New year resolutions

So the year has started in full swing and there have been talks of turning over a new leaf... every year I resolve that I will think up some resolutions and stick to them... haven't been able to do that even once yet. This after reading some crackpot articles on how to make resolutions and follow them. Gah... where do people come up with such stuff from???

Anyway, this year I am putting some down in writing and let's see how I hold up:

1. Don't talk about money unless absolutely necessary (note the condition of necessity) - this is to stop my endless cribbing about money.. i.e. the lack of it


2. Stop pestering the hubby - tough one this... but I shall try. Especially since my birthday is coming up I shall try to bear with his surprise with equanimity and not lose my cool.... OOOOMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm


3. Take a calcium supplement daily - getting on in years.. need to reinforce ye olde bones


4. Click a lot more pictures - Being camera shy and totally un-photogenic I suffer from a chronic lack of photos of me in any kind of scenario. I shall remedy that this year so as to leave some mementos for posterity.


5. Be nice, Be social - somewhat on the lines of resolution 2, this is for the random junta. I realize I can be quite mean, nasty and uncommunicative. I will try to be nice unless such nicety is likely to have me tearing my hair..

5 is a good number don't you think? According to all those articles (see ref above) you should make a limited number of resolutions. That way you get to break less ;)

Anyway, so i'm done with my list. What have you resolved to do this year?

Dark December

I usually try to abstain from weepy posts.. but this couldn't be helped... call it PMS.
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Another year ends; the 30th I have seen. Was there something special about this one? What made it different from the others that went before it? Why is there no sense of achievement? Of having done something new? Why is life still stuck in the little, it-matters-not, kind of complexity that makes living so difficult?

What is it that I am looking for? Peace? Money? A hobby? Companionship? What defines happiness for me? It's really strange that I cannot answer that question after 30 years of apparently knowing myself!

Life is half done. We get but10 years to live, and I have squandered them away. If I make a list of things I wanted to do…it would have a lot of things still undone. I struggle with this sense of disappointment at how life has turned out. A sense of loss for all the wasted potential, a sense of wonderment at the stupidity of it all.

I need to question myself.. Why do I run from people who care about me? Why do I run after things that I cannot have? If things are more important to me than people, then what does it make me? Insensitive? Materialistic? Or is that what I really am?

Sometimes I feel that pretending to be something that I am not has grown so much over me that I myself no longer know who I am! Am I pretending now? Or is this the real me? And what does the real me want?

Sigh.. Maybe I am just feeling this way because it’s almost a weekend and I really really hate weekends. Nothing to do, nowhere to go and imprisoned in a room for 2 days is not my idea of a great time. I don't know where all my friends have melted away..

Life just sucks today! Maybe tomorrow is a better day!

Missing Winters

It's December in Bangalore; apparently winter is here. Not that I can feel it! This place has nothing of what December means to me. A small list for your benefit:

1. Heavy blankets


2. Layers of woolens, socks and gloves, caps and mufflers


3. Hot cups of ginger tea


4. Hot roasted peanuts, fresh off the stove, that you shelled and munched away the entire evening


5. Gajak - the sweet jaggery and sesame savory.....


6. The early morning fog, when it was impossible to see your own hands in front of your face


7. The cold wind that froze ur lips and literally formed icicles on your nose


8. The burst of freshness when you breathed in the chilled air!


9. Those mornings, sitting on the roof with a book and chasing that sunbeam around.


10. Those last rays of sun in the evening with which you desperately tried to warm your socks.


11. Going to school, on a two wheeler, singing songs with chattering teeth to drive away the cold.


12. The hot oil massages and steaming baths.


13. The dry fruits that mom stuffed in your pockets to munch away the whole day


14. Cuddling together at nights to warm each other. Pushing away some one's icy toes


15. Dancing around and cooking on the bonfires

ooh.. there are sooo many memories.... I wish i could get the taste of that winter again :)

Guess it's time to go home!

The wannabes and whatnots

Probably the last thing a blogger should write about is people with opinions, worse still, people with opinions that they foist on others. Er. helloo... YOU are writing a blog..YOU are foisting your opinion on the entire world.. well at least those who come and read your blog that is.

In any case.. I will commit this grave error and write about how I hate people who have an opinion on everything from the perfect color of one's hair to the brand of underwear one should be wearing. Also in parallel, I want to take out my ire on people who pretend to be what they are not and hence become wannabes from being someone. Lost it? well these 2 categories more or less overlap each other as you can see from the diagram below (I have learnt that diagrams make any statement 10 times more impressive and believable, so in case you were not getting the point, its true because of the diagram)

The problem with this species, henceforth referred to as "insufferables" is that either they know too much of what they want and want others to want exactly that OR they really don't know anything and just try to ape what's the latest buzz. There are people who are cool and then there are the insufferables who want to be cool.

Have I said too much? Well I will leave you to mull over this while I give you some scenarios where you find these people (Warning: THEY ARE EVERYWHERE). Someone who makes a big fuss while ordering wine in a shady establishment, people who debate about the coolest music and change their opinion as soon as the music critics do, people who debate on the right/wrong of gay rights and refuse to acknowledge the individuality of the argument, people who pretend to know more than they actually do, people who come back from ONE foreign trip with an accent, people who get the accent in 10 days of the trip and refuse to let it go after 10 years. I can possibly fill pages with these examples but I am assuming your patience is at an end.

Have you met one of these? Share your story and let's have a chuckle together :)

Things to do....

My mom always said "time runs out in a blink, so make the most of the time you have"... and like most things mom's say this one is right as well.

Maybe it was her energy and her zeal to do things that we caught our maybe it's just the time bug.. but I'm bitten for sure. Yes, I have wasted quite a few precious years, but I've always had this restlessness in me... the urge to do something.

I detest people who just sit and yap, who are happy with their day to day lives never bothering about the bigger picture. I don't want to be just another cog in the wheel. And by this, I don't mean I want to be rich and famous, or a celebrity or whatnot...I just want to learn a LOT! know about every damn thing there is to know. It bothers me that I have missed so many chances, so many things that I can never do again. And time still runs by... difficult to catch even for a moment.

I have this need to do things, and I hate it when I can't because there are other things to be done that other people want. If it were up to me.. I'd be a painter, or a writer or a designer, or a dancer or at least a linguist. And yes, I agree... it IS up to me.. the fact that I am bogged down in MY mundane daily life is my doing too.. it drives me mad to not be able to get out of the routine.. go to office come back home, go to office come back home.. I want to meet new people every day. I want to make new friends, I want to go visit places and stay where it suits me for as long as it does. Some may call it a "hippy" tendency.. I just feel I have it in my genes.. and there is nothing that I can do about it.

As I write this, time is slipping by, but at least i have put my thoughts down, at least there is something to show for this time. It bothers me that others are not conscious of this passage of time, that they waste time in minor bickering, and protocols and how things are done, or just watching TV while life is passing by.

When I say I don't just wanna be another cog in the wheel, I mean I want to give something back... in however small a way.. and I think it's never a better time to start than now!

I've had these thoughts swirling in my head for sometime.. and writing this post has probably helped me more than anyone (of course).. at least I have put a name to my priority.. i.e. to live a good life... Let's see where this takes me now :)

Bangalore - Then and Now

When I came to Bangalore (a looooonnnng time ago) it was like an oasis for someone coming from a desert (literally). I loved everything here, the weather, the roads, the lifestyle, the people, the order and yet the chaos. It was beautiful and I wanted to stay here forever... in fact i was so reluctant to leave that even after 2 years in the maximum city Mumbai.. i longed to come back to this peaceful, beautiful, paradise...

Fast forward to NOW! looks like I've got my wish and I'm stuck here for good! Imagine my plight when i came back to Bangalore to find it a mess that it is today. The weather is sure awesome still.. but they have SUMMERS now!!! when earlier the word had no meaning here.. the order has given way to chaos.. and the growing city is literally bursting at seams because the so called "planners" left no place to let some stitches out and allow the city to breathe. There is no plan to this city now... things are just mushrooming everywhere... infrastructure, utilities, rules, law and order... are all not "thought out" but a whim or fancy of some politician or the other.

There are more potholes than roads, the metro is a toy train, electricity isn't 24/7, roads are flooded in minor rains... let's not talk about the auto drivers, petrol prices and the north south divide....overall.. on a roller coaster for doom... prediction - will not be livable in another 3 years....

So my paradise has gone to hell... and I'm back here.. thank god for the people though :)

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...