female does all the hard work. The male is not even a wage earning member of the family for God’s sake !! Yet, you could say he enjoys his life. No responsibilities, 24x 7 x 365 food and comfort guaranteed.

Male Lion’s life is not too bad eh ? yeah , yeah, i know they look royal and all that stuff. I could grow a mane too, you know :-)

Or the Hornbill, which is the state bird of Kerala. Legend says that it drinks its water directly from the rain drops. Now why do we spend so much time washing our cars ? Leave them out of the covered garages whenever it rains, let nature do the washing for you !!

Extending the same concept to human beings can result in rather objectionable odors, especially if you are in a place like Bangalore where it rarely rains. So let us leave that one alone please …

I am convinced that this is a “natural” path to follow :)

Jnanappana

No, that was not some jumble that my daughter typed, it is the name of a famous poetry book in Malayalam. More specifically, the obtuse sounding reference to this old book is in the context of the following two verses

Randu nalu dinam kodangoruthane thandilethi nadathunnathum bhavan
Malika mugalileriya mannante tholil marappu kethunnathum bhavan

The translation, again obtained from the above link, reads :

In a matter of day or two You are He, who makes them ride on the royal chair.
On the shoulder of the king who climbs to the top of palace. You are He, who places the tattered heap.

How else can I describe my state ? Till yesterday I was a king. My house was filled with laughter, people, food , action and conversation. Today there is nothing, my family has gone back after their brief vacation

On the positive side, we spent probably the happiest week ever together !!

I will get back to my reading mode again. Among other books, I have the latest collection of short stories from Archer in queue : And Thereby Hangs a Tale.

Long trip

And I am back to Bangalore, after having driven ~ 950 kms over the past 5 days.

It all started with a drive to Calicut with my parents on 1st May. The trip took longer than I planned because we took frequent breaks in between. Plus I no longer drive at the same peak speeds after an accident I had around an year back.

The road is in very good condition, except for a small section between Mysore and Nanjangud which is quite bumpy and uneven. Nanjangud to Bandipur forest is the best stretch of road. Sparse traffic, long straight sections with very good visibility. Do watch out for several unmarked humps. The forest section has its own charm due to the significant drop in temperature, we drove with our windows down at noon in the peak of summer. Still it was so cool !! All the more reason for Bangalore to actively look at increasing its tree cover.

The drive through Kerala is very scenic. Overtaking is a nightmare, owing to twisty nature of the roads. You can rarely see a 50m stretch of straight road, it always snakes around into blind corners :(

Then we went to Kuttiyadi for my cousin’s wedding on Monday. Again a 50 km drive that took me close to 1.5 hours due to the fact mentioned above !!

On the drive back on Tuesday, I had my wife, kid, sister, brother-in-law and niece for company. We took one day break in Mysore and did some sightseeing there.

The Mysore zoo is a must visit for folks with young kids. Be prepared to spend half a day there if you are planning to cover it by walking as we did. You have to walk close to 3 kms !!

My favs were the Hornbill, Sarus crane ( which is the world’s tallest flying bird, a fact that I did not know till now) and the Royal Bengal Tiger. I don’t know who named the Lion as the king of animals, for me it has to be Tiger without a shadow of doubt !!.

Reached back in Bangalore yesterday evening. And I am sick of the sight of my car already :-( Driving in peak summer is not too much fun.

Whipped cream miseries

Definition of Whipped cream : thick cream that has had air incorporated into it by rapid beating

Sounds reasonable, so what is the big deal ???

The big deal is that once you keep whipping the cream, it turns thicker and thicker. There is a certain thickness level, which once when crossed WILL CAUSE RAPID CONVERSION OF CREAM TO BUTTER !!! So instead of having nice whipped cream to decorate my pineapple cake, I had BUTTER .

&^%$#*@

Needless to say, the icing had a slightly odd taste, completely masking the excellent pineapple cake underneath.

Icing and decoration continue to be development needs for me.

Sighhhhh, when will I learn all this ????

Jose again …

Jose Mourinho is back after his Inter Milan won 3-1 against Barcelona in the first leg of their champions league semi-final. When asked by a journalist about some petty complaints that Barcelona had about the loss, he answered

“The way they are, tomorrow we will probably read I am to blame for the volcano. Maybe it is true. Maybe I have a friend in the volcano and I am responsible for that."

Barcelona , of course had to take a long bus journey to Inter to play their match because all flights were canceled due to volcanic ash

I like this guy !!

And its over

Gone are the days when I can come back home , switch on the TV and be entertained by a mindless exhibition of slogging called T20. The end of IPL-3 has left a vacuum in my life, one that I am trying to fill with the new season of Indian Idol :-)

Yesterday’s final was the true demonstration of why Tendulkar (who no doubt of the greatest batsman India has ever produced) is no more than a very average captain. A very average captain, whose stock has been considerably inflated by two of his long time admirers in commentary box – Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar.

Baffling choices in batting order. MI lost because of those choices and also in no small measure due to fairly pedestrian batting by Tendulkar and Abhishek Nayar. Harbhajan and Nayar are better players than Duminy and Pollard ?? Which book of cricket says that ?

Anyway it is wonderfully easy to be an arm-chair critic , is it not  ? :)

PV the philosopher

I might have mentioned earlier that expectation may indeed be the root cause of many miseries.

Judging others by how you might have responded to something is an equally precarious path. A path that I have tread so often in the past, somehow the lessons from that are never learnt.

Maybe life is like that, a few lessons are repeated, yet you do not learn. If all of us learnt from our mistakes and never repeated them, would the world be a better place ? Or would it be far worse off ?

Whatever that maybe, nothing better than an empty house, cloudy weather and indifferent mood to unleash the philosopher in you.

Stay tuned for more PV-isms :-)

A good blog

If you are keen follower of football , especially the English Premier League, be sure to read Chris Charle’s Blog on BBC. Especially look at the Quotes of the week section.

The irrepressible Roy Keane came up with this during the past week :
"Attempts on goal is like going to a nightclub. You could speak to 50 girls but if you're going home on your own, it's no good, is it? You could only speak to one and go home with her!"
Roy Keane's dating tips and Ipswich's scoring issues!

And one of the reason why so many of us love The Special One : Jose Mourinho is captured in the quote below. This was just before the Champions league match between Mourinho’s Inter Milan and Chelsea, the club he formerly managed.
 "Before the game I know everybody and I love them, and after the game I know everybody and I love them - for 90 minutes I know nobody." 
The one and only Jose Mourinho on his return to Chelsea
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrischarles/2010/03/quotes_of_the_week_17.html)

Also if you are looking at a humorous round up of the weeks football action, you could do a lot worse than Robbo Robson’s blog.

Non football lovers, please excuse :-)

When everything else fails …

…………… try reading. Always a good remedy to unwind and relax. Especially when a weekend looms where friends are unreachable or unresponsive. Everyone has their own lives to live, which is why books are such a reliable backup.

Well, let me try and recap my last 3 books. First was 2 states : The story of my marriage by Chetan Bhagat. Contains plenty of pot shots at Tamilians, with a few unkind portrayals of Punjabis too thrown in. But overall he is not far from truth. There is very little in common between North and South, however hard you may try to prove otherwise. The book is very light to read and reasonably entertaining.

Another one that I read was Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton ( may his soul R-I-P). Quite a deviation from the usual science thrillers that he writes. Story of a band of pirates around 17th century. For me it is more of a portrayal of super-heroes who are indestructible.  Pretty weak by Crichton’s standards. Not a bad read, but not a recommended one by me for sure

Most recent one was Arvind Adiga’s - Between Assassinations. Quite well written, very simple stories. There is an underlying anger or frustration that comes through in each one of them. I am yet to read the 2008 Man Booker prize winner – The White Tiger, I am  tempted to after this book.

There seems to be quite a lot of very good Indian authors around. I must read more of them.

IPL and entertainment

The IPL has been entertaining me on most days. More than the cricket, I have been impressed with the Adidas ads on cricket. Here are all the three, in descending order of my liking. The music score at the end adds that extra punch

The bowler
He can hit the ball for an eight. He can bat till the pitch grows grass. His coach loves him, my coach loves him. He is strong off the front foot, he is strong off the back foot. He is his team’s best batsman

But right now …. He is in my way

The fielder
I can’t sing. I can’t dance. I can’t climb up mountains. I can’t ride a horse. I can’t swim. I can’t cook.

But sometimes …… I can fly

The batsman
Good advice, bad advice, captain’s advice, coach’s advice, stranger’s advice, dressing room advice, barber shop advice.

But my bat … it is Deaf

Enough of this nonsense

I am tired of hearing “breaking news” about Sania Mirza and Shoaib Malik. I don’t care if they get married or not, it is time for the media circus to end.

Could not care less if Sania went and married an Orangutan instead. Considering the fact that her fiancé has in the past married a woman over phone after seeing her photo, some may argue that in terms of intellectual capacity Orangutan may score slightly better than her present choice.

But that is beside the point. Two adults should have the freedom to do what they want their lives without the disgusting behavior (bordering on Voyeurism) by our media.

Shiv Sena also has made some hay while the sun shined, with Bal Thackeray claiming Sania would no longer be an Indian if she married Shoaib. Possibly he has overlooked that fact that Shoaib had married Ayesha Siddiqui first, who is an Indian. I don’t recall him writing an article saying Ayesha is no longer Indian, maybe someone can refresh my memory.

Happy Birthday and other things

Wifey’s b’day today. As usual I am missing in action. Nothing new there.

My bad time has lingered onto to the current week. Again nothing much new there.

Slept for like 4 hours each of the past 4-5 days, nothing at all new there.

Team dinners and outings resulted in me eating out 4 nights out of 5 this week. Well, there is something new there !!!

Pardon me, I can no longer hold on to a thought, they are escaping from my mind at the rate of knots.

My dreams in the past few days include an attempted murder by me. I distinctly remember pumping several bullets into some unknown person. And 5 minutes later, he was knocking on my door …….. Apparently I was not successful.

How bad is life when you begin to suck in your dreams too ??????

Existence is often pointless, yet we continue to do so. Why that is so is one must be one of the most mysterious facets of life.

Its Biriyani time

After enduring one of the worst weeks in my recent memory in terms of up and down moods, I decided cooking may not be a bad diversion to undertake. Of course I needed something substantially challenging to distract me. Chicken Biriyani fit the bill perfectly.

Now I don’t cook anything remotely like this at home, hence I had to spend close to 30 minutes analyzing the recipe ( very detailed one too ) sent across by my US consultant. After a deep dive assessment, I concluded that a major shopping expedition was the order of the day. All I seemed to have at home was Rice, chilly powder and salt !!

And yes, I also had a few wilted out curry leaves in my fridge, some of them seemed to have a rather bright green tinge to them. Any of them salvageable, perhaps ? A closer inspection revealed without a shadow of doubt that the greenness was due to my familiar adversary – fungus. A deeper inspection of my fridge revealed several more life forms, at the mere sight of which many a human being might have fainted. The sticker saying “Danger: Men Cooking” is not stuck on my fridge without reason :-) Had to undertake a ruthless purging of my fridge before I proceeded any further.

Now this unexpected task being complete, off I went to the market. Chicken, biriyani masala, poppy seeds, coriander leaves, mint leaves, curry leaves, green chillies …. The list was endless. After 2 hours of zipping into multiple shops, I was ready with all the ingredients. A brief moment of panic occurred in between when I realized I had no clue what  the Indian equivalent of mint leaves was. The girl in reliance fresh was clueless. I had to invoke ‘phone-a-punjabi-friend’ option and was promptly told to look for Pudina.

I am telling you, this was one of the messiest dishes I made ever. The chicken had to marinated in some masala, onions had to be fried, tomatoes had to be added, cashew nuts had to be fried as well, some more onions had to be caramelized , rice had to be cooked, several other pastes involving all kinds of leaves, poppy seeds, ginger , garlic etc had to be ground .. Phew, a lot of work ..

But the master chef is not one who shies away from a bit of hard labor, especially if the promise of a spectacular new dish looms.

To be frank ( which I am not, I am Pradeep) I ran into some trouble while making it. I had doubts on how exactly to caramelize the onions [you keep on frying them for a long time, increase heat towards end] and whether it is ok to puree tomato and use it rather than use the small pieces, which I hate [finally used the puree]. I made the dish in the afternoon, so it would have been well past midnight for my US consultant. I tried my local consultant, but quite unsurprisingly she was found to be shamelessly sleeping like a log and unresponsive. Thankfully my engineering approximations caused no harm to the end product.

Took me well over 2 hours to make. Was it worth all the effort ? Well, you look and tell me ….

Ended up with a touch less salt. Always better to be in that position than land up with more salt !!

Tasted good to me… Fully dedicated to US consultant for the excellent detailed recipe.

Well, did that success help my mood ? I don’t know, I don’t care.

I have tasted success in first attempt, Yipppeeeeeeeeeee ….

Now that means, I have to find a new project. Wonder what I should try next ?

What the dog saw

Thus is titled Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book. I don’t know about the dog, but what I see is a very poorly written book. It is almost as if Gladwell decided “Alright, I have had a good run with 3 decent books, let me put out a crappy one now and see how many people  fall for it”.

I had some apprehensions when I read Outliers, Gladwell seemed to be presenting fairly obvious principles in a different manner, so that suddenly they seem like startling truths. However his presentation was good and the book was pleasant to read

This is not true of What the dog Saw. The book offers no insights. I started yawning from page one and the feeling lasted throughout the book. I heard him described in some quarters as one of World’s most influential thinkers. I don’t consider him as a thinker, he is more a collector of interesting facts and statistics.

At the other end of the spectrum, I read Dork: The Incredible Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese by Sidin Vadukut. The story of a mediocre MBA graduate’s life in a mediocre consulting firm. Very light to read and absolutely hilarious. I thoroughly enjoyed it !!

………………………………….

The promise of a happy tomorrow does not always help me deal with the present.

A chance meeting with a few friends having a good time with their families is all it takes to set me off sometimes. And it is not as if each time I meet a friend with family it happens, the patterns are too unpredictable.

Perhaps Paulo Coelho is right when he says "It's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for".

Right now I am losing all my battles, in a couple of months maybe I will start winning them again.

“The door cracks open, but there's no sun shining through
Black heart scarring darker still, but there's no sun shining through
No, there's no sun shining through
No, there's no sun shining

What I've felt, what I've known
Turn the pages, turn the stone
Behind the door, should I open it for you?

What I've felt, what I've known
Sick and tired, I stand alone
Could you be there?, 'cause I'm the one who waits for you
Or are you unforgiven too?” – from Unforgiven 2 by Metallica

More reflections on volunteering

The more I volunteer, the more disturbed I become.

I am disturbed at how poor our education system has become

I am disturbed at the ever increasing gulf between haves and have-nots. I don’t see how every they are going to come close :-((

I am disturbed that not enough is being done. There are so many of us who can help, yet so few are willing to

I am disturbed when I witness cases of poverty, where people are struggling to make ends meet or afford decent education for their kids. How can this happen in any society ?

I am disappointed at the indifference shown by some of my fellow volunteers. They skip classes, they arrive for classes late, they volunteer for teaching maybe once a quarter. I see lot of talkers, I don’t see a whole lot of doers.

I am however thankful to Lions Club Whitefield for their wonderful support to the computer education initiative

I still continue to miss my good old EOTO days though. Maybe the good days are just around the corner here too ….

I think the problem may be that far too many people think about this as a hobby that they do whenever they get some time.  I think that for you to be effective, you have to treat is as seriously as a full time job.

Well , who listens to me anyway? Maybe I am just a Dinosaur waiting for extinction ….

New venture

After the run-away success of PV cabs, PV bakery and PV kitchens, PV group is proud to announce the launch of PV wines. First samples are available for tasting for privileged customers, strictly on an invitation only basis.

PV wines is also actively seeking wine tasters to give feedback on these creations. As readers maybe aware, PV groups CEO is not exactly what you may describe as a ‘Spiritual’ person. Hence he is unable to comment with any authority on the actual quality of the wine.

PV group is exploring the option of kick-starting PV distilleries, interested parties may please contact PV :-)

Celebrities and stupidity

Recent news that I have read seems to suggest that several celebrities are out to make an ass of themselves

Take Aamir Khan for example. Superbly talented actor no doubt, but surely he has some brain deficiency. How else do you describe his comment that songs become popular because of the actor on which the song is picturised on ?? No, not the lyrics, not the melody, not the singer who rendered the song, just the actor.

That is really the dumbest statement I have heard (celebrity or otherwise) in a long long time. I rarely watch Hindi movies, but I regularly listen to Hindi songs. I don’t have a clue on whom they have been picturised on, but still I love several of them. How do you explain that ?

And then there is this raging controversy in Malayalam cinema. Total war of words between Mohanlal, Mammooty , Thilakan and god forbid – Sukumar Azheekode. I have no idea how the latter decided to get involved in this controversy. Though I do agree with some things that he said, especially the one saying it is high time Mohanlal (52 years old) and Mammootty (60 years old) stopped acting in romantic hero type roles. They were acting in those roles when I was a kid, now I have a kid, they are still acting in the same roles !! Change please, there is surely enough young talent out there.

One “celebrity” politician who continues to entertain is Laloo Prasad Yadav who came up with this Gem after Mamta Banerjee’s and  Pranab Mukherjee’s budget presentations : “Pehle didi ne maar diya, ab dada ne!”

Now this is one guy who clearly knows what he is talking about :)

India 4 – Pakistan 1

No other score line in this hockey world cup matters. I don’t care if we lose all the remaining matches.

Over the years there has been lot of talk about how these matches have become less edgy and how the countries no longer have the same animosity towards each other.

I beg to differ. As a spectator, it still means the same to me as it did maybe 15 years ago. If anything, I enjoy these victories more now than in the past !!

And I also disagree with the notion that Sports and Politics are two different things. They cannot be treated separately. How can 11 men representing the nation of India play as if “All is Well”, when at the back of their minds they know that the nation the other 11 men are representing has harbored terrorists who have repeatedly killed innocent citizens of India ? Un-thinkable for me.

Never mind that we got murdered in the next match against Aussies, we have won the match that counts :-))

Whining about Wine

My wine is progressing nicely, the color looks good, the aroma is ok , the taste seems fine.

Wait a minute …………. There is something seriously wrong with the previous sentence !!

What is wrong is the sad fact that I have no means to judge whether my wine is turning out well or not :-((( I don’t know what it should taste or smell like, all i have is a rough idea of what it should look like. Unfortunately that knowledge is quite useless as the color is naturally acquired when you make wine with red grapes. Yeah, I do sip a bit of wine around Christmas, but once a year is not enough for you to remember the taste !!

Looks like I will have to unleash a bottle of it on my usual Guinea pig :-) [ a.k.a North Indian cooking consultant / Punjabi bride ] What is definitely on the positive side for me is that my Guinea pig has absolutely no clue what it is supposed to taste like either :-)) I am sure my US based consultant could have easily polished off a bottle or two and given me some expert tips as well. But alas, that is not an option for me right now :-((

It definitely looks as if Whining is more of my specialty, not Wining !!

Eyes of steel

As usual , I was driving around aimlessly through Bangalore streets in my trusty WagonR. Lots of thoughts swirling through my mind, when somehow this image drifted in from my memory.

It was from a world cup football match that I saw some years back. The close-up image of Francesco Totti’s eyes as he lined up to take a last minute penalty kick in a world cup match against Australia. See from 00:40 on in the video below

 
How do you describe this look ? Steely determination ? Ruthlessness ? Aggression ? I don’t know. The moment I saw the look ( I am sure a lot of others felt the same too ), I just knew that he was going to score.

The image has somehow lingered on in my mind ever since. Today was the day when I finally Googled and saw the images and videos once more :-))

Yawnnnn …..

Shiva Sena is threatening to disrupt yet another movie, Muthalik threatens to disrupt Valentine’s day again and one more weekend looms for me with nothing to do ….

What else is new ?

Nothing much. I have been on almost full time PV cabs duty, must have covered 300+ kms over the past week to all parts of Bangalore.  Malleshwaram, KR market, BIAL , Forum value mall : you name it.

Also finally managed to kick start my home wine experiment, will know the results in 21 days or so :-) Hopefully it will come out ok.

Been feeling a bit low also of late. Though some people may suggest that I might as well add that to the “what else is new ?” list.

Paulo Coelho on Friendship

Found this lovely little story on Paulo Coelho’s blog

Once upon a time there was a poor but very brave man called Ali. He worked for Ammar, a rich old merchant.

One winter’s night Ammar said: “nobody can spend a night like this on top of the mountain without a blanket or food. But you need money, and if you can manage to do that you will receive a great reward. If you don’t, you will work for thirty days without pay”.

Ali answered: “tomorrow I shall do this test”.

But when he left the shop, he saw that a really icy wind was blowing and became scared, so he decided to ask his best friend, Aydi, if it was crazy of him to accept that bet.

After reflecting a while, Aydi answered: “I shall help you. Tomorrow, when you are at the top of the mountain, look ahead. I will be on the top of the mountain next to yours, where I will spend the whole night with a bonfire lit for you. You look at the fire and think about our friendship – that will keep you warm. You will manage, and later on I shall ask you something in return.”

Ali won the test, got the money, and went to his friend’s house: “You told me you wanted some payment.”

Aydi answered: ”Yes, but it isn’t money. Promise that if at any time a cold wind passes through my life, you will light the fire of friendship for me.”

Finally mastered

Puttu-Cherupayar curry has long been in my list of items that I wanted to master. Casual readers of my blog might remember that I had not exactly covered myself in glory during my fist attempt

Every subsequent try, I was somewhere within the ball park. Either the flavor of the curry would go missing. Or the Puttu would either be in complete powder form or a sticky gluey mass.

After numerous trial and errors and consultations with domain experts, I can finally declare a Level-1 mastery on this topic !!

Puttu , I have realized is almost all about the water content in the flour. Too much and you have a lumpy solid mass, too less and it crumbles off to powder. Steaming time is also an important factor, but this is relatively easier to gauge. 
Cherupayar curry flavor comes almost exclusively from the ground coconut-cumin seed paste. Plus the seasoning with curry leaves, mustard and red chilies helps a lot !!

See the mouth watering samples below. This time I loved the taste myself :-)

Chinese new year and me

In case you felt bad after reading my previous post, I have to tell you that I get this feeling that 2010 is definitely going to be my year.

“Unpredictable, rebellious, colorful, powerful, passionate, daring, impulsive, vigorous, stimulating, sincere, affectionate, humanitarian, generous. Can be restless, reckless, impatient, quick-tempered, obstinate, selfish, aggressive, unpredictable.”

Did not get it ?

2010 is the year of the Tiger according to Chinese Zodiac. Most definitely my year :-)

A heart breaking good bye

My daughter is settled nicely in the back seat of the car with my wife. They have come to see me off at the bus station. My suitcase is in the backseat of the car.

I don’t want to leave, I desperately want to stay, however I cannot show too much emotion as it upsets everyone else. I walk over to the private bus operator’s office , collect my ticket and slowly walk back to my car. It is time for me to leave again.

I open the back door to take out my suitcase. Two tiny hands clamp on the suitcase in defiance. “I will not let you take this suitcase”, my little one says playfully. She knows I have to leave, but in her eyes I see the small ray of hope that maybe Daddy can stay back for one more day. Maybe just for this time ………

I have to disappoint her yet again

I pull out my suitcase, say my bye bye and walk back towards my bus. As the car recedes off into the distance, I see my daughter and wife waving me farewell.

My daughter is at an age where she understands. She does not throw tantrums, she knows that I am going to be back in couple of weeks time. Yet I see the sorrow in her eyes, I know she is going to miss me. I also know that she is probably crying in the car now.

What in the world could be worth all this , I wonder ..

A few more months and I shall live again !!

Black forest cake and a Teetotaler

I was getting bored of my cake variations. “Change” was the cry from within and indeed from my guinea pigs in office !!

Black forest cake appealed to me greatly. Now, I am not a big fan of black forest, but the technical challenges were daunting. You have to make multiple layers of cake, create the icing and the ingredients are different. What is a Master Chef’s life without a few challenges ?

The initial challenge was the recipe. After 30 mins of intense googling, I found a couple of recipes that seemed manageable. However an obstacle of gigantic proportion loomed. All recipes required the use of Rum. I am strict non-alcoholic - a statement that is quite often met with stares and shouts of disbelief. “What ? YOU don’t drink ????”. As James Herriot might say, its a rum ’un :-) I must add I am not averse to an occasional glass of wine [ occasional = once or twice per year ], but that is where I stop.

Now how and where do I buy Rum from? Again some research showed me that there a liquor chain called Madhuloka which has presence in almost all the malls across Bangalore. The nearest one I could find was in Cosmos mall. So off I went in search of Rum.

The shop itself looked impressive and there was a decent crowd inside. Of course, I did not want to ask for Rum and have the salesman laugh at me. Because I don’t even know if it can be found in shops like these. Or else if Rum is colloquial term and if the liquor buffs call it something else. I don’t even know its color for God’s sake !!

So I did what I hoped a confident alcoholic would do. I walked around the aisles, inspecting a few bottles, looking as if I have been around a million times. Alas, no sigh of Rum. I found Vodka, Wine, Whiskey and Beer but no Rum. A second round of inspection followed. This time much slower, as if I am intensely debating what to buy. And success !! I found the light green colored Bacardi bottles in one corner. I picked the smallest one, I think it was around 250 ml

Smoothly proceeded to checkout counter, with mild beads of perspiration on my fore-head. My first ever purchase of alcohol !! And I am over thirty !! Is that good or bad ? Who knows :-)

“Just the one bottle , sir ? “ The man behind the counter asks. Oh boy, I must be looking like a raging alcoholic after all :-((
“New year resolution, buddy”, I am tempted to answer back. Instead, I take my bottle of Rum and quietly slip away. [PS : Quarter liter is not enough ?? how much do normal people drink ? One liter ? I am totally stumped ]

The cake itself was a rather painful affair, with a lot of work, the end result is shown below

Now the critics may say it looks as if some one ate cherries with milk and threw up on top of my cake. But with no icing tools at my disposal, this is the best I could do :-)

Stay tuned for more experimentations, this time hopefully with no alcohol involved !!

The dot does not matter !!

Everyday I learn something new from the Internet. The latest being that the dots in your gmail ID simply does not matter. I was getting a lot of emails that was addressed to a Gmail ID similar to mine, but with a missing dot [ . ]. I was convinced that there was some error with Gmail.

Excerpt from the above article says

Gmail doesn't recognize dots as characters within usernames, you can add or remove the dots from a Gmail address without changing the actual destination address; they'll all go to your inbox, and only yours. In short:

• homerjsimpson@gmail.com = hom.er.j.sim.ps.on@gmail.com
• homerjsimpson@gmail.com = HOMERJSIMPSON@gmail.com
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This was definitely news for me !!

Rava dosa

In case you were wondering, The Master Chef is still pretty active in the kitchen.

The most recent grand success [ just a couple of hours old] being Rava Dosa. Just finished eating 5 of those :-). This time I followed an online recipe that I found from YouTube

Ended up using a bit too much of green chilly, actually this lot of green chillies I have is a bit hotter than normal. Whole mouth feels as if it is on fire, even after a few liters of water and plenty of sugar !!

What I love about this is that there is no fermentation time. Mix the batter and you are ready to go !!

Had some good success with a Black Forest cake too, more on that later …..