Active Cooking ... my foot!

Having got up and gotten ready for the office a bit too early I had some time to spare in front of the idiot box. As usual, wasn't interested in "a morning dose of any kind of news" flipped through the movie channels, nothing interesting was on atleast nothing I haven't seen before so I went for my most interesting channel in the entertainment section of Tata Sky, Active Cooking. They have changed the layout a bit, instead of 4 cookery videos in 4 windows they have just 3 with a cookbook of 6 recipes in the last window.

I instantly selected the window overflowing with Marut Sikka that's because a) the window itself was small b) he is atleast about 20 times as grossly overweight as I am :). I suspect it has something to do with his notorious "an extra dollop of butter", "an extra portion of pure desi ghee", etc but, that's just a "guess". Anyhow, I like the chubby "maakhan chor" and his recipes. He was cooking spicy potatoes in Srilankan style. While he cooked he gave out some "gyaan" about how potatoes entered India along with the Portugese and how Tomato was initially classified as a fruit but, was soon moved to the less lucrative vegetable category because some judge in an American court thought they were not sweet enough to be a fruit. All of them interesting and fun facts to know along with the recipe and very much relevant to the recipe in question too.

Then I flipped over to the second "active cooking" window named "Snack". Interesting! I thought. Some chef (probably much more popular than I think he is or can be) called Abhishek Dikshit was taking the viewers on a tour to Delhi's Paratha gully. He too gave some "gyaan" about how Delhi has always been a melting pot of cultures because of all the long list of rulers it has had and how Paratha gully has secured its significant place in Delhi's history. Then he takes the viewers to a 126 year old shop on the Paratha gully where one of their chef's prepared a nice "Parat Paratha" (Layered Paratha). By the end of the episode I was glad that I knew how to cut up a Paratha into 16 pieces and then reassemble it into a nice layered delectable version of a Paratha. Quite a neat and handy trick for an amature cook like myself if ever I choose to make parathas.

I moved on to the next window titaled "Dessert", WOW! I thought. And looking at the text description I was even more WOWed than ever because it said "Malpua". Malpua is by far the best Indian sweet dish I have ever had in my life. I continued watching with enthusiasm. The video started and there were 3 women in the frame one of them had the demeanour of a host. Another woman was too close to the stove so I presumed she must be the chef Nina Gupta as the text said on the window. Then there was this woman who was "comfortably seated" in a chair beside them she is just there on the show to taste the Malpua, "Lucky Bugger!" I thought. Vivid memories of Malpua I had from the time when we (me and my girfriend's family) were in one of the Rajasthani theme parks in Jaipur came rushing back to me. Yummy! By the time I reeled back into the present the host woman had just finished introducing the chef woman to the show and the dish which she would be cooking today. The chef woman said the base ingredient for Malpua is Chena a.k.a. condensed milk the expression of aloofness on the "seated woman"'s face was worth seeing. Seemed as if she had never been to a kitchen or tried to even read (let alone try) an indian dessert recipe. Now that I think back on it what the hell was she doing on a cookery show? Anyways, the chef proceeded to fry the Malpua and that is when I realized to my horror the true colors of the "bum resting" woman. She was shooting her mouth off about how the chemical bonds in food change and how vitamins are all lost when we cook food and heat proof protiens are. She was a nutritionist. A freaking nutriotionist on a cookery how teaching the Malpua recipe. Grrr! If there is anything i hate about a kitchen it is that space around stove where people, especially the likes of this "nutritionist" woman, can sit comfortably and start crowing about how "rich" the dish is and how it brings with it the promise of a heartattack or a fat body or how low it is on the nutritive scale. My girlfriend tends to do that sometimes and despite knowing that she has only my wellbeing at her sugary heart I have many a time kicked her mercilessly out of the kitchen. No torture needed when I am in the mood for some good food! Thank you! When the show started I was in front of my laptop and looking at the title "Malpua" I simply popped open a notepad window to make a note of the recipe. I was even determined to try the recipe even if it meant me calling in sick and losing half a day of work but, the psycho nutrition woman has put me out of all taste for Malpua with her babble about how vitamins are lost. All thanks to Tata Sky and their "oxymoronic" shows with the heavenly yet horribly malnutritive Malpuas I now find going to office through an hour of horrible traffic and returning back through the same traffic late in the night a very pleasurable activity.

Not so cheerful!

/PhaKuDi

A night with the Piper and the Princess

Anoushka Shankar (Princess) and Jethro Tull (The Piper Ian Anderson from the band) have put up a fantastic show to night and it was my great honor to witness this great and rare event. Out of this world, truly remarkable, psychedelic, sonorous, splendid, mind boggling, stupendous, awesome, amazing, fantabulous - all these phrases put together "kiiiiiiind of" begin to describe how I feel about the show.

It was an extremely well planned show. While I was still musing what a great beginning Anoushk's introductory sitar recital under the steady golden yellow light, was, to the show, along came Jethro Tull with their retro themed psychedelic lighting effects and songs from the early days or some even from the days before the band was formed or named. Ian Anderson made a very sneaky entry from one corner of the dias with his magical flute. While I definitely cannot call myself a die hard Tull fan, thanks to Rajiv and Sachin I have been exposed to couple of their popular numbers like "Aqualung", "Bouree", "Locomotive Breath", "Thick as a Brick", etc. I definitely did enjoy all of them thru the show but, the icing on the cake at least for me and most of the people was the way they concluded the show in fusion. The way they exited the stage and came back for an encore of "fusion"ed version of Locomotive Breath was a pleasent surprise. The composition and the performance of this last song was phenomenal and what one would and should call "absolutely rocking". Be it the absolute energy and wit of the 60+ year old Ian Anderson or the charming grace and skill of Anoushka Shankar or the synergy of both during the fusion performances everything was exremely good and has definitely left people speechless and clapping.

It is at times like these that my mind wanders to the basic fact of how beautiful and well equipped a city Hyderabad is. We have a state of the art international conference center which can cater to nothing less than 10,000 people at a go and after today I realize that we also do have a place to conduct concerts of international standards indoors with a live audience of at least 2000+. Given the recent terror strike on Bombay and Hyderabad being high up of the list for a next target I have to confess that initially during the concert I did have a jitter or two thinking about all the scary things that could happen. All thanks to AP Police and the event security, everything went well.

Cheers!

/PhaKuDi

No Stereo. Only Mono.

I would rate yesterday a well spent sunday. I got to watch "A Wednesday", very intense and the most sensible storyline in a bollywood movie so far. Skipping over the details of the sucky afternoon spent on watching the super flop movie "Kidnap", the evening is worth mentioning.

My Girlfriend's brother Chandan is in town, to spend his birthday with his girlfriend, Soumya so we decided all 4 of us should catch up over dinner and drinks. Soumya is not much of a drinker so we ordered a pina colada for her to sip on, thru the course of the evening. She takes her first sip and says "Didi (my GirlFriend Mini)! My throat feels warm". We assure her that it is normal and get back to ordering some munchies before the main course. She takes the second sip after a lot of deliberation and pushes the drink aside saying she doesn't like it much. We again assure her that she is under no pressure and that whatever she is feeling now will be gone by the end of the meal. Midway thru our main course Soumya volunteers, "I am feeling better now. Few minutes ago I could only hear in mono. Now I am able to hear in stereo" :). After having a long and good laugh at her innocently put heavily geeky statement we informed her how that is not possible with the miniscule amount of alcohol she had consumed.

By virtue of being a software professional and being surrounded by a lot of them I've heard a couple of geeky ones but, this kind of comment coming from a female (I carry this impression that women do not like to make geeky jokes or people who make them and that the much treasured works of art like Dilbert are simply lost on them :)) and that too one from an arts background sure sounded funny to me and it stayed with me and tickled me for quite sometime. Even when I was pulled over for a breathalyzer test at the police check point on the way back home I was smiling profusely (if not exactly laughing out loud) thinking of the incident. The cop couldn't make heads or tails of the scenario . Although he saw all signs of a drunken silly man his brethalyzer wasn't giving him any good reason to arrest me or pester me for a bribe. He had to let me go after banging the instrument on his hand and repeating the test 4 times with it being placed closer and closer to my mouth every time :).

Cheers!
/PhaKuDi

The Name is Rajinikanth

This blog is about ... er ... Well! The title says it all. This biography of RajiniKanth written by an "ophthalmologist" Dr. Gayathri Srikanth is in the least an interesting read let alone being a bad one as most people claim it to be. She has done some great research on the superstar. Also, I like it that she doesn't totally idolize the superstar by omitting his misdeeds or censoring them. However, there are parts of the book where I feel it would have helped if she weren't a doctor. At times she throws in a geeky statement like - "Rajini had multiple knots in his stomach ... one right next to his peritoneum ..." or something to that effect. I understood that Rajini was going through anticipatory pangs about his future as an actor but, peritoneum !?? Anyways also, there are an unusually high number of typos in this book which only get worse towards the end. I probably should blame the editor more for this than the writer herself but, isn't there such a thing as a spell checker in the latest word processing applications these days? Also, I could go on and on about the geeky anecdotes and the slightly repetitive nature of the book but, here I am with no books to my credit and look at her she has already sold 20,000 copies of her first book ever. :) If not for her writing abilities I should at least appreciate her for having picked up such an easy to sell topic to make a mark with her very first book itself.

/PhaKuDi

The 3 mistakes of my life

The third book by "India's most read english author" makes a good script for a movie more than a great read. I liked his first book "Five point someone" the best. The second one "One night @ the call center" was a disappointment towards the end. Although the latest one, "The 3 mistakes of my life" has a slightly thrilling ending and is a bit of a page turner, it doesn't leave you with the feeling of having read a great new piece of work from an upcoming author. It feels repetitive - it is set in the same contemporary young india like the other two books, the male lead character bears a borderline cynical attitude, the male and female lead characters end up having an affair. That said, I really like some of the thoughts which keep on inside the lead male charater's head - "A beautiful girl like her doesn't need math. Math is for losers like me.". I sometimes wonder if all of these novels are inspired by Chetan Bhagat's own life, I think atleast some parts of them must be. Anyways, it's not a bad read considering Rupa & Co still choose to price their most revenue generating author's works at Rs. 95 per book.

/PhaKuDi

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

I was a stereotype English movie lover who would worship superhero movies like Hulk, Spiderman and Batman, I would buy box sets of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and watch them three times over (sometimes back to back) until I met my Bollywood Buff of a Girlfriend. Now I make room for Hindi movies too. Yesterday was one such occasion when I had to cook up some appetite for the new movie "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na" introducing Imran Khan (Aamir Khan's nephew) with Genelia D'Souza in a bit more successful role than the one in her first film.

2 Opposite sex best friends in a college setting not realizing they are perfect for each other till the end of the movie - sounds boring? sounds too simple a storyline? sounds like yet another film to launch some big star's bhaanja? - that's what I thought. Well, it is anything but all that. Whoever says a simple and repetitive storyline can't be made into a beautiful movie should watch this one. It has all elements of a good commercial film - love, a little action, lot of comedy, romance, a hint of senti, etc which come together very well to create a fresh (if not new) and entertaining experience for you. Be it the funny philosophy about Ranjhor ka Rathod or the bubbly friendship in between the lead characters of the film the director Abbas Tyrewala simply knows what he is doing and has executed the script very well. Also, this movie along with the last one (Taare Zameen Par) from Aamir Khan productions has secured a very good name for both Aamir Khan as well as the production house itself. Aamir seems to be an even bigger hit as a producer than as an actor. Though her dialogue delivery isn't perfect for some bits in the film Genelia does her part well and this is her big break in Bollywood. Imran Khan can really be termed as a breath of fresh air when compared to rest of the burly faces introduced this year - Harman Bhaveja, Sikander Kher and the likes. He has a killer smile that even I think is "cute", no wonder if he scores big time with the chicks and aunties. Added to that it seems he has inherited some bit of the acting talent from Aamir. Probably the only thing I don't like about the fellow is his long arms. I would image he has strong arms and strong everything but, in some parts of the movie the arms look a bit oddly long, almost long enough for being termed as scrawny.

The songs - all very nice. Mini (my girl) was totally stuck with the song "Pappu can't dance sala". Every few minutes she would go into this fit, sometimes even scaring / shocking me, reciting the part where a shrill robotic sounding voice would sing "pappu bada naam karega". Phew! The hangover lasted couple of hours.

All in all, it's a definite five starrer and a must watch especially for all the Hindi movie buffs.

/PhaKuDi

A Terrible Loss

Couple of weeks ago Kalpana, my good friend cum colleague, came back to office after her indefinite leave. The reason she took a leave was to tend to her dying mother-in-law who was suffering with advanced lung and liver cancer. Although I wasn't expecting any good news from her I was slightly hesitant about approaching the subject. Kalpana initiated the conversation herself. She told me that though her mother-in-law suffered towards the end she went gracefully.

I do not know this woman very well, I don't even know her name for that matter. I only know her as Kalpana's mother-in-law and Atreya's (Kalpana's spouse) mother and only once have I had the privilege of meeting her briefly. Having known that she had the courage and will to survive while staring death in the face for more than a year and having known how gracefully she bid every one of her family members good bye towards the final moments of her life I wished I could have know her better and I wished I could have met her more than just once. Hats off to this woman!

/PhaKuDi