Cuisine from Gods Own Country

As diverse as it is in its religion, culture and ethnicity, India maintains its diversity in its cuisine also. Travel from north to south, or east to west, you can see the cuisine varying to a great extent across the country. Every state has its own speciality dishes and people hailing from the respective states take pride in talking about the regional specialities. Me, being from the Kerala, a.k.a God's Own Country, pride myself in our cuisine and many a time, I am quite surprised to know that people outside Kerala have so many misconceptions about our cuisine. Talk to anyone hailing from North India and he/she thinks we eat only idli and dosa or cook only in cocunut oil. That is so not true. So I had to write this post to clear out some of the common misconceptions.

Kerala cuisine has a multitude of vegeterian and non-vegeterian dishes. Because of its vast coastal line and backwaters, both sea and fresh water fishes are easily available and fish forms a part of the staple diet of Keralites. Coconut groves are in abundance and hence coconut and coconut milk forms an integral part of the Kerala cuisine. Don't be surprised if you see four-five coconut trees well within the premises of each house in Kerala. Kerala is mainly a rice - eating state and a variety of dishes are made of variations of rice flour or whole rice grains.

As the saying goes 'Have Breakfast like a King', let me start with the main dishes that adorn our breakfast table. Ofcourse, we have Idlis - Steamed rice cakes which can be made either plain or adding some shredded vegetables to it, dosas - pan fried rice crepes which are made in a varieties - plain, with several vegetables (that makes it uttapam), set dosa, masala dosa (with a filling made of potatoes, onions, chillis, etc.) and a variety of dosas with different types of fillings (kheema dosa, corn dosa, mint dosa, etc.), upmas - made of rava or vermicelli (with different vegetables of your choice, channa dal, etc). These are the main dishes which you can find in any of the South Indian restaurants across the country.

Now let me talk about some of the dishes which are unique to Kerala. Topping the list would be Puttu, which is a steamed rice cake (in the shape of a cylinder) made from rice powder and cocunut. This can be made in a cylinder shaped vessel or coconut husk (chiratta - puttu) and you can even fill the rice cake with meat, masala, etc. Puttu is normally had with one or more of the following - kadala (channa) curry, pappad, banana or even some meat based gravy.



Pic Courtesy: www.keralaholidays.com

Appam - Slightly sweet rice crepe made in a perfect circle have enchanted many a palate. Appam in normally had with vegetable stew or mutton/lamb stew (Stew is a cocunut based gravy). We don't contaminate appam with add-ons like masalas or fillings, hence appam remains plain, white and true to its form.


Pic Courtesy: www.keralaholidays.com

Idiyyapam - Again, a steamed dish made of rice flour and shredded coconut, but it forms a beautiful flower like pattern.


Pic courtesy: recipe.chayamukhi.com

Oratti - It is Kerala's answer to North Indian Roti or Puchka. It is a rustic flat bread made out of rice flour and shredded coconut.



Pic Courtesy: http://deepann.wordpress.com

Pathiri - Again a flat bread made of rice flour, but Pathiri is very thin compared to Oratti and much more softer. A popular dish among the Muslims of Kerala and they take much pride in mastering the fine art of making good pathiris. Usually pathiri is eaten with sweetended coconut milk (thenga-paal) or chicken/mutton curry, but the less-adventurous ones, even have it with egg curry or vegetable stew.



Pic courtesy: www.salkaaram.com

As we move ahead from breakfast, it is time to talk about lunch and it can't be complete without mentioning about the traditional Kerala Sadhya. Something which forms the backbone of Kerala cuisine is the Traditional Kerala Feast or Sadhya - It is something which every Keralite takes special pride in and is it nothing sort of a visual treat and gastronomic experience. No matter which part of the kerala you belong, making a grand sadhya is matter of pride for every Keralite. Sadhya is served in plantain leaf (with the cornered end of the plantain leaf pointed towards the left if the leaf is kept facing the person) and around 30 different dishes (more or less depending on which region of Kerala) are served in that one plantain leaf. The dishes include papad, sweets (jaggery and plaintain fry), fruits (banana), different curries like avial, pachadi, olan, koottu-curry etc, rice, dal, curd, pickles and payasams (sweet dishes of liquid consistency made with rice/wheat flakes, dal or vermicelli). There is a designated place for every dish in the leaf and the order in which they are plated is also important. There is also an order in which the dishes have to be eaten. First we start with eating jaggery and plantain fries (if this doesn't entice you, you can skip this step also), next in line is rice with dal (with a few drops of ghee poured on top of it), then sambhar (mixed vegetables and dal curry) is served on top of rice, after that rasam (again a very spicy gravy, but the spices in it is supposed to aid digestion). After that a plethora of payasams (kheer) are served. Most probably you will have three types of payasams being served (made rice/wheat/dal, with milk mixed with jaggery or sugar as the base). The number of payasams can even go upto five - six depending on how special is the occasion in which the feast is being served. You can have payasam either in the same plaintain leaf in which you had rice (it takes time to master the fine art of having payasam (something with a liquid consistency) in a flat leaf) or in a glass. The feast usually ends with having a little rice with curd or buttermilk and a banana. Mastering all the dishes to be served in the feast may take a few years, but this is a feast which every woman in Kerala take pride in preparing. I know even those families who have migrated from Gujarat to Kerala taking pride in preparing this feast.



Pic Courtesy:kitchenmishmash.blogspot.com

Because of the vast coastal line it hosts, seafood forms a prominent part of many of the popular dishes of Kerala. Some of the very popular fish dishes are karimeen pollichathu (Pearl-spot fish prepared by wrapping it in banana leaf), prawns ullarthiyathu (stir-fry), fish fry, kanava thoran (cuttle fish, stir fried) and fish prepared with kudampuli (Kerala Tamarind/Garcinia Cambogina) are some of the popular ones. Kappa (tapioca) & spicy fish curry is a great combo that every true Malayali is proud of.



Pic Courtesy: kichencorner.blogspot.com



Pic Courtesy: reshmiskitchen.blogspot.com

This post wouldn't be complete without a mention of the Malabari Chicken Biriyani. The state of Kerala was created in 1956 from the former state of Travancore-Cochin, the Malabar district of Madras State, and the Kasaragod taluk of Dakshina Kannada. People who hailed from the Malabar district is known for their Biriyani (rice prepared with several spices, shallots and chicken). The sheer aroma of a Malabari Chicken Biriyani is enough to make anyone yearn for it. Traditionally it is a dum-biriyani, prepared by sealing the large vessel used for making the dish with rice flour mix and putting charcoal on top of the lid. Now a days, people prepare it in the oven also.



Pic Courtesy: www.keralaholidays.com

I haven't done complete justice to the cuisine within these limited words. The feast prepared by Muslims for breaking the fast during Ramzan/Id, delicacies prepared in Christan homes during Christmas, some of the popular snack items in Kerala like ela-adda (baked cakes with rice flour, jaggery and cocunut milk), paripuvada (fritters made using dal and flour) and my absolute favourite pazham-pori (banana fritters) require another blogpost all together.



Pic courtesy: www.keralaholidays.com

This post brought back so many lovely memories from my childhood where I happily gorged on everything my mom and aunts made for me. Hope this post will entice you to make a trip to Kerala to be in the backwaters and to taste the Kerala special delicacies !

Bubbling away

Blog Marathon Post 19

A fine gush of air and I come into existence. I notice the twinkle in your eye when I grow big, but the right mixture and components are also the factors that go into deciding my size. Once I enter this world, I float like a cloud, dance with the wind and fly like a butterfly. You can see rainbow in me and I can see dreams in your eyes. I know that you become a little girl in front of me. You watch me wide-eyed and you try to run after me and snatch me. But one touch that’s all is required for me to vanish into non-existence.

I am the bubble.

Ever loved blowing bubbles using a small loop dipped in soap water? I have and will always be. One of the innumerable joys of childhood which I don't want to grow out of. I go back to being that little girl whenever I hold that loop and see my bubbles floating up in the air.



This is a photo taken by a dear friend Prashant, who is an awesome photographer. We had lost touch for almost four years and recently got connected again through facebook. I was in awe looking at his photographs. So proud of the wondeful photographer you are Kulli :)

A quote I absolutely love

Blog Marathon Post 18

'Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take but by the number of moments that take your breath away'

This is a quote I absolutely love. Each time I read it or tell this to someone, I get a high. How true is it? What is the whole point of life if you don't have enough experiences to make it wholesome? What is the purpose of life if you are not ready to take risks and experience it to the fullest?

I believe that life is measured by experiences and unless we explore, how will we experience it? So, make new friends, return smiles, travel to new places, fall in love, try out new cuisines, read books, watch movies, challenge your beliefs, engage in good conversations, take risks, engage in a hobby that you like and love life.

I captured the picture below some months back. It was my first snow and it happened last December. It snowed the entire night and by the time I woke up, the whole apartment area was covered in snow. It was a thing I only read in books and seeing it all in front of my eyes was marvellous.



It was a moment that truly took my breath away. I was so excited to watch snow through the windows, sitting inside my apartment with a hot chocolate in my hand, the entire day. I was so mermerised, like a little child who was experiencing the outside world for the first time. I wanted to hold on to it while there was no tomorrow. It was an experience of a lifetime.

So tell me, what is an experience that you had in your recent past that took your breath away?

P.S: I googled a lot to find out who wrote quote, but all I could find out was that the quote was originally on a Carleton greeting card. If you get anymore info on this, please let me know.

A new dimension to reading

Blog Marathon Post 16

I owned my first real book(something other than children's magazines/books) when I was 10 years. I had to coax my dad a lot to get my hands on that book. He complained how costly it is, however was more than glad to buy that for me. Ever since, my relationship with the books had been a long lasting one. I got books as gifts; I borrowed them from libraries; I rummaged through huge piles of them during book exhibitions; I exchanged them with my friends and when I started earning, I used to spend a huge share of my salary on books. They gave me company when I was sad; they gave me company on a rainy night; they inspired me through quotes; they told me stories of places and people which I have never seen or heard of. They were my companions in exploring the world unknown.

Nowadays, whenever I open Amazon.com to search for a book that I read about or to check for its price, their home page always greets me with an advertisement on Amazon Kindle. They say its Amazon's No.1 bestseller(What is the need of using No.1 and bestseller in the same sentence. Any thoughts?). They even have free reading apps to go with it. They have two versions of it currently - Kindle(6 inch one) and Kindle DX(9.7 inch one). It's slim, can hold upto 3500 books and has features like automatic battery backup, full image zoom, adjustable text size, bookmarks, built-in dictionary and audiobooks. I find a pretty cool device to have. You can carry 3500 books with you all the time, pretty nice, right?

Lets go three years back.

"An e-book and me? Oh, please. I would never love to read an e-book. Sitting in front of a computer and reading an whole book? As it is, I spend so much time sitting in front of computer, I don't want to read an whole book sitting in front of it. I love the feeling of holding a book close to me, turning the pages with my fingers, a lazing around in my couch or bed. I don't think I will ever read an e-book"

The above words were uttered by yours truly exactly three years back. So what happened in the next three years?

The first e-book I ever read was "Rich Dad Poor Dad". It somehow came inside a folder which I downloaded from my b-skul LAN. I started reading it out of curiosity and got hooked to it because of the amazing fundas he gave about money. Before I could realise it myself, I was scrolling pages after pages and in no time, I finished the book. I totally liked the book, above all, I was surprised that I could actually finish reading an e-book. I was amused at myself.

The next one was 'How Opal got drunk, got kissed and got a life'. I read this as an e-book because I didn't want to spend money on a paper back for two reasons: It was a chick-lit and I didn't expect it to be any good. Still, I wanted to read it because for all the controversy it created about Kavya Vishwanathan plagiarising from two books of Megan F. McCafferty. I didn't enjoy the book much, but there I finished reading my second e-book.

It broke a huge barrier inside me. I came to realise that its not so difficult to read an e-book. I read articles, news, papers and so much other online content, then how different is it to read an e-book? Not much. Since then, I have read a few e-books and I don't find it a daunting experience anymore.

Still, I have bought all the books which I really wanted to read and find reading a paperback/hardbound a more enjoyable experience than reading an e-book. Seeing all these ads of e-book readers make me realise they are the future of reading. Who has the space and resources for carrying all the huge books when you can do it all in an e-book reader? An e-book reader or e-books are much more convenient and with e-book readers coming up with so many features, it makes reading a pleasurable experience too.

But, if we digitalize every book that is available to us, won't we have libraries any more? Won't we borrow books?

How will we show off our book collection?

How will we exchange books to read?

Would the parents read their children bedtime stories through a Kindle or Nook? What will the children read without all those colourful picture books?

No more book exhibitions? :'( No more second hand bookstores? :'( :'(

No more spending hours on a Landmark or Crossroads? How will I pass time when I am all alone? :(

Sigh, the one advantage that I can see is lesser number of trees being cut for making paper and hence, a greener world. Though I have kind of accepted the fact that e-book readers/e-books are the future, I refused to buy a Kindle while I was in US. I would hold on to my paperbacks/hardbounds/second hand books as longer as I can. I may go to a phase wherein my books and an e-book reader can co-exist. But what can replace that joy of holding a new book in hand, smelling its fresh pages, flipping through the pages slowly and arranging it all in a book shelf. Nothing can beat the euphoria of being surrounded by so many books either.

Happy reading folks and have a great weekend ahead !!!

An ode to Maggi

Blog Marathon Post 15

She looked into the pan as her mamma crushed the maggi and put it into boiling water. Masala was added next and the mixture was stirred into perfection. She waited for that two minutes to get over, with her mouth watering over the thought of her tasty snack.

"Mummy bhokh lagi, bas do minute! School se aate dhoom machaate
Ek hi baat pe manaate, Maggi Maggi Maggi!" - A jingle that we all have grown up hearing.

Maggi had always been my favourite junk food. During my childhood days, it was eaten once in a while, as a snack or when I was hungry at the odd times. I have a story of messing up maggi when I tried to cook it for the very first time :) Can someone go mess up maggi too? Yes, I did :) I read the package instructions so thoroughly that I timed my maggi and it ended up uncooked. Mom had to cook it again to make it edible. :|

Some years later, Maggi became my staple food. I was doing my internship in Mumbai, and I used to eat Maggi everyday, read "everyday" for dinner. I tried to experiment with Maggi a lot those days. I tried adding different veggies, scrambled eggs, etc. to make more tasty/healthy :) I never got tired of it and it was always the safest option. You can't mess up Maggi really. Can you? Oh ok, everyone is allowed one mistake in life, right?

During my MBA days, I discovered a whole new facet of Maggi. The whole economy of my B school survived on Maggi. We had plain maggi, veg maggi, egg maggi, onion maggi, fried maggi, chesse maggi, tomato maggi and any other variety of maggi which you can think of. We had all the eateries in our campus competing with each other to provide as many varieties of maggi as possible. Had maggi not been discovered, I think many of our batch mates would have gone without food for days :) Fond memories of those days include going to have maggi in the nearby eatery as late as 3AM in the night(or morning, whatever you want to call it), skipping dinner all together so that we can have maggi late into the night and having maggi for lunch, dinner, midnight snack or whenever we feel like. I told you, the whole economy survived on maggi :)

After a long hiatus, I had maggi three months ago in US. It was late into the night; I was too tired to cook anything and hungry. I looked through the cupboards, and found a maggi packet up in the shelf. Viola, I cooked it in no time and my favourite 'junk' food was ready. While digging into it, I remembered my days in B school and internship days when I survived solely on Maggi. I was so happy that day, as a little child who found her lost toy back.

Maggi, no matter how many McDs/CCDs or Baristas come up, no matter how much McVeggie try his best to lure me, no matter how much more packaged/ready-to-eat foods market themselves, you will remain my favourite junk food. I promise, no one else will take your place. Three Cheers to You, may you continue spreading your charm in two minutes always :)

What is your favourite maggi story? C'mon, don't tell me you don't have a maggi story, everyone has one :D

Stamp Collection - A forgotten hobby?

Blog Marathon Post 12

She looked hard. Three dusty hard bound books peered back at her from the bottom shelf of the cupboard. She picked up one of it. It turned out to be a stamp album, with several stamps sorted by countries, arranged alphabetically. She dusted it with a soft cloth

I used to collect stamps during my school days. That was the first hobby I had developed. Me and some of my friends used to collect stamps carefully extracted from the mails that our parents and relatives received and arranged them in a stamp album. We took those albums to school and showed off our collection to each other. Whenever we had duplicate stamps, we exchanged them with others so that our collection will have stamps from all the countries in all the continents. The person who had stamps from a varied number of countries were always looked upon with awe. I also had stamp albums which we were passed on to me from my cousins. I used to go to exhibitions to collect stamps; I used to exhort my relatives coming from far off places to get me stamps of those countries.

A few basic items of equipment are needed to collect stamps. Stamp tongs or tweezers help to handle stamps safely, a magnifying glass helps in viewing fine details and an album is a convenient way to store stamps. The stamps need to be attached to the pages of the album in some way and stamp hinges are a cheap and simple way to do this

I clearly remember the day our teacher taught us a lesson on stamp collection. She told us that this hobby will help us improve our knowledge of far off places and whenever we see a stamp, we should try and ask ourselves several questions about it. Me and my friend had a laugh riot that day looking at the stamp of Mecca Masjid and asking all sort of stupid questions (No offence to Mecca Masjid, it was all innocent fun that we had).



This makes me wonder does anyone collect stamps anymore? I don't know any kid who collect stamps anymore. None of my cousins do that, they are far better off with their PlayStation and XBOX. But, do we have any means of collecting them anymore? In this age of email and internet, how many of us send snail mails? I myself haven't used stamps for a long time now. If less and less people use stamps, would stamp collection be a long forgotten hobby? :(

I would however end this with a few stamp collection trivia.

- Stamp collecting is not the same as philately, which is the study of stamps. A philatelist may, but does not have to, collect stamps.

- The first postage stamp, the Penny Black, was issued by Britain in 1840 and pictured a young Queen Victoria.

- There are many types of stamps-for example, commemorative, definitive, and special-and formats such as sheets, booklets, or coils. Stamps may be conventional adhesive ("lick-and-stick") or self-adhesive ("no-lick, peel-and-stick").

- The most popular US postage stamp sold over 120 million copies. It was a 1993 stamp of rock singer Elvis Presley.

- The only country to print stamps without its name on them is Great Britain. This is okay because they invented the stamp

Did you use to collect stamps? Any stamp collection stories from childhood?

Info coutesy: ducksters.com, wikipedia, stampcollectingbasics.com

My sweet lulu ...

I was two years and 9 months, when I first saw her. I looked at her, wide eyed through the glass windows of the neo-natal care in a hospital in God's own country. She had chosen to arrive a few minutes later, was born a 'blue' baby and had to be given special care the initial few days in the hospital. I don't remember what exactly was I feeling the moment I first saw her. But I truely was amazed by that bundle of joy, who was biting into other babies' fingers because she was too hungry and her hunger couldn't be satisfied by whatever food was available in the neo-natal care.

She must have been the first baby I ever held in my hand. But it was always so difficult for me to carry her around because she was quite a handful, a cute chubby baby. She loved baloons, had always been a water baby and cried at the smallest hint of rebuke or embarassment. I have got many a beating from my mom because she always thought I was the one at fault :|

As years passed by we became best friends, accomplices and each others pillars of strength. The fact that our parents were in busy professions brought us much closer to each other. We shared everything from clothes, bags and shoes to thoughts, beliefs and dreams. We have had such vocal fights that someone hearing it would have thought that the problem is more complex than the India-Pakistan issue. But it would take only a few minutes before we both can't stop laughing about it :D

She is one of the people who would have irritated me so much in my life, at the same time, the sweetest person in this world for me.

She is the one whom I wanted to protect from very bad thing of life.

She is the one whom I have tried to manaufy after every fight of ours during our childhood, when she refused to even talk to me.

She is the one whom I allow to boss around me, though she wants me to convince mom and dad for things to happen in her own way.

She has tried to take care of me, no matter how young she was and how far she was away from me.

We have stood for each other through thick and thin, providing each other a shoulder to cry on and whatever support one could offer.

She has told me the story of all the Harry Potter books, something which she is so passionate about, late into the night, while I was struggling to stay awake and sound
interested.



Many years ago, we were these two little girls, oblivious to the vagaries of life and the ways of world. Years have passed by and we both are at different stages in life and at opposite ends of the globe. Still my sister, I wish I could go a few years back so that I can grow up with you again, grow from being sisters to best friends, to play all those pranks on people, to eat all those goodies which mom had hiden somewhere up in the cupboard and to spend many a sleepless night gossiping away to glory.

Today my sweet little sister is celebrating her 23rd birthday. Happy Birthday lulu, may you have the best of everything life has to offer. I am always in awe and so proud of the strong, beautiful girl you have transformed into.

Five people you will meet in your train journeys

Disclaimer: Characters mentioned in this post are purely imaginary. If you can identify with any of them, chances are high that we took a train together sometime to some common destination.

Train Journeys form an indispensable part of my life. They have always been my comfortable and favourite mode of transport. As a child, looking out of the window and watching those lush green fields passing by, was my favourite pass time during my train journeys. Cows grazing in the fields, children playing cricket, bridges over those beautiful rivers were some of the common sights during my journeys. There were a lot more of such beautiful sights on my way to my ancestral home. Periodic visits by chai-wallahs, pantry boys, magazine sellers used to pipe up my mood more.

Even now, with the cool breeze touching my face and tousling my hair, I can hear train singing a lullaby for me. Now most of my train journeys being overnight ones, i don't get to enjoy the sights anymore. But something that hasn't changed till now, is the different types of people I travel with. Let me try and broadly divide them into the some categories:

Loners: 'Live and let others live' types. The easiest of all types to put up with. They would either be listening to music or reading something or dreaming(???). Whatever they are doing, they won’t bother to interfere with what others are doing. They are content in their own world.

Mother India types: They have taken it upon themselves to take care of everybody. They will start off with questions like where u are going? what u are going to do there? where u are working? etc... They would normally be traveling with their sons or husbands or nephews. If they are traveling with their daughters or grand children, they chose to ignore u. Come on, how can they have time to spare for u when they are busy feeding their grand children, talking to them and putting them to sleep. The main advantage of travelling with them is the occasional food packets that they take out and insist that you eat atleast some of it. But I somehow like travelling with them. I feel a sense of security when a motherly figure is around.

Aunty Number One: Mostly in their middle ages, they love to extract each and every minute details of your personal life. Though they will start off with asking about your work and education, it won’t take much time for them to drift the focus to your family. They would be eager to know what your dad do for a living and where your home town is. During one of my journeys, I met this corpulent, nosey lady who started off a conversion with me, in a very friendly manner. She kept on extracting the minutest details from me, starting with the place i stay now to the nursery school I attended(!!). Considering the tangential direction in which the conversation was heading, I started smelling something really fishy. Disappointment was quite visible in her face, when I politely(Gosh, I extracted the last drop of patience in my body to sound so) told her that I don’t belong to the religion which she thought I would be a part of. She shifted gears and continued the conversation with increased vigour. Then, the conversation went something like this.

Auntiji: So do u know that girl named X, who stays there. (She infact gave me her full house address with her dad's name)

Me(thinking when will this conversation finally end): Ya, I know her, infact she studied with me in school(World is after all so small. The girl in picture happens to be one of my best friends from my school days).

Auntiji: U know what? One of my relatives told me about this girl, I wanted to see her for my son. (This was followed by a string of questions about how she looks, where is she now, etcetera)

Me(cursing myself for starting a conversation with her): Hmmm, yeah, she is good Aunty. (I didn’t want to explain the facts that she is seeing someone and she is not interested in marriage and stuff).

I finally managed to act as if i haven't slept for days and if i dont sleep now,i am drop dead. I withdrew to my upper berth with the auntiji wondering whether she should ask the girl sitting in front of her, about another girl whom another relative talked about for her another son :)

Next type of people is the most interesting...
I want friendship types: Travelling alone and mostly in their 20s or early 30s, these men believe that train journeys are the perfect place to make friendships. And me, a girl travelling alone beg to differ. Typically, I carry a book with me and attempt to read it, no matter how noisy the atmosphere is. Moreover, whenever anyone belonging to this group asks me a question, I tell all my details wrong, right from my name to the organisation i work for :). But, sometimes, you dig your own death trap. This happened when i was travelling one day, back to Bangalore, from my hometown. I was sitting in the side upper berth, reading a book. This guy was in the upper berth, perpendicular to mine, sitting on the edge. He tries to start up a conversation. For the sake of simplicity, lets call him Mr.X.

Mr.X: So are you working in Bangalore?

Me(starled by the fact that someone is actually interrupting me while i am reading): Hmmm... yeah.

Mr.X: Which company are u working for?

I mumble out the name of a famous multinational though i work for another company :)

Mr.X: Oh!! So which vertical u belong to?

Now I am really surprised. I have learnt about vertical, horizontal and diagonals in my mathematics classes, nowhere else. The organisation I work for, don't use this terminology either. So I gave him a look as if how come he knows about the organisational ladders existing in my company.

Mr.X: (As if to clear my confusion) By the way, I work for the same company.
This is followed by a grin that says “Don’t you know? We are long lost friends” :|

Now it was my time to be surprised. I didn’t know that one innocuous lie that I told would backfire at me with the same pace. A sheepish grin and a nod, that’s all I could manage before I turned my head back to my book. The guy was left wondering the entire journey how snobbish I am, not even bothering to answer a simple question. As if I care !!!

Papa, Mama is here to take care of you munnu types: Lets end this with the most difficult types to put up with. People traveling with babies. They carry with them feeding bottles, four course meals, innumerable dresses for their baby, small commode and what not. I really don’t know whether they are shifting their base to some other city or traveling in a train. Though many of you may disagree with me, I find them the most difficult ones to put up with. As it is you are crunched for space and you will have to move a thousand times over to make space for them. Not to mention the baby crying whole night, not allowing you a wink of sleep. I may sound presumptuous here, but hey, even I want to have a peaceful journey.

Whether its the sheer experiences it gives, the type of people you meet or the comfort, train journeys remain the most favourite means of transportation for me.

So whom did you meet in your recent train journey?

A virtual journey down the memory lane

I chanced upon my engineering college's image in Wikimapia, while googling for something else. I used to be a day scholar during my engineering college days. I used to travel by bus everyday from my home to my college, either in the college bus or transport buses. It used to the same route, familiar buses and drivers. Because many of the buses leave only at a particular time, it was quite an ordeal to get ready on time and catch the bus. During morning hours, there used to be so many people in the bus that you can barely put a feet down. My fellow passengers used tricks(read blows and punches) that would put many a WWF Champions into shame, to get a seat to sit. People would be exhausted by the time they reach their destinations. Nevertheless, i used to enjoy those journeys.

Reminisence does not always make you happy. The thought of being away from home for so many months and the hard fact that i won't be home for some more months made me sad. So i decided to take a journey down the memory lane, and tranversed the entire route from college to home, as i used to do in a bus. But this time, with the help of simple 'Pan up', 'Pan down', 'Pan right' and 'Pan left' buttons of Wikimapia. I saw the same buildings i used to see, bridges i used to cross, traffic junctions were we waited for the traffic lights to turn green and many of my friends' houses on the way. The only difference being, today i saw all of that by a simple movement of my mouse, sitting so many miles away from all of them. And finally, after so many turns and clicks, i reached home :)



My home is the small rectangle, right at the centre. No points for guessing though!!!

I thank Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev for their wonderful invention. You people made my day. I was so happy to be finally home, 'virtually'. They say, technology can bridge gaps and transcend boundaries. Today Wikimapia did it for me, atleast to a great extend.

Disclaimer: After reading this, if you feel that this girl is crazy, dont worry, you are not the only one feeling that way. Even i feel the same today :D

New Year, Renewed Hopes

The girl looked out through the window. She could see a sky filled with dark clouds. The weather was gloomy. She had never liked gloomy weather. She always felt that gloomy weather in turn translates to gloominess in her heart, adding on to the level of inactivity around. She could sense that level of inactivity around. She came and sat in her couch, feeling dejected. Minutes flew by. Slowly she could hear the sound of rain drops touching the ground. It didn’t take long for the rain to become a torrential downpour. She ran to the door. Pitter Patter the raindrops fell, all around her. She could sense her gloominess being washed away with the rain. She let the rain touch her, wash away her gloominess with every single drop. The rain lasted a few minutes. The clouds parted and out came the sun. She could feel the sunshine on her face. She welcomed it with both hands. She held her both hands high as if to take in every single bit of that sunshine.

May the sun shine as bright as it could for you, in the coming year.



Have a fun filled, rock n' roll new year. May this year brings lots of happiness for you.

Her eye's view

After a hard day's work, she was sitting in a swing in the balcony of her flat, with a cup of coffee in her hand. Nowadays, this has become her favourite way of destressing herself. The swinging action gives her body a rhythm which brings back the memories of her childhood. It reminds her of the summer holidays which she used to spend in her grandma's house. The innumerable hours, she with her cousins, used to play in the swing, in the mangrove. Big battles were fought to decide who will swing first and how long. Those were the memories which refused to leave her, which brings back a smile to her face even after so many years.

Looking down from her balcony, she could see many glimpses of a busy metropolitan city life. There were buses and vehicles rushing past in the road below. People were frantically rushing towards their destinations. Everyone is busy with their own lives. Everyone is in a search for a better life, a better job, true love, more money and many other things which they feel will bring them happiness. This mad rush had been a part of the life for some time now. Four years back when she came to this city with a job, leaving the close comforts of her home, she had no idea that life in this city will change her attitude and views to such a great extend. It had transformed her into a different person, a person whom she herself finds it difficult to relate to, at times.

She shuddered at the flow of these unnecessary thoughts. She glanced around. Towards her left, inside the flat in the floor just below hers, she could see a woman in her kitchen. Her face is red with all the smoke and heat that is emanating from the vessel. She was preparing something in a hurried manner. Maybe her husband is about to reach home after a day's work and its already dinner time. It made her wonder whether she will be there in that woman's place any day. A marriage? She hasn't found a person to get married to and she is already thinking about cooking a meal for him. She laughed at her own folly. After all dreams, they are sky bound.

In the balcony of the flat two floors below, she could see two cute little girls playing with their dolls. They had got a papa doll, mama doll and two other dolls as children. They were enacting the whole play as in papa goes to work, mama cooks and cleans, children go to school, the whole happy family drama. It reminded of her own childhood games with her girlfriends and dolls. How much fun they had while acting as loving mamas, bringing up their dolls as their own children, cooking meals for them and dressing them up in beautiful frocks. She still has the first doll which she got as a present from her aunt, somewhere deep inside her cupboard. She doesn't feel like giving it away though it had been years since she stopped using it. Maybe we cling on to certain things because they give us a breather in those moments when we feel like giving it all up.

Suddenly she could hear the loud music and feel the thumping on the floor. A bunch of teenagers must be partying in the adjacent flat. Those carefree days, when all you worried about was what clothes to wear and which classes to bunk. Gossiping all the way through a plate of pani-puri, those hush hush conversations about secret crushes, the teachers you silently admired, the list of craziness never ended. She misses her friends, friends who have chosen their own paths and moved ahead in life. Friends whom she lost contact with many years ago. Sometimes she feels being ambitious makes life much more difficult to live. Somewhere down the line, in the process of being successful, you miss out on the small happy moments with your friends, family and loved ones. At the same time, she is happy about whatever she has achieved in her professional life. She let out a sigh thinking about the irony of the whole situation.

In the balcony of the flat on her right side, she could see an old woman in her armchair. She has seen this lady at the same place so many times. Someone had even told her that the old woman is a widow and her children are all settled aboard. She is living in the flat with a servant. She imagined what it feels like to be living all alone when you are old. Inspite of being young and having a hectic work schedule, she finds herself lonely at times. Boring weekends, lonely evenings have all become a part of her life. All of a sudden, she felt sorry for the old woman. She said a silent prayer for her.

Different lives, different phases. She may have donned a dozen roles in her life, but she has more to don and many more acts to play.

She continued swinging, sipping coffee.

Yet another year

She was born on a rainy day many years ago.
During her childhood, she used to fall sick often,
giving many a sleepless night to her parents.
As she grew up, she lived life according to her terms.
She made her own rules, took her own decisions.
She did make mistakes and learnt from them.
But she was happy because those were her own decisions.
She always set high strandards for herself and tried hard to achieve them.
She achieved some and lost some others,
still being happy about how her life had turned out.
Passing years makes her happy and sad at the same time.
Happy because each year adds so many experiences to her life
and sad because the years are passing by and
she has so much to read, write, achieve, travel and experience.
She turns 23 today.

Happy Birthday girl!!!

Oh !!!

I thought Jack and Jill were two cute kids and Humpty-Dumpty was a cute fatso, until i read this.

120 seconds

When my auto had stopped at the traffic signal, I looked at the timer. It showed 120 seconds. Damn! I cursed myself once again for being late for the seminar. My thoughts were fleeting between the seminar, the presentation and the time left with me to reach there. At times, my random thoughts were interrupted by horns, blown by vehicles rushing to the two side roads connected to the junction. I get increasingly irritated when people blow horns at the traffic signals. I looked at the timer again.

It showed 110 seconds...

I looked out of my autorickshaw. In the nearby vehicles, i could see people listening to music, talking over phones and browsing through magazines. All of them seemed to be mesmerized in a world of their own. Be it air-conditioned cars or two wheelers, people are occupied with their own thoughts. All of us have different destinations. As soon as that green light glows, we will all be rushing to our respective destinations. Just 120 seconds of togetherness.

90 seconds...

It was then I saw him. He was standing there with an intriguing face. We glanced at each other. There was something in his innocent eyes which held my glance for a longer time. He smiled at me, that too a very cute one and I found myself smiling back at him.

80 seconds...
He was wearing a torn shirt and dirty trousers. He couldn't be more than five years old. He was standing a few feet away from the road. He checked whether all the commuters are noticing him or not. Then as if to draw everybody's attention, he blew out a whistle. He was joined by another boy who looked one or two years older than him. They had a ring, a metal can and a stick with their hands.

60 seconds...
He held a ring up. Putting the ring through his head, he gyrated it at his hips a couple of times and let it fall off his body. He together with the other boy bend their bodies into a perfect circle and started rotating with the ring. The perfect synchronisation between the boys made the whole act to look like a rotating ball. The fact that they were doing all of this under blazing sun and the sheer innocence of their faces made my heart weep. With a few more somersaults, they stopped their act.

30 seconds...
Both of them started moving from one vehicle to another, with metal cups in their hands. They knocked at car windows and waited near some passengers hoping that they would be kind enough. While some of the passengers handed over a couple of coins, some blatantly ignored them. Some seemed to be too occupied in their conversations over their mobile phones. How mobile phone helps us to ignore those we want to, was quite visible for me that day. Some were even ready to get rid of them by scolding them.

10 seconds...
He came closer to the rickshaw in which i was sitting. He held out his can for me. I wanted to tell him something, but my inability to express myself in a language which he will understand, kept my lips seated. But i think my eyes conveyed something and he smiled at me once again. I didn't know whether the money i was giving him, finally went to someone else's pocket or not. Yet while putting a handful of coins into his can, I wished he could eat atleast one meal of the day to his heart's content. I could hear the groaning sound of the engine and my rickshaw rushed past the signal. But those 120 seconds lingered in my thoughts for a longer time.

Strand Book Fair

I couldn't have found a better place for spending my sunday afternoon. A place where i was surrounded by so many of books. Being surrounded by so many books had always given me a high. I was planning to go to Strand Book Fair for quite some time, but had neither the time nor the oppurtuinity to do so. Strand Books' legacy of offering a minimum of 20% discount on the books and the wide coverage given by media were adding to my excitement so much that Sunday morning i decided, be it rain or fall i am going there today.

Even if it was a lazy sunday afternoon, all the three halls where the Book Fair was being conducted in the Chinnaswamy Stadium was filled with people. Childrens rummaging over the tables containing comics, couples discussing whether 'Freakonomics' would make a good read or not, friends recommending books for each other, elderly people moving slowly from one table to another were the common sights. All of them had two things in common - a carry bag full of books and a passion for reading. It was nice to see so many ardent readers discussing fervently which book to buy and which not. Even with so many technological gadgets occupying our attention and space, books remain a man's best friend till date.

In my childhood, books came to me weaving a magical world of fairies, dwarfs, princesses, princes, kings and queens. They brought with them Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Pinochio, Peter Pan and Cindrella. In my dreams these characters flocked in once in a while giving me an interesting story to remember for days to come.Those years, everything that i read had a mystical aura surrounding it. Years passed by and books came to me as Diamond Comics, Sherlock Holmes, Famous Five and Princess Diaries. After that they came to me as Three Men in a Boat and a few more. Then came the huge bunch of technological books and somewhere in the process of mugging them up i lost my magical world. I lost everything magical about books and they became mere huge chunks of papers which i have to eat up to score more in my exams, to get into a good engineering college, to get a good job and the list went on. I had become too busy cramming them up that i lost in touch any book other than my text books. After all, your priorities at a particular point of time govern your interests to a certain extend.

But now i have to catch up with all those years which i have spent ignoring my books. I am trying to find as much time as possible to read. I want to be in the world of Somerset Maugham and Charles Dickens. I want to read 'World is Flat' and 'Freakonomics'. I want to discuss books with my friends. I want to own all the lovely books in this world. All in all I want to be in that magical world yet again.

-dewdrop