Gurudwara Moti Bagh

Decorations

Priests getting ready to start the wedding ceremony in a beautifully decorated "mantap". Taken around midnight as we were leaving the wedding venue.

Dinning Anyone?

I wonder what they were thinking. With all that sound equipment they were carrying up, maybe they did intend creating a "dinning" experience for guests.

Valentine's Day

This was the spread that I was welcomed to after spending an entire week at my parents'. Thanks S! (Had I caught an earlier flight, this would have been a Feb 14th picture. But it was past midnight when we sat down to dinner!)

Everyday Art

I'm amazed at the murals that I saw all over Bangalore. Everytime I drove past one of these, I wanted to take a picture. I didn't go out much in Madras, or I would have captured some of those there too. These works of art just make the ride that much more enjoyable.

Craze for Cars

The car bug seems to catch boys very young. My friend's 3 year old checking out the all new Manza at a showroom in Bangalore.

The Rising Sun

Taken from the balcony of my apartment in Bangalore.

Shivaratri

The temple across the street from my apartment in Bangalore all decked up for Shivaratri. (Taken from my balcony with a 10x zoom.)

Coffee, Conversations and More

There's a certain comfort in meeting old friends and having conversations over cups of coffee... this is the stuff memories are made of. The Transit Lounge, Forum Mall, Koramangala, Bangalore.

Centre of (Attr)action

Commercial Street, Bangalore on a weekday afternoon.

WIP

I love looking at construction sites, trying to picture how this WIP will ever look like the model they portray. But they always do. Well, almost always.

The Elixir of Life

The authorities are never going to take their own messages about water conservation seriously. A water lorry in Chennai spilling water all over the road.

Pondy Bazaar

The pavement outside Rathna Stores in Pondy Bazaar, T. Nagar, Chennai.

In-flight Reading Material

I hope this book will keep me company on a long flight tomorrow!

Spelling Bee

I couldn't help but stop and take this picture! (Needless to say, I couldn't control my laughter.)

International Relations

I wonder what dear Leo would do if he had as much as an inkling!

Choo Choo Train

The pride of Delhi. The Metro pulling out of a station.

Traffic Signal

You can find just about everything at signals these days. These colourful balloons captured my attention.

The Big Bright Moon

The brightest of 2010!

Book Fair

I spent a wonderful day at the New Delhi Book Fair 2010. I bought some books and I didn't buy some. No regrets with respect to the ones I did buy. Oodles of regret about the ones I didn't buy. But, in all, a day well spent!

Happiness

...comes in every colour and size. The array of sweets at the Adyar Ananda Bhavan. Ananda means happiness and it usually knows no bounds when I enter this store.

Avatar

This bar of Pears soap has been in our guest bathroom for about a month. And it is slowly transforming into another being.

Hide and Seek

The moon and the clouds played hide and seek with us.

Dilemma

Life isn’t always fair or rosy or any of those things we believe it is. It is often a test. I’ve learnt that the same holds for friendship too. Every relationship goes through its share of ups and downs. I have some of the best friends anyone can ever hope to have. We’ve grown up together, giving each other shoulders to cry on, taking calls at the crack of dawn to share good news. Some things will never change. There is comfort in this knowledge.


I’ve found myself change over the years though, from being very judgmental to becoming reflective; from speaking my mind out and expecting them to understand just because they are my closest friends to understanding that we may be friends, but we are individuals first. I realized only today that this was the new me. The new me doesn’t say “I told you so” when things go exactly as she predicted. In fact, the new me has been around for a few years now, I just didn’t realize it.


Life is full of choices. My friends are free to make theirs. If I have reservations about those, I can make a choice to keep my reservations to myself. I got a jolt this morning. I happened to reflect on how differently I might have reacted to the same event about 5 years ago. I thought about why I chose to keep mum, when in another avatar I may have jumped out with bucket loads of unsolicited advice. And then I saw this Facebook status message of someone very close to me:


Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.


Life has brought me to the cross roads and I made a choice today. What do you do when you are in a fix? If you knew that your friend is about to make the biggest mistake of his/her life, would you watch him/her do it or would you speak your mind? Would you watch them go through the fire and wait for them at the other end? Or would you plead with them to listen to you because you "simply know" better?

Republic Day Parade on TV

We're watching the R-Day Parade on TV. Ten years ago, I was at Rajpath with my parents watching the parade in person. An unforgettable experience.

Happy Republic Day! Happy Birthday Appa!

Splash of Colour

A little rainbow inside the cupboard. The Welhome sale is on and we picked up almost everything the store offered. The colours present a welcome change from our original stash of white and blue.

Look Ma, I can tell the time!

We bought this antique style clock in Mussoorie and S got to work over the weekend and fixed it on the wall. I really love the clock and the fact that we can see it from most parts of the house that we actually use.

Cup of Joy

The sun is out today. I spent a good bit of the afternoon out on the balcony. With a book and a cup of hot peach tea.

Bridge on the River Yamuna

The dense fog over the the DND flyway that connects Delhi and NOIDA over the Yamuna.

Rainbow

I dress as colourfully as I can in the winter. There can be rainbows even without the sun. A random click in the cab to work.

Goodies

Goodies that Amma sent to me through a friend. The package included a couple of lids, a Telugu cookbook by Malathi Chendur, a T-shirt that my friend brought for me from Dubai and 2 kilos of filter coffee. That last item in the list ... Nirvana!

Stairway to Heaven

The heavy fog on a cold winter night. The scene right in front of our building.

Colours on a Dull Day!

I don't see the point of this "mud carrying" exercise.

Five-a-day!

A local fruit and vegetable market. Sector 14, Gurgaon. This was the biggest market when I first moved to Gurgaon in the 90s. Now, it is just one of the many markets.

Zorbing

This experience defined my day! I went Zorbing for the first time in my life. After three years of rock climbing, rappelling, rafting and trekking with folks from work, it was fun to be inside an orb with S.

A welcome sight

on an otherwise lonely road!

Unexpected Visitors

These little fellas dropped by this afternoon just as we were getting ready for our Pongal feast.

Darkness and Light

Heavy fog on Lohri! The view from our balcony.

Monstrosity

This building in red and white is by far the most horrendous building I have seen in recent years.

Gurgaon-Delhi Expressway

The road I take to work everyday.

Beauty and the Beast

In this case, the beast is the garbage!

Winter bounty

Fruits, roasted peanuts, gajak, revdi and chhole kulchey!

Darkness

Light

Kitchen Garden

Curry Leaves and Tulsi.

Dream On...

I'm trying to imagine how my Indian and International "Cousins" will taste! Missed eating at this place in Mussoorie. Well, there's always a next time.

All in a Day's Work

Touch the sky

Serenity

A new sunrise

2010: A new beginning!

Chronicling my year, a picture a day. Project 365.

Assumptions

I am quite irritated with blogger these days. But I am more irritated with google as a whole. Each time I try to go to google.com the browser is directed to google.co.in. What's wrong with that, you ask? Really nothing. It is just that google.co.in has a setting somewhere that displays everything in Hindi. And then I have to translate each page... every time.

Why do they assume that if you're accessing google from India, you must be an Indian? And why assume again that if you're an Indian in India, you'd love to see everything in Hindi?

Yet another aspect of life that is so beyond my comprehension.

In God We Trust

Visiting places of religious interest in India has got me wondering about many things.

• Does God really have only a limited amount of blessings to give out? Why is everyone so keen on making it first? Even if it means pushing other people out of their way.
• Is the quality of the blessing received directly proportional to the amount of time we spend in front of the idol?
• Is God really present only inside the sanctum sanctorum? Is that why people think they can get away with anything as long as they're not "inside" the temple?
• Are we so focused on getting a good "darshan" that we can really afford to forget our manners and bad mouth other pilgrims with the choicest of expletives when they say, "Excuse me"?
• Do the "holiest of places" have to be mean the "filthiest of places"?

As I turn a year older, I add to my list more things that will remain beyond my comprehension. Older, not necessarily wiser.

She will melt your heart

I was so eagerly waiting for my dearly beloved. I read every news article that I came across. I even read the magazines, that I normally stay away from, cover to cover, when they reviewed her. Through all the controversies and the debates, I was proud of what she stood for.

And yet, despite all this and more, I must say that nothing prepared me for what I saw yesterday. As I was riding in the cab back home, I saw her in front of me. In a bright yellow avatar. The cutest little thing I have ever seen. And my heart melted.

Welcome to the world dear Tata Nano!

Love Letter

I once watched a movie on Hallmark. This was almost a decade ago. It touched me like no other movie did. It was a simple romantic movie called The Love Letter.

Last week, in Chennai, my father showed me this "love letter" which he found in a ten rupee bundle. I must admit this letter cracked me up like no other. Juvenile love!

The Indian Vegetarian's 100

I just read Nupur's post on the Indian Vegetarian's 100. After listing her Vegetarian's 100, she has now published the top 100 Indian vegetarian foods that one must try at least once in their lives.

Your challenge, should you take up this meme is to:

Copy the entire list, along with these instructions, into your blog post

Bold the foods that you have tried
Strike out the foods you would never try (I used a red font as I was unable to strike out)
Tell us your score in the comments :)

If you wish to, make your own list or add to this one (something I plan to do later)

Nupur's Vegetarian 100:

1. Ripe mangoes

2. Curd rice

3. Chaat

4. Phulka

5. Puran poli

6. Boiled peanuts

7. Samosa

8. Stuffed baby eggplants

9. Aviyal

10. Stuffed paratha

11. Masala chai

12. Tirphal

13. Murukku

14. Curry leaves

15. Banana chips fried in coconut oil

16. Jaggery

17. Vada pav

18. Tender coconut water

19. Paneer

20. Madras filter coffee

21. Boondi laddoo

22. Boondi raita

23. Navratan korma

24. Kokum

25. Masala peanuts

26. A home-cooked Indian vegetarian meal

27. Sugarcane juice

28. Sabudana/sago in any form

29. Horsegram

30. Maggi noodles

31. Podi with rice and ghee

32. Roomali roti

33. Bitter gourd

34. Nylon sev

35. Vegetable biryani

36. Thali at a restaurant

37. Plantain flower

38. Undhiyu

39. Nimbu pani

40. Papad

41. Kotthu parotta

42. Panch phoran

43. Drumsticks

44. Indian "French toast"

45. Sarson ka saag

46. Bhakri

47. Pav bhaji

48. Sitaphal

49. Glucose biscuits

50. Sprouts

51. Chole-bhature

52. Amla

53. Tomato "omelet"

54. A wedding feast

55. Grilled corn on the cob with lemon juice, salt and chilli powder

56. Cadbury's fruit and nut chocolate

57. Sai bhaji

58. Solkadi

59. Indian-Chinese meal

60. Jalebi

61. Black forest cake

62. Bharwa bhindi

63. Kashmiri saffron

64. Misal

65. Ripe jackfruit

66. Idli-chutney

67. 'Tadgola'

68. Bhut jolokia

69. Baby mango pickle

70. Meal off a banana leaf

71. Falooda

72. Moong khichdi

73. Bebinca

74. Daal baati

75. Methi greens

76. Basundi

77. Gunpowder

78. Appam-stew

79. Sweet lemon pickle

80. Ridge gourd

81. Bisi bele bhath

82. Coconut burfi

83. Caramel custard

84. Thecha

85. Rasam

86. Baingan bharta

87. Mysore pak

88. Punjabi wadi

89. Chhunda

90. Dal makhani

91. Paper dosa

92. Gongura

93. Hand-churned butter

94. Pakoda

95. Curd chillies

96. Mustard oil

97. Fresh cashews

98. Tomato pickle

99. Rajma-chawal

100. Chaas

I don't think I shall ever taste the Bhut Jolokia which is considered the King Cobra of chillies. I have yet to eat Sai Bhaji. It is one dish that I've seen make the rounds of so many popular blogs. I have yet to make it or taste it.

My score is 98%. I think it is brilliant that I've actually tasted 98% of the stuff that Nupur believes vegetarians must try in Indian food. Thanks Nupur, this was fun!

Another year...

Another year has gone by. This year has taught me much. It has, among other things, taught me that this blog is as loved if not more than my food blog. While this is just my rant space, I've found that people are interested in what I have to say. It doesn't matter if I talk about the state of affairs in the country or share my personal achievement of driving to work and back.

This has renewed my enthusiasm. I have the energy I need to keep this blog going. Thanks to everyone who comes and leaves their comments. By letting me know that you're here, you've egged me on.

OnlineRaga completes three years on the blogosphere. Thanks to all of you! Happy Birthday OnlineRaga. May you give us all many more years of happiness.

Of Media, Esteem, Fairness and Women

I happened to watch some TV this morning. S turned to a news channel. There it was: 26/11 and the Kasab trial. They gave out the entire plan about a bomb proof and bullet proof tunnel that would take the terrorist to his trial. They had computer graphics showing us the composition of that tunnel. And then the usual rubbish about, "Do you know what other arrangements have been made?" I don't need to know. Neither do the guys who might want to sabotage things. If I can watch this, so can they.

On a different note, but related to television nonetheless, do you remember the Maruti Esteem ad that came a few years ago. The "Esteem means what?" advertisement. It was very touching and really cute. Esteem was withdrawn and Swift Dzire has come in its place. I don't like the car at all. But I watched the ad for this car and thought it was appalling. This little girl feels that no one looks at her and the father buys this car. Suddenly everyone looks at them. How shallow! The already low self esteem of that child should have gone two notches lower in that case.

I found the Tata Indicom Samsung Mobile tracker advertisement rather original and very nice. Like the Happy Dent White ad that came on TV a few years ago (and is still aired from time to time). Things are not all bad, I guess.

Though, have you noticed that everyone seems so overly obsessed with fairness. Every cream that is sold for men and women "has" to have a fairness meter attached to it. Someone told these guys we won't buy face or body creams if they won't make us fairer. There was just one Fair and Lovely to contend with earlier. Now even Vaseline (come on!) is forced to add a fairness meter and guarantee fairer skin. I guess very soon we shall see Johnson's Baby Soap and Pears come with new ad campaigns: "Do you think your baby's skin is dark? Use new Johnson's Baby Soap and see your baby's complexion turn two shades fairer in just two weeks."

To sell anything to mothers (not parents, only mothers), all you have to do is tell them how their children will come first in class or grow taller. All they have to do is drink some malted chocolate drink and they're the confirmed superstars of tomorrow. And Bournvita Li'l Champs is all set to start them off early. I am shocked that they're selling a drink so 2 year olds can stay ahead of the competition. Two year olds. Last heard, they were still running around in diapers.

Advertisers also seem to think that in order to sell anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to a guy, all they have to do is tell him that it will get him a girl. It doesn't matter whether they're selling motorbikes (that XCD 135 ad takes the cake) or deodorants or chewing gum. In the end, it is always the girl. Someone ought to tell them that it really isn't that simple. Because we're simply not THAT dumb.

Small Wonder

The Tata Nano is out. I haven't booked it yet. A lot of people seem surprised that I haven't booked it. I know it is just a matter of time. I've been reading reviews of the car and I think the word that would best describe this little beauty is: CUTE.

Somehow I still find a lot of people who haven't warmed up to the idea. I am still the object of ridicule at get togethers because I am the one with the lowly ambition of wanting to own a Nano. Because, you see, the one little Nano that I buy will clog the roads. Believe me, if I told people I wanted to buy a Merc or a BMW, I am sure they wouldn't think of it as something that would clog the roads.

I've now confirmed (to myself) that it is the fact that "everyone could own a car" that's driving the anti - Nano sentiment. It didn't happen when everyone got cell phones (or phones for that matter). We like it that our milkman, maid and newspaper vendor have phones. Yet, we grudge them the luxury of a comfortable commute, should they be able to afford it.

I put off buying a car until I absolutely needed one. I continued to use public transport or a car pool long after we had our car and long after I started driving. (I still do.) I might not buy another car until I absolutely feel the need to. I have nothing against people who own more cars than they need to. I have a problem when these very people start their Nano-bashing. Is it that we want to maintain the difference between the haves and the have nots?

I am sure that everyone will have their two bits to say when I do get my Nano. Yes, it will be an inexpensive (not cheap) car and maybe my milkman will have one too. But I doubt this will make any difference to someone who's been ridiculed for 2 years now for owning a "taxi". People forget... or they simply don't know... that Mercs are also used as taxis.

Water, water everywhere

I grew up in Madras. It is common knowledge that we had very severe water problems. I learnt at a very young age that we needed to conserve water. Maybe not as much from an environmental perspective, but definitely from a "use as little water as necessary" perspective. It used to amaze many of my north indian classmates that I used about half a bucket of water to have a bath everyday. They, then, seemed very proud of the fact that they used two buckets.

Old habits die hard. Even now I find myself shouting at the household help when she leaves the tap open while washing dishes or while washing the bathroom. It doesn't seem to make any difference that I say the same thing over and over again. At work, I find that people don't bother to close the tap when they're done using the wash basin. Is it indifference? But it's the same group of people send out mails to everyone asking them to join Earth Hour because it is good for the environment. What hypocrites!

Every morning, on my way to work, I cross a certain Delhi Jal Board office. I never fail to read the message at the entrance:

Dadi banate samay paani ko behne na de. (Do not keep the water running while shaving.)

This message is accompanied by a picture of a man shaving with the water running. And the entire picture is crossed out with a bold red "X".

Nothing wrong with any of this. It is a good message that I really think everyone needs to learn. A lesson that people in Madras learnt the hard way. I wonder if everyone must wait until it is too late. But the ironicaly, even the DJB guys don't seem to care about their own message. I guess it's all just nice to see on a poster or billboard, because I've noticed that whenever a water lorry goes from point A to point B, it does so in a very Hansel and Gretel sort of way. Dropping enough water on the way so it can find its way back home.

I suppose this is just one more thing that will remain beyond my comprehension!