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 :(

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.

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 ?

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 !!

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.”

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 !!

Me , myself and Pradeep

The past few days have not been good. First my family went back to Calicut on Wednesday night . This time they had come here to secure my daughter’s school admission for June next year. We finally got her admitted to VIBGYOR high after considerable debate. Seems like a good school. Only time will tell if we are good enough parents to make sure our little one gets proper values and education.

After my family went back, I slipped into one of my customary moody state of minds.  I am usually very silent and irritable when in this mood. My food habits become very irregular and I am usually a bit curt or even rude. I can feel the transformation signs, but sadly there are very few things I can do to control them. The only thing that has worked for me is to brood a couple of days then get back to normal. It works in a certain time cycle, I cannot accelerate or decelerate the process !!

Very frustrating, especially because I realize I am upsetting a lot of my friends when I go into this shell.  But hopefully this is a part of life that will be gone forever once my family joins me in a few months. What if I lose a few battles, I will win the war for sure !!

Then I decided to foolishly volunteer for doing some wall scrubbing and painting, for a moment forgetting my old friend – Asthma. That friend does not take forgetfulness very lightly , and I was punished heavily for my indiscretion. The dust and turpentine smell was a bit too much for me to handle and I was out for close to 3 days before I could raise my head somewhat. 

So rearing my head back up again slowly now. On the prowl for a few books to read.

Master chef loses his golden touch

Well, the heading puts it rather mildly. I am having a pretty poor run of results in cooking. All started of with my birthday

Episode –1 : Killer Coconut
Dosa-Chutney is one of my favorites, so what better dish to have on birthday night ? Except for the small fact that I actually left the coconut that I grated the previous day outside the fridge by mistake. I had no spare coconut, so birthday night was spent as usual with a tall glass of cold water :-(

Episode-2: Old man and the porotta
Birthday was a washout but I was determined to eat something nice at least the next day. Went to MK retail, brought some chicken and gravy paste and made a Kolhapuri chicken curry. Kerala porotta(paratha) goes very well with spicy chicken curries. I eagerly opened my fridge to heat up some ready to eat porottas. To my dismay I realized that I had forgotten to stock those. Brain degeneration due to old age, I guess. So this time I had chicken gravy, but no porottas :-( Summary : No food

Episode-3: Revenge of the prawns
Resolve grew stronger when weekend arrived. Saturday saw yet another trip to MK retail, this time I returned with some frozen prawns, determined to make a dry type prawn masala. Marination of prawns went well, the masala came out looking nice and aromatic. All that was left was to mix the prawns in the masala and let it simmer for 20-25 minutes.
Happily I kept it in a closed vessel and went off to do some Facebook-ing on my computer. Returned back 20 mins later to find acrid smell and smoke spreading through the kitchen.  I had forgotten to put the gas on low flame :-((( All that was left was a deep black charred mass .. Siggghhhhhhhh .
Summary : No food

Episode 4: Return of the hogger
Thankfully that was Diwali day and I was saved by invitations from Daya and Chatter Box !!. Massive hogging sessions in the evenings offset the losses of previous days :-). Had a really nice time, bursting crackers, lighting Diyas, attending prayer , eating good food and having nice company on weekends for a change. Felt so happy when I got back home that I celebrated it by sleeping most of Sunday :) Life was indeed looking great !!

Episode 5: The final nail in the coffin
The next weekend arrived and I had to do something to keep from starving. Decided to fall back upon a tried and tested item – Appam. Now you may say that I should have seen it coming, but frankly I did not. Appam’s came out disastrous. They were refusing to spread on my non stick pan, and even when I could get the batter to spread, it was forming lumps all over !! :-(( This time I was so hungry that I had to eat up all the pathetic creations.

For the next 3 days my family is going to be here, so maybe a short break would help restore my confidence.

Extended service mode of PV cabs

Current and past users of PV cabs would be delighted to know that pickup from Railway station and drop to hotel is an additional service being offered at no cost.

Under special circumstances, PV cabs driver can also double up as porter. Service currently on offer only for below cubicle height population :-))

Stay tuned for further enhancements in services

CEO
PV Cabs

Midnight ramblings

Eat when your stomach tells you, work when your heart tells you, sleep when your eyes tell you – I am sure I have read something to this effect sometime back.

What if stomach, heart and eyes tell you nothing ?????????????? Systemic hartal has hit me now !! :-) Just in a dazed state, completely switched off ..

I have initiated daily video conference calls with my family since my last trip home. Nothing beats being there in person , of course, but this comes pretty close. What I really need is a Telepresence link with home :-)

Finally wifey has got posted in Calicut Medical College itself, has been a major relief !! The first order posted her in Trichur, thankfully the officials were sympathetic to our plight and put her back in Calicut. I had external influence of course -- prayer support from two of my friends :-)) I am sure that is what made the difference finally..

Hmmm. I would have thought that with less than a year to go before we unite again, I would have felt happier. But the mind does not seem to accept it as “just one more year to go”. It is stuck  in “STILL one more year to go” mode. I suppose if I have survived three, I can survive one more.

Alive and kicking still, Don’t ask what is it that I am kicking :-)

And nope, no plans to kick the bucket anytime soon. Sorry to disappoint you all, my random thoughts still have a long way to go ;)

Miles to go before I sleep ……… [ Not really, the bed is right behind me. But what the heck, it felt like a nice line to end the blog]

Kheer / Payasam attempt

Last Sunday was the so called ‘Friendship day’. The sheer variety of these “days” never ceases to amaze me. Father’s day, mother’s day, valentine’s day, friendship day ….

And tomorrow happens to be the day every single Indian male dreads : Raksha bandhan !! Thankfully this one has been never a big celebration in South India ;-)

A weekend experiment in payasam (kheer) landed in predictable disaster and violent temper surges. :-((

It started off quite well, the semiya payasam was smelling good and consistency seemed decent. I had a cup after making it and it tasted quite good.

But once I left if outside for couple of hours, the semiya somehow seemed to absorb lot of the liquid. The end result was a near solid lumpy mass.I tried to rescue the situation by adding more milk and boiling it further. That worked like a charm for a while. Only problem was that it returned to its original solid state once I refrigerated it. &*#&@

It just refused to return to a liquid form even after I heated it. The re-heating attempt happened late at night when I was already pretty hungry. So naturally I was on a short fuse and violently dumped the solid payasam down my garbage bin.

Yet another experiment bites the dust. I guess next time I should remember not to let the milk thicken so much …..

Flower show

As I mentioned earlier, today was the day of flower show competition in our office.

Here is our three member team’s creation, what do you think ?

Update on 3rd August : We won the second prize !!

Water under the bridge

There are a lot of things that I prefer not to write about, just treating those as more water under the bridge. I have to do so , if I hope to retain my sanity. Times of extreme trial, when your faith and belief gets questioned severely.

I shall survive again, no doubt :-)

Not a good time to be hitting me with motivational quotes, I can tell you that much !! I get brutally violent these days when I see quotes like “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”. Ain’t no such thing in life

I have started becoming more active on Facebook and Twitter these days as compared to Orkut. Twitter, mainly because I can read the updates from folks like Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, Ruebens Barrichello etc by just signing up as their follower !! I like the simple no-nonsense interface too, reminds you so much of Google.

Somehow, I have been signed up for a flower show competition being held in office tomorrow by Chatter Box. Senior being one of the other helpless team members. Two key learnings so far

• Flower show does not mean wearing a hibiscus over your ear and standing at the display. Somehow that sounded a lot more fun ….
• Cauli-flower does not count as a flower. This is an outrage, I must say !! Why not ?? It looks like a flower, at least

It would be evident to the casual observer that I am clue-less about the concept. Let us see how it goes tomorrow :-)

A different role

Past week saw me donning a different hat again, this time that of a porter. Well, not really :-)) I was just coordinating the shipment of household goods from Bangalore to Kerala for a friend.

Invariably the shifters are never on time, the supervisors are always stuck in traffic and there is some last minute hassle or the other. A similar sequence of events saw me stuck at the shifter warehouse for far longer than I anticipated. The end result being a Schumacheresque dash through Bangalore traffic to reach office just in time for a 6 pm teleconference !!

The job is pretty similar to that of driving coaching, not much upside, plenty of downside :-(( I am becoming a sort of specialist in these kinds of tasks .

Was not keeping especially well during the past week either. Heavy chest congestion has reduced me to a leisurely walking speed. Anything more than that results in coughing and asthma !!

Bad luck with books continue after a mind-numbingly boring book called False Economy:A Surprising Economic History of the World by Alan Beattie. The author is hung up on his own greatness and the sentences are maddeningly long and meaningless. The outer cover makes tall claims, inside is all hollow. Shockingly poorly written, I do not know how this escaped the sword of the book editor. Maybe there is no such thing as an editor these days. This is another book that I won’t bother to finish, simply because it is not worth it.

Just came back from a drive across Bangalore, was feeling very downcast sitting at home. Reached back in time to catch the last few moments of Federer-Roddick final. I was backing Roddick to win :-(( Great match, nonetheless.

Hamlet and an empty stomach

To be or not to be, that is the question

Well maybe for Hamlet that is the question, for me it is more like To cook or not to cook ……

As any normal human being, I am quite hungry and tired by the time I get back from work. But often I do not feel like eating anything and go to bed on a near empty stomach. Now why is that I don’t feel like eating ?

Quote : “Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man who has rationalized his emotions”. I am not a Dangerous man, hence I cannot logically explain my feelings, hence I don’t eat.

Can you ever have any doubt that I live by Cogito Ergo Sum ? ;)

My random thoughts are getting really random , aren’t they ?

Well , for the record, I am not drunk nor do I take drugs, lest your thoughts proceed in that manner !!

On a more normal note, I watched Barcelona annihilate Manchester United in yesterday’s champion’s league final. Not very unlike a Maruti 800 going head to head with a Ferrari !! There are indeed few better sights in football than that of Barcelona midfield going at full steam at the opponents.

On the personal front, I just feel moody and restless. All friends have ‘deserted ‘ [ pun intended in some cases ..] , so I end up mumbling to myself most of the time.

If not for Cogito Ergo Sum, how would I even know I exist ?

Or a better question right now might be , is there a point in existence ?? :-((

Does an empty stomach make you a philosopher may be another relevant question. Wonder if Socrates could cook …….

All righty, this is getting too random even for me. So signing off for now.

The humble passenger blog

How would you commute to work if your car were out for repairs for close to a week ?
(a) Walk to office
(b) Take an auto
(c) Take a cab
(d) Take a bus
(e) Take a lift from your friend

Asthma rules out ‘a’ & ‘b’, depleted condition of wallet rules out ‘c’ and the desire not to lose wallet via pickpocket rules out ‘d’. So pretty much option ‘e’ is the only one left .

Well, what’s so bad about ‘e’ ??

Nothing, apart from that fact that a few nightmares from the past need to be relived. Beggars cannot be choosers, they say. And so the beggar began his adventures again :-)

Pickup happens on outer ring road at around 8 am. First thing that I notice is 400% increase in driving aggression level of my former mentee. Lanes are being switched needlessly and at high speeds. Couple of deep breaths and I calm down. Pulse rate around 95 / min

A sharp switch from left to right lane at 80 kms /hr , narrowly missing the back of a van ahead. A cold sweat begins to run down the back of my neck. Heart rate approaching 150 per min

A poor two wheeler guy is slowing down in front of us to get over a speed breaker. We are approaching him at 60km/hr. My driver has not seen the hump.

“What ?????? wait !!!! slowdown !!! there is a hump !!!! you’ll hit him ……. oh my god , i’m still too young to die !! “ pulse is at 280 per min

Sharp 90 degree twist to right, missing the two wheeler guy by the merest whisker, flying over the hump violently, and somehow managing to escape the traffic on our right. We were pretty close to hitting escape velocity and going into a geo-stationary orbit around the earth too.

A quote reads : “A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice”. Hmmm, the next time around, I shall stick to the advice.

PS : As usual, a few creative liberties have been taken in the description of some of the incidents ;-)

A punjabi wedding : Part-4

Finally around 11 p.m there is a murmur around the place that the bride has arrived. Sure enough I see my friend covered in a dark maroon dress [ I don't know what it is called ;), I think it is a Lehanga ], making a very slow progression towards the side of the stage for a photography section.

Why so slow , you might ask ?

For starters, I am told that the dress weighed around 8 kilos. The dress is also long, so it sort of flows below her feet. Somebody has to lift the dress a bit for her to walk . The third factor is of course the absurdly tall heels , which she was wearing in a desperate attempt to hide the fact that she is vertically challenged :-). After the photo session, she proceeded to hide a room in the farm.

Meanwhile we heard some excitement on the road outside, time was around 11.45 pm . The baraat party was just about visible on the road now. We could hear the loud music and see the bright lights. I could see lot of colored umbrellas also as part of the baraat. There was of-course the customary horse driven chariot too. We were not allowed to see it in too much detail as all the bride's party were asked to scoot inside the farm and stand behind a tape drawn across the entrance. Again the fear of doing something wrong and sparking off an inter-caste bloodbath made the three of us scamper behind the tape in double quick time ;)

You know why I think a horseback ride to a wedding is a good idea ? It gives you the first feel for a bumpy and painful ride :-))

The temperatures were quite low outside and we resorted to hiding inside one of the halls to escape from the incessant chilly breeze and continuously falling dew.

The procession headed towards us at a painful pace. In fact there was a moment when we thought it was actually heading backwards !! Near the tape at the entrance there seemed to be some negotiations going on between the groom's and the bride's side. I could see lot of people laughing, so must have been fairly entertaining conversation. [ Hope it was not a dowry negotiation ;) ]

Finally the groom and his party got in and proceeded towards the stage. Shortly after that the bride emerged from her hideout and did her "penguin walk" towards the stage and joined the groom. She was taken right till the stage by her family and then the groom took her hand and welcomed her.  Pretty romantic stuff !! :). For some bizarre reason, there was an engagement function then followed by a reception. It was new to me on 2 counts

• Never heard of a couple having reception before the actual wedding takes place
• What is the point of the engagement ceremony when marriage happens 2 hours later ??

Anyway due to the lateness of the hour, hardly 50 folks were around, mostly family members. One thing I did find hilarious during the entire ceremony was my friend's attempt to act like a shy bride. She was very consciously not looking up or laughing. It was so against the natural personality that I just had to laugh out from time to time :).

The engaged couple proceeded for a photo session , followed by a brief dance on the disco floor ( !!) and then proceeded to have their dinner at the tender time of around 1.30-2 am !!

Mixture of cold weather and sleep deprivation had caused me to puff away happily on my inhaler. I swear that I had enough steroids in my system that day to fail any dope test :((

And finally on the mini-stage for the actual marriage. By this time only the close family and the three bakras from Bangalore were around. The customary fire was lit , an the couple were seated next to it as was the Panditji. Weather was so cold that I was sorely tempted to push away the Pandit and sit in front of the fire myself. Using loads of self control ( which you naturally acquire after a few years of marriage ) , I restrained myself.

The ceremony itself was bit of an anti climax. We started around 3-3.30 am and it hardly lasted an hour. The bride [ who had to be helped to get to her feet because of the heavy dress :) ] and groom did 7 rounds around the fire, Panditji extracted some pretty heavy promises from the groom on what he is supposed to do after the marriage and we were done !! [ Let me say if he intends to keep all of those promises, he is a dead man :-) ]

So at 4.30 am we headed back to our rooms. Was chilled to the bone, tired and on the verge of getting an asthma attack .

As I reflected on the entire ceremony, I can't help admit I've never seen something as grand in my life !! Only feeling that lingered in my mind was that the delays are a bit un-necessary . A wedding held on-time just has to be so much more enjoyable for everyone concerned.

But hey, I attended a Punjabi wedding, made a trip to North India, sampled some awesome food, all without speaking a single word of hindi !! Not bad at all.

So what is next ? A Kashmiri wedding, perhaps ?

A punjabi wedding : Part 3

And finally we got ready for the wedding.

We were asked be ready by around 5 p.m . Off went the three off us dressed sharply in our suits to the Karnal community hall. The groom and his party arrived there around 6, they were greeted with a quite delightful array of sweets and hot snacks inside. Groom's side all dressed in traditional dhoti-turban attire, except for groom who looked sharp in a shiny black suit.

I must say the three of us felt a bit over-dressed for the occasion. It looked exactly as if an Oriya, a tamilian and a malayali had gone for a Punjabi wedding :-)))

Then there was some function involving the groom, bride's family and groom's family. Did not quite understand what the purpose of the function was, it was called "Sagaayi", looked more like a mutual hand-over of gifts to me !!

While the groom's side were having snacks, we decided to rest for a while and sat on some chairs. Immediately we were surrounded by videographers with all sorts of equipment and bright lights. I guess we were looking pretty impressive in our suits. Then the realization dawned that we weren't really supposed to sit there, those seats were meant for the groom side folks :)

We did a quick protocol check with bride's family before we ate anything, did not want to spark of riots just because we ate when weren't supposed to !! Customs and nature of people are quite different from South to north. [I am not implying one is better over the other]

In case you are wondering where the bride is, she is not present for this function. She was packed for the beauty parlor to get ready a while earlier. And knowing her, I was a touch surprised she had not gone there to get ready the previous night itself . It takes that long usually .... :-))

From there we proceeded to the ESS-ESS farm house [ yes, it is spelt that way, don't ask me why !! ]   where the actual reception and wedding was going to take place. A walk through into the farmhouse can be seen below as can be the Stage and some lighting arrangements. The entire place looked awesome!!

ESS ESS Farms- Walk in

And here is a shot of the stage

Stage view

According to the standard misinformation we were fed, wedding was supposed start around 8-8.30. Again the three idiots reached there at 8.15 only to be welcomed by waiters and photographers. Not a guest or family member in sight, let alone the bride and groom !!

We walked around for a while and sampled some of the food. Food was just amongst the best I've ever had, hats off to North-Indians for that :-).

It was getting pretty cold outside. Rather disastrously, we had not anticipated that the function would be held outdoors. Though we were dressed in suits, we had no head or throat protection. This would really come back to bite us later on in the night.

Finally around 9.30 some of the bride and groom's family started to turn up. People had already started to stream in and there was quite a big crowd by then.

But where are the two most important people ? 10 pm and still no sign of them !!!

And it is 11.55 pm while I am writing all this and I am sleepy. So you can meet the bride and groom tomorrow :-)

A punjabi wedding : Part-2

So after reaching the would-be-bride's house on Friday evening, we were led to our respective rooms in houses nearby. there were 3 of us and we were put up in two rooms in two different houses. Mine had an attached bathroom , but no hot water. My other colleague had a bathroom with hot water, but it was inside the main house with no easy access . The relevance of this will be clear to you soon :)

We got back to her house for dinner and a dance party on the terrace. Apparently this is customary on the night before the wedding. Bride-to-be was undoubtedly the most enthusiastic dancer. Repeated attempts to coax yours truly into dancing was met with a stonewall response of NO. [ I don't dance, not now, not ever. No particular reason, I am just very un-comfortable about it and it is a non-negotiable item :) ]

It was pretty cold and I was beginning to get the initial rumble of asthma, so I retired to my room around 11.

Saturday morning arrived with the complex problem of how to take bath in the cold weather. My other colleague with hot water access got locked out of the room , he had to come over to our place to take bath:-) I decided to take the the first step. In an act which deserves nothing less than the national bravery award, I opened out the shower to full blast , closed my eyes  and stood underneath it.

Curiously I could hear water falling, but none hitting my body . Was my body going into denial ?

A quick glance up, revealed a massive leak in the shower head which was pushing water sideways rather than down . Had to remove the shower head and stand underneath what can only be described as an icy waterfall. I guess my body went into severe thermal shock after the first 5 seconds, so rest of the bath was not such a big ordeal. In fact once I was done with the bath, I was feeling quite nice and warm :-)

We got dressed and went to her house for the morning function. At 8.00 am sharp I was at her door step. Apparently the mis-information continued here as people had not even woken up then !! I know people always call IST as Indian Stretchable Time, there seems to be and extra stretch when you are in the north !!

Anyway we hung around till the Panditji arrived and did some pooja. There was quite funny moment when Panditji was reciting something and his cell phone went off and he coolly attended the call in between the recital. No one seemed unduly bothered by this . Good for them, as I would have for sure made a racket if someone did that to me :)

We had nothing else to do whole day as the wedding was in the evening, so decided to go shopping in Karnal for some authentic north indian clothes for spouses and kids. Which is when we saw these cycle rickshaws and decided to take them to get back home from shopping.

Cycle Rickshaw ride in Karnal

I have never got on one and the experience was quite hairy to say the least. There was one stretch in which he had to stop and cross a highway through which vehicles were zipping past at break-neck speeds. [ And yeah, the driving is a lot rasher in the North too ]. I could see my life flash in front of my eyes right there. How he got me over the highway, I'll never know. My eyes were shut tight when he made his suicidal dash across the road. Thankfully we reached the other side in one piece !!

On to the marriage in the next episode tomorrow :)