Another Exhibition Coming UP!!!

Lalten is back with another exhbition:

Venue: 2nd Floor, Sambhavnath Jain Bhavan, Opp. Mahaveer Jain College, V.V. Puram, Bangalore - 04

Date: 16th and 17th July (Saturday-Sunday)

Time: 10:30am-9:00pm

BE THERE!!

And this time i will pen down my experience in detail :)

My first business venture

My exhibition is done and over with :) and it was a great experience. As always my jinx worked and we struggled with lost parcels, last minute deliveries, all night sortings and frantic unreasonable moms...

I never knew i could sell anything. But as the day went by, I discovered the hidden sales woman in me. No competition with Aparna though.. she was awesome and my heartiest thanks to both of them for sticking around and also for Lunch ;)

Wrapping up later was the pain point. But lots of learning tucked in our belts now.. hopefully we'll do a better job next time.. so look out for THAT mailer people and be there...

Exhibition Details

Rajasthani Exhibition

Ok Folks! This is an announcement more than a blog. The marwari in me is itching to do 'binnes' (business). I'm putting up a rajasthani exhibition in Bangalore on 21st and 22nd May 2011. It'll have the traditional Bandhani (bandhej) dress materials, accessories, jewelery and of course juttis.

The tentative venue is Safina Plaza, will post a confirmation soon. But be there if you are in Bangalore :)

Culinary experiments

I wasn't always interested in cooking. Food was something that mom served and you ate... where it came from who cares.. and now; i love to cook and i love to write about it too (www.teztadka.blogspot.com).

How did it all start? I don't really know, but i do know that some extraordinary culinary experiments in the past have something to contribute to it. As i was adding posts to my recipe blog, i kept thinking about these and had to put them down somewhere. So I am sharing them here, let's see if you are brave enough to try them.

Also, before i move on to the recipes, let me state that none of these are my creations. The credit totally goes to a very dear childhood friend of mine. I hope he is still experimenting and hope to get some interesting ideas from him sometime :)

So here goes:

Cheese shake:

2 cubes of amul cheese - grated
1 glass thick milk - chilled
2 tsp sugar
ice

Put everything in a blender and churn well. Serve in tall opaque glasses (so no one can see what they are getting in to)


Icecream delight
This is a great recipe when you have 2 ice candies and 5 people to share them.

1 orange ice candy (or orange dolly will do)
1 chocobar
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup water

In a pan, scrape the orangebar and chocobar clear off the sticks. Heat on low flame till the ice cream melts. Add water and heat some more. Add lemon juice and serve in small glasses. Or better pour down their throats straight...


Sweet and Spicy Burger
This is an amazing recipe and is ready in a jiffy. Perfect surprise for your friends:

1 burger
1 rasgulla

When your friend isn't looking, squeeze the rasgulla over the burger patty and cover up your tracks. Go back to your meal as if nothing has happened.

I hope you will try at least one of these. If not the taste.. the memories last forever :)

Car Sale

So I'm finally buying the car that I have waited so many years for. And let me tell you that it is damn expensive. I am a living example of a modern yuppie who is up to her ears in debt and yet has a snazzy lifestyle. OK.. maybe not so snazzy... but i have the right house, right phone, right shoes, right bags and now the right car... (i specifically don't mention clothes because no woman can have the right clothes.. there's always something else that can do better)...

In any case.. I was talking about the debt and the car. So after evaluating the various financial options that I have and the possible discounts that i can manage, it turned out that I'll be wiping out my bank balance and will have to beg on the streets for petrol... Imagine! having a swanky car n not being able to drive it as there is no money for fuel!

Then obviously i was grumbling away at the sky high road taxes and expensive insurance and loan rates... when it hit me! why don't cars have sale? We have sale on everything else... personal stuff, household goods, electronics.. then y not car sales? i would love to see a 50% off sign at the Honda showroom...and it would be so affordable.. and car makers can also sell of so many units.. hah! A sale is good for everybody..Wonder why no one ever thought of it..

Anyway.. so now the idea is in the market for Honda to pick it up (pioneer it i should say) and others can follow too.. Heck! i wont even take royalties for the IP right.

Well.. what are you waiting for?

Notice Period

Soooo.. I got married.. finally it happened and nothing much has changed. Except that I had to quit my job and relocate. These past months I have been on a notice period, and some of the things I have done to occupy myself are:

1. Frantically looked for another job
2. Called up everyone I knew
3. Scrolled through my address book every 5 minutes just to do something on my phone
4. Looked at walls for 10 minutes and then 5 minutes at the ceiling.. basically to look deep in thought
5. Made 5 versions of my resume
6. Debated with myself whether I should add a pic or not
7. Checked my nails.. chewed on them a bit
8. Looked at all profiles on facebook
9. Added mutitudes on linkedin
10. Started a cookbook
11. Opened an ebay account
12. Posted articles online
13. Shopped (obviously)
14. Considered options for making money
15. Cosidered a career as a homemaker
16. Thought about my EMI and reconsidered number 15 and thought some more about number 14. Also speeded up activity on numero uno.
17. Looked up love potions and job spells on the internet (as my previous post mentions)
18. Started a new blog on food
19. Did not get bonus.. back to number 14
20. Cooked
21. Ate (as a consequence of number 19)
22. Updated randomly on facebook
23. Made this list
24. Looked at random photos
25. Thought up names for my future business
26. Painted and posted on facebook
27. Checked gmail every 30 seconds
28. Updated resume on naukri.com everyday
29. Refreshed job search every 2 minutes
30. Lazed around for hours
31. Watched TV.. flipped channels
32. Ran up a huge credit card bill (related to number 13 and led to more focus on number 1 and 14)
33. Watched fairytales on youtube
34. Invited friends for dinner
35. Finally got a job (not connected to number 32)
36. Waiting for the wait to get over

Of love potions and job spells

This friday I spent an intersting evening yakking away with a friend. Considering that she is looking for love and I for money we tested the power of google. Lo and Behold.. what an interesting collection of Love potions and Job spells. Just for the heck of it we also checked out potions that can make you lose weight (it was lemon tea).

It's amazing how so many of these spells are to do with candles and tea and moonlight. I could just imagine her brewing that potent love tea and drinking it in her balcony covered in moonlight.

We also realized getting a job is easier than finding love in the spell domain too. Spells to get a job are fairly simple.. warm up ur money with a green candle (i'm sure the spell writer was thinking in dollars, Indian money isn't green) and tie it behind ur pic.. on the other hand, to find love you have to go through gruelling rituals of more than one candle, middle of the night, some leaves, fruits, flowers, tea, papers, etc etc..

Well buddy.. I got off easy :P

A family of nutcases

I used to think i was strange.. turns out that i have been bestowed with a family of nutcases.

Mom - ever anxious, always worried, with an exceptionally short fuse and high decibel levels. Adept at forcing food down your throat and making you dress like a joker.. always right, a formidable opponent in an argument (hasn't lost one ever i think)...


Sister - the first word that comes to my mind is "Nasty".. but wait.. that's not my sister.. i was thinking about someone else.. hehe.. oops!! happens :D.. well my sis is actually quite cute.. once she stops crying.. the girl came fitted with a leaky tap.. GOD! the amount she can cry is amazzzinnng... no wonder delhi is flooding.. umm... i think she's gonna kill me when she reads this...

Dad - Let me not say anything on this one....

Cousin - Another leaky tap; I keep running short of handkerchiefs...total drama queen... and believes herself tooo... (hehe.. I am soooo DEAD.... anyway, i shall sacrifice myself to uphold the truth...), jerk magnet (BTW my sis falls in this category too), will go any lengths to look good (she is quite pretty actually), is totally emotionally blackmailable and her parents take full advantages of the fact.

Sighhh.. no wonder i have to keep it all together :P

I can already think of another list of nutty frenz that i have.. peewee... are u reading this?

Alice in wonderland

I would like to see the movie.. But as likely as not I'll end up watching it with the eye of a cynic like I do everything else.

I feel we are more prone to see what is wrong than what is right, quick to criticize and slow to appreciate, find faults than appreciate the idea...

Why do we turn this way? Where has all the wonder of our childhood gone, the trust we placed in anyone who had a kind word for us, the excitement of finding new things. Oh! the joy of finding baby mice in their nest in the attic, the heart rending cries when the adults tried to throw them out, the sneaky attempts to go find them later and replace them one by one in a shoe box.. Trying to coax them into having just a tiny drop of milk...

Or trying to wheedle 50 paise from anyone in the house on a hot summer day, running behing the kulfi waala when we got the money in the nick of time.. The breathless anxiety of catching him and then the mouth watering wait while he took out a delicious stick of kulfi.. The happy walk back home slurping on the treat of the day.

Such simple things and such great pleasure..

And now we have bank accounts full of money, we own property, cars, fancy gadgets, we don't think twice before spending a small fortune on a night of drunken dancing..

but where is the happiness?? Where is the wonderland of our childhood??

I wish I could be alice in wonderland again...

Holi aayi re...

Holi is my favorite festival... i love the color, the excitement, energy, fun, music, dance, madness, laughter, screams, food, thandaai, and the open licence to have bhaang.. the drug of the gods...

On holi no one is a stranger; u have a licence to color everyone... i love the children in the balconies with water balloons, and on the streets with the evergreen pichkaari running around with shouts of "bura na maano holi hai..." which is like an anthem of holi...

Even as you walk out of the house cautiously... looking around to see where the next water balloon or a spray of color is coming from, you cannot help smiling when the color actually hits you...

This day you have a licence to roam the streets in your dirtiest clothes.. getting them dirtier every passing minute, you can gyrate your pelvis on the streets to the tune of "rang barse bheege chunar waali...", you can mount an attack on seemingly hapless men and women, in short everything that would qualify you fit for a mental ayslum on a normal day.. is totally the in thing on Holi.. and i LOVE every minute of it...

A holi played well showes its colors for weeks... though its been a week after this holi now, my hair is still a bright pink... in the days following you can identify the fellow revellers with the color remenants still on them.... and then you grin conspiratorially at each other.. "i know what you did last holi" :D.. you have found another member of your toli to play with the next time...

Holi somehow makes you feel younger, shed all inhibitions and show your true colors... mine is pink this season... what's yours :D

Mumbai Mornings

Have u heard of the old saying.. Early yo bed and early to rise.. Makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.. Well.. Try applying it to Mumbai.. The city that never sleeps..and doesn't let you sleep either..

Yesterday evening (or according to normal standards late at night) I arrived home bone weary. All I could manage was to get some dinner staring zombie like at the television (a scottish period movie with mel gibson.. And the right to prima noctus..will get to that in some other blog maybe).

After getting some very disturbed shut eye.. I managed to wake up after an hour long effort.. Quickly getting ready I realized if I manage to get an auto I shall be actually on time to office..

And my..what happens.. Instead of the usual 20minute wait fr an auto, I get one in 5. A colleague points out that this is really turning out to be my day... I hop in happily and sit back to relax.. The fight fr the day is over..

Poor little delusional me.. Is it ever over in this city.. Turning a corner down the road next to the house I find myself in the middle of a terrific traffic jam.. And after 20 minutes I am at the same spot. There goes my train and all the hopes of reaching office on time..Now I have to cram into some already overflowing train, get others sweat on my nicely ironed clothes, get them wrinkled (almost the just-washed look) and arrive at the office looking like a mongrel..

Anyway.. Looks like the traffic is moving.. Heave a sigh of relief.. And then.. Diversion, diversion, DIVERSION.. So now my auto is wandering in hitherto unknown underbelly of mumbai.. With buffalows, n dung n wells n people bathing and what not.. I am just praying that this route ultimately leads to the station.

We finally get there.. I hop out.. Run in..and just manage to squash myself in a train. Where I am right now.. Beyond my office time.. Writing a blog which I'm sure no one will read till here..

I you are one of those who did read it.. Either bc u love me :p or bc u had nothing better to do, please answer this question in the comments: what is 2+2

I think I'm near my station nw.. So adios..

gaaaaaaaaaah

even my blog is a mess... i posted "Clutter" recently and it goes below "turning a shopaholic".. HOWWW!!!!!!!!!!

Turning a Shopaholic

Give me money, give me a day and leave me in a mall.... I love shoes, bags, clothes, colors... oh! there is soooo much to buy.

And therefore I had a great day today. It was a girls day out shopping... and obviously we tried more than we shopped, still ended up with quite a big hole in the pocket :D

Poked around in almost every shop in worli and colaba... trinkets, showpieces, stoles, scarves, bags, chappals, "insha-allah, masha-allah perfumes" (this was was awesome)...

But what it lacked was a parlour... we must have walked miles ( i hope i lost a few kgs)... but nothing in sight... sighh.,. maybe i shd thank god that it saved us some money atleast :).. (which was promptly spent on some beautiful pink and green chappals)..

All in all a great day... and i have to shop again next weekend seeing that i didn't get any of the stuff that i had actually gone out to buy...

Clutter

Sometimes i wonder what would happen if i remove all the clutter from my life. As of now, wherever i see there is some sort of a mess surrounding me.

I am not, have never been and can never be the organized kinds. Somehow clutter is what i thrive on. As long as it's a mess, i can just dig in and find what i want.. doesn't take no time.. no sir... and god save me; the day i arrange my cupboard, i can't find a thing to wear... i sort my papers, they go missing and don't even get me started on knick-knacks.

I can never fold my clothes and keep them, open my shoes at the designated place, put my socks in the shoes, keep the change back in the purse, fold the bedcovers... never... it just somehow gets postponed for later...hell.. even my desktop is messy.. lots of files all over the place, waiting to be moved to the right folders..

I have trouble throwing off old clothes and shoes, even the ones i know i'll never wear again.. i just go and dump them back home.. never to see them again, but safe in the knowledge that they are there just in case i feel like using them again (or if i ever fit into them again)...

And then there is a paradox... as chaotic as my personal belongings are, in general i like things neat and clean, spic and span... i'll arrange flowers in vases, dust off books, wipe the kitchen counter, scrub floors....then u open my cupboard.. and lo! everything falls out haphazardly...sighhh....

Garima tells me if i ever publish this blog, i'll greatly reduce my chances of getting married (which are pretty slim at this moment anyways)... but as usual i am gonna take the risk and hit "Publish post"...

here goes....

A small list of desires - what women want

• Morning chai.. made by the guy
• fluffy pillows, clean sheets and a spring matteress...
• cooking breakfast
• wet hair
• cuddle in the mornings
• friends dropping in unannounced
• chocolate
• sunlit airy rooms
• bright curtains
• flowers
• wine
• back rubs
• being carried from room to room
• fresh green leaves drenched in rain
• fresh smells
• cheese
• warm hands
• music
• candles
• a hot bath with lavender
• shopping trips
• gossip over a drink
• dirty dancing
• a cozy nook to read in
• french beards
• starlit sky
• smell of earth after it rains
• men who dance
• driving
• late night walks
• waterfalls
• waves crashing on the rocks
• sunsets by the sea
• seashells
• flowy dresses that fit just right
• slumber parties
• movies n popcorn
• hot chappatis
• stilettos
• tattoos
• ......................................

Watching the sun go down

I like rocks more than sand.. i like sunsets more than sunrises (maybe because to see a sun rise one needs to get up painfully early.. and i am not a believer in effort making :D) and for these reasons only (and i stress on ONLY) i like Mumbai bandstand.

Sitting there in the evenings, with the cool breeze and the vast expanse of the sea has a calming effect on me. I prefer sitting there alone because people have this annoying habit of trying to make conversation just when one is mulling over the questions of life (or watching a movie).

It's been a long time since i went there.. the busy schedules, traffic, money and pure laziness... I think it's time to make another trip.. like a pilgrimage.

I like the salty taste of the breeze there, and the rush of the waves, the eager enthusiasm as the waves rush to the rocks and the zest with which they crash on them only to be broken into pieces, and then come rushing again... this is soooooooooo much like what they call the circle of life.. the same thing over and over again.. with renewed enthusiasm and energy every time, the feeling that this time it'll be something different. Now i don't want to go into the karmic level of how everyone-who-is-born-has-to-die and so on.. but even at the individual level i feel that we end up running around in circles :D

Here i can also see the difference between me and the sea, the sea has so much turbulence near the shore and such calm in the center, and i have apparent calm on the surface and turbulence inside.. so maybe sitting there has a destructive interference, where the opposites cancel each other out…. Wait a minute.. what am I doing writing it here… Bandstand; here I come…

A nation of spitters

I know it's a time when everyone is talking about terrorism and recession. There is so much uncertainity in the air, you never know when you are about to lose the lifestyle you are used to, your job, or your life.

However, while everyone is busy talking about that (mind you, it affected me as badly) i want to talk about something very small that gets me buzzing with anger and frustration. It's the national sport of spitting.

Wherever you go; in any city and town; you'll see multitudes spitting away to glory; be it tobacco, "paan" (betel leaf) juice or snot (ewww...ghhh) someone at any given point in time is indulging in the activity under discussion... It forms the glorious decorations of walls in public offices specially the staircases, possibly providing immense satisfaction to its creators (hmm.. that could be the unity we keep talking about.. hundereds of people contributing to the cause of art... interesting)

Watching the ardent players gearing up for the big spit is a sight to behold...they'll pull up their trousers or fold their sleeves (a matter of personal preference), wrinkle their noses and pull air inside, then with a great noise out comes a perfectly aimed glob...digusting to the normal eye, but a creation of beauty for the "spit-champion". If this could be entered in the olympics we wouldn't need to waste so much money on training other athelets, we'll get all our medals without effort!

Spitting is omnipresent, and getting splashed at some time in your life with a few drops of the said nectar-of-the-gods is unavoidable for the common unsuspecting person. It could come at you from an innocent looking balcony while you are walking under it, it could come flying from a vehicle while you are driving along its side, it could come from a bus/ truck window while you are waiting at the traffic light. You could be lucky if you drive a 4 wheeler in which case you could see the contents of the missile dripping down your windshield while you sit safe inside if not, then god save you.

Infact the occurance is so frequent that if insurance companies insured the risk of getting splattered with spit, they would go bankrupt.

What amuses me though is a thought of a "spit battle".. if two avid spitters, fans of this sport came across each other...and one of them accidently spit on another.. would that trigger a battle of SPITS??? :D

Hail our mighty spitters!

October in Mumbai

Hot, humid, sleepy, sultry, lazy..... when will winters arrive.. if there is any such thing here....

Gonna Be a Bear

Got this in my mail a while back.. and it's SOOOOOOOOOOOO profound.. lolzzzzzzz.. Read on:

In this life, I'm a woman. In my next life, I'd like to come back as a bear.

When you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.

Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that too.

When you're a girl bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you're sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute, cuddly cubs. I could definately deal with that.

If you're mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that.

If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.

Yup, gonna be a bear