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 :-))