treatFromTailors

And what do I like?

2015-09-08T11:13:00.003-07:00

The reason to list it down is more to see if I truly have a character of my own. I am not sure today if I have strong likes and dislikes like I used to once. So without much ado let me jump straight in --
1) I like walking and I really miss cycling
2) My love for swimming will never ebb, cant say the same about drinking
3) My craving for sugar is slowly dropping
4) The rain still casts a spell on me
5) I love reading books
6) Leaves, insects, flowers and forests
7) Creating stuff - be it poetry, food or writing code, no order there
8) Travelling, I really want to do the Nile cruise
9) A good massage
10) Listening to music

Cheers

2015-09-08T11:08:00.003-07:00

Here's to a lazy afternoon drenched in wine.
For which the heart will forever pine.
Moments that will never come again.
Lost in life's struggles.

We are meant for sharing precious pain
Joy is but light and shallow seeping out of windows and doors
This is how it remains to be
Till life comes to a slow halt.

Dreamer, you must lose your patience
One of these days, you will find
You were better off without all that sleep
The emptiness never did go away.

Sweet tooth

2013-12-11T08:44:00.001-08:00

I have this crazy sweet tooth... teeth really... Being a Bong might have just added to it marginally... Give me sugar and I will eat, rather give me anything with half a spoon sugar in it and I will find the sweetness in it.. That's where the Bong bit kicks in, don't know too many non-Bongs who like Sandesh.. the one with Jaggery is mind-blowingly brilliant.
Anyways given that kind of love for sweetness, it would hard for me to judge how good a dessert is... but I will be your friend for life if you treat me to it and believe me that's no trifle!

The place that really taught me to distinguish between rubBle and ruble was Spoonful of Sugar, not Soviet Union... Russia added immensely to my childhood in the form of fairy tales, Perelman's experiments, Misha and pen friends... also the crazy cultural shows that basically dealt with acrobatics they called dance!
Digressing comes naturally to me as you can see :-)... You should really taste a slice of their Banoffee cake and then you would know what they mean by just right... the right amount of sweetness... wow, I really never imagined a measure like that.. how can too much be bad, too little I can still understand. Well you have to be an Indian to relish too much sweetness. Try our jalebis, jamuns and the like. Anyways that Sugar place did it for me... I really can't eat anything sweet without playing the critique..

Oh there is a section I dont really relish, fresh fruits and cream... absolutely off my list... I can't deal with cream, though fresh strawberries and cream are a vision to the mind... Hate cakes with cream for instance... But then chocolate is my first and only love. Once in a while though I admit, a good whipping is all the cream needs... must try some of that turkish dessert recipes that come on tv... whipped cream, orange juice, egg and sugar, a pinch of salt... maybe a trace of vanilla.

Salt reminds of my first black forest cake. It came out salty like it truly should but hard as a cricket ball... All thanks to the power cuts that day and the fact that I moved it from upstairs to downstairs playing with the phases of KEB. Everybody actually finished it, maybe most of it was eaten by me :-)

One of these days I am going to sign up for these baking classes I have been meaning to go for a very long time and bake me those delicious marvels I can only dream of tonight!

Winter

2013-12-06T08:07:00.002-08:00

I don't know if I would hate it if I had to bear with severe winters every year of my life. I mean the West had to conjure a cheerful Santa and use up all the white, green and red. But today when I get a glimpse of its severity when I travel once in a while and at home where I get pampered by its moderation..I can't help but romanticize it. The nip in the air, the fog at dawn and the other at dusk, the many reasons to celebrate, the right setting for a nightcap, all of it makes winter especially in December the most favorite part of the year. Among the thousand reasons.. my beloved's b'day, b'days of other friends - mostly his, my parent's wedding anniversary, Christmas parties and numerous others without a specific reason.

Winter bites, makes me feel alive even in my most dead moment. Have lost myself in the snow one winter, so much so that another round of losing myself I would have died of frost bite or something... but the adventure it gave me, the chill through my spine was all worth it... The numbing, the moment just before the point of no return, hmm is quite a high!

It brings out the vagabond in me, not that I am not otherwise, but I understand why the Saggis seem to be born with wanderlust... give me my day and I would be walking the streets of my city from dawn to dusk, finding unknowns, chatting up strangers, reading withered old forgotten books, downing Suleimanis,beer and wine, stuffing my face with chocolate, cuddling up with my man, pampering my boy, rustling up gourmet every night .. well almost :-)

And then the year end and start bit.. one night of super madness, promises, dancing....
Lets see how this year ends. For now though let me have my moment, with Mr Winter

Damn

2013-08-23T11:17:00.001-07:00

When the heart feels heavy and the soul seems parched
Upon thy mind have a thousand soldiers marched

Wake before the night rides in
Casts its silent shadow, for a motive hard to see

Silvery brook past a mass of grey
Fill up the can and take a swing at me!

London

2013-07-22T09:25:00.001-07:00

Strange, Sydney is my favourite city and here I am writing about London where I have just reached. Always hated the place and never wanted to come here, given all the history that was drilled through my school years.
Started with the tube journey from the Heathrow airport, the thawing of the hatred towards a past where I did not really play a part. Coming to think of it, English is the language that Ru and I use to talk to each other even. The tube stations and some of the old parts that I passed reminded me of pretty and dilapidated Cal. But that is where it ended, you should see the steep escalators and the sudden empty routes. There is more, but that would start tomorrow.

#Jealous

2013-01-14T00:22:00.003-08:00

Green is turning out to be my favorite colour these days.
And for everything that is just not mine.
I know for instance that we are not even good friends just a habit that must continue or end
And yet I hope that you and I would have a conversation quite real.
There the conscious soul needs to replace a fallen spoon
And yet the water flowing out of the tap can wait
I don't know for certain anymore
How long before the pond is cleared off its moss
I don't know for sure
If it has an end or a new beginning
But its green today and seems unlikely to change

#Mundane

2012-06-07T09:19:00.001-07:00

Which is more mundane, to sit and do nothing every day
to keep doing things continuously to meet your needs rather than your desire
or to wait for things to crystallize

Get Creative

2012-05-28T09:02:00.001-07:00

The wire is alive
Sending all those packets
The receiver overwhelmed, has a security in place
Even when its alien, its human forms they take.

Dead or Alive

2012-05-28T08:58:00.003-07:00

Have you felt this way before
All the music seems tuneless
All the drink does not get you drunk
You are just walking aimless
With no earthly feelings left

A day from my every day

2012-05-28T08:54:00.002-07:00

Wake up in the morning
Sing a little song
While you make our breakfast
I just hum along.

There's a puncture to fix
and a deadline to meet
If only the spare was fine
Instead of your car, I would have taken mine.

Its time for tea
A chat between you and me
Your sweet smell in the rain
Amidst all that is insane

A drink before we sleep
A movie or an episode of Mentalist
A note about tomorrow
Or just curl up to be out in a blip.

Flip-flops

2012-03-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

Drop of rain to soothe the plain
A touch of feather on the leather
A tinkle to a twinkle
A bag of gold spun out of a dream hold
And a wish just right for that dish!

Cravings

2012-03-09T10:16:00.000-08:00

Like right now I want some absolutely delicious chocolate fudge and I have nothing in the fridge except a shrivelled up Obattu, chocolate and caramel syrup!! Ok I am going to eat up the Obattu now, but the mind is still not satiated... would a chilled beer take the heat of this blasted weather and maybe numb the need for sugar?
I don't know I got to keep trying they say..

The other day I was gasping for breath in that isolated box where I work. I was craving for just fresh clean air, some good company and yes some very good food. Oh and speaking about food, nothing like a craving for Richie's lamb biryani!!Yummmy...

There are times one can't help but crave for the rain. You can smell the bacteria in the earth and the air getting stuffy and squeezing out a just a little bit of the rain to satiate you.

A smile from June 2011

2011-12-18T08:05:00.001-08:00

I walked into the Yam store with a tune in my head, finally I had given my 21 year old classic to be restrung. I did not remember a thing except for “Every good boy does fine “, a mnemonic to remember EGBDF and FACE, the notes on the frets. But I was happy, as a child I was too flighty, today I felt surer of myself, more stable you know.

Jimmy was sitting facing the wall and playing somebody else’s guitar. He was the sales guy who was fixing it for me, by night he played at bars or taught a few unfortunate few. Oh no his music was not bad or so I figured from that little bit of interaction. It’s just that he loved to talk and fleece you off money. God , who would pay 100 bucks for re-stringing a guitar and have to listen about his five sisters, a Nepali distant cousin who looked like me, his stint with music and his stay at Bangalore. Well I do not look like a Nepali from any angle if you ask me, but well for a nice cup of tea, I would go to any extent of nodding my head.

And then he walked in, just so out of character from everyone in that store. Have you seen an Indian priest, well that is how he was dressed. A white kurta, dhoti, nammam on his forehead and the sacred thread. Well I imagined the thread. The only thing incongruous were the neat pair of Nike floaters he was wearing. He walked in and gave me this huge grin as if he knew for like a thousand years. I smiled back, anyone would have. Then I followed Jimmy man to the back of the store to pick up my guitar and all that while I could feel his shiny diamond eyes bear into my back. Jimmy got the guitar out and asked me to check. I turned to find a place to sit and try my hand at strumming and there he was smiling down on me. He turned to go and then turned back again at me and smiled. I smiled and he was gone.

I could not decipher the smile that day or the week after that.

Leaves

2011-12-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

It was a cold autumn evening, if it can be termed autumn in india. It was more like the few days before spring began and winter ended. Her soul felt empty as empty as the road next to her. Not a soul was around, nothing could be heard except maybe the occasional rustle of the leaves on the trees on the footpath. She walked aimlessly, had no where to go really, no one was waiting back home. She had all the time in the world and nothing to do besides kicking stones around.

She started chasing a tiny bluish grey pebble, which flew from one point to another creating a racket, a racket that only a tiny pebble can. Her skin seemed to have got back some color with every leap the pebble took and suddenly it fell into a heap of leaves. You should have seen the dismay on her face. She fell down on her knees and started raking up the leaves.

“Anna, where are you? Can’t you answer young lady”. She could hear a faint yell, but the leaves, the musty moist leaves smelled divine and more importantly she had lost her a tiny brooch somewhere there. She would have to find it before she answered that yell or she would have to really sleep in the tiny store room tonight. It was getting dark and she really could not see much. “Ouch” she cried. Something had pierced her palm and warm blood trickled out of her palm which she quickly licked away after pulling out what belonged to her. “Coming” she screamed back!

Ah, she touched something cold and smooth and pulled it out with a grin. She did not want to kick it any more. She was going to take it home with her, slide it into the aquarium. No, she would put it in the sole flower pot in her balcony along with the others. Oh well, she strained her ears harder, but could not hear a sound. If only she had come back home early that day, if only she had left the medicines within her reach, Mamma would have been up and about, baking Anna's birthday cake.

Beetroot, tam style... and my own twist

2011-06-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

Well this was way back when I ate it, the taste just lingered on. We had gone for a holiday to Kodai, my parents, bro, sis and me. I had just finished my 11th exams and ofcourse had faired pretty badly. Well if you expect a teenager to be interested in her studies, you must be out of your mind! Somebody please remind me when my son reaches that milestone.

We stayed in this lovely guesthouse of Mahindra's with fruit trees all around. It had an awesome library, so between studying, sight-seeing and eating absolutely yummy food, I would read my road to heaven. Well I was almost there, among the clouds atleast.

Oh but I am forgetting the objective of this blog. You know I hate beetroot, well normally I do. Dad used to force down slices of beetroot sprinkled with lime juice into my throat. But for this one dish, thank the whole tam community for this, it almost made me fall in love with beety roots!

From what I have tasted, this is what I have conjured, I am sure I am missing a few ingredients and adding stuff that I like, but I manage to get the taste and more, nevertheless... my Recipe for your tired tongue :-)

Ingredients
Grate beetroot, could be just 1 big one. Grate or grind half a coconut to get say 1 or half a cup.
Wash a handful of curry leaves and keep them ready, you never know who might just chew them up.
Chop a little piece of ginger into very tiny pieces as an ode to Hopkins and his fetish for fingers!
I love peanuts, so I will add these as well, 1/4 cup is good. You could skip this if you are not pro-peanuts or peanuts symbolize something else alltogether. We would need some mustard and pepper corns too for the seasoning. You could use a green chilli or more to spice it up. A little oil and a tbspn of ghee would just clinch it.

Action time
Now pull out that battered yet shining warrior, well frying pan of yours. Pour some oil, don't overdo it as you are going to anyways mix in some ghee later. Once that heats up throw in the seeds, mustard and peppercorns, gently I mean. Toss in the curry leaves, ginger, sliced green chillies and peanuts and wait for a minute or more for them to turn a little crisp. You can then place the grated beetroot in the pan and fry for a bit. Now is a good time to add that tbsp. of ghee. Well while you are at it and in a slight hurry, add most of the grated coconut as well, keep a little for garnishing it at the end.

From here, its all about frying upto the point you think you can deal with it, longer the wait and the stirring, the crispier it gets. Just before taking it off the pan you have to add the left over coconut shavings and mix it in along with some salt. If you want you could add a teeny weeny bit of ghee again to light up your belly.

Well I am done explaining, let me know if you do take on beetroots my way. And if you have any wisecracks coming my way, spit them out. The next time, if I am upto it, I will write about how they cook beans in Ooty, but for that I will have to get the beans from there specifically.

A simple recipe for Pork Roast

2011-06-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

To make some absolutely yummy pork roast with minimal effort, here is how you would do it.
Wash the boneless pork clean and then marinate it with ginger garlic paste so that its evenly spread over all of the pork. Add some dark vinegar to it. For instance to 0.5 kg pork you would add 2 tbsp. of vinegar. I also add a pinch of turmeric powder for its antiseptic properties.
Once you are done with your marination, which could be for 20 mins to a couple of hours you could start cooking.

Put in a little oil in a heavy bottomed pan or a pressure cooker. Pork has enough fat to keep it going so watch out on the oil you pour. You could choose sesame oil for this dish or stick to the oil you have at home.
Start by adding a tsp or more of sesame seeds, again depending on the meat you intend to cook, sliced green chillies to tingle your taste buds, strips of ginger and some garlic pods if you have them around. Play around with ginger and garlic depending on the flavor you like more. I prefer ginger for this dish.

All right you are all set, go ahead and add the pork and chopped onions and start frying. If its a cooker you are using, after frying it for say 10-15 minutes you could add the Soy sauce of your choice. I prefer the Indonesian soy sauce with pork. It adds to the sweetness of the meat.

Well after that all you got to do is add like a quarter cup water and cook for some time by closing the cooker lid. After 1 or 2 whistles, get it to cool down. Fry the pork further until dry, without the lid ofcourse by adding some salt and black pepper. Umm can you smell the pork or what!

We are done really and all you have to do is place it in a nice bowl for serving. This could be part of a main course or just picked upon with some nice poison of your choice.

If you are the herby kind, then there is a slight deviation here -
Use red wine vinegar instead of the ordinary dark one and go for rosemary...oregano too if you like it.

Down the corner there is but a tiny trying lane

2011-04-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

If the story be told,
He was a very happy man,
He was famous, he had riches,
He had family and friends and what is coveted most,
A love so deep, there was no need to defend.

But like history always has it way,
Sorrow must seep into the brightest of all days.
He lost his love, that being the smallest of all his miseries
The sunny soul just decided to stop everything and lose its ray
It was not even a gamble one could blame it on
A mirror with a crack to continue it may

While the body hovers around for comfort like a new born
Down the corner there is but a tiny trying lane
The only escape, with much pain
But for that the lost needs to be sane.

And I could have been more aware of the world I was born into

2011-03-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

I envy the life of prostitute more than anyone else's. Atleast she knows what she is getting into.
It starts right from religions that preach, do it right or God will screw your happiness by throwing you into hell. Go into any group and you better kiss the leader's or his lieutenant's arse or you will get humped really bad!

You know you really can't live on this earth as an individual contributor having nothing to do with the social hierarchy that has been built by the animal group that you genetically if not anything else, belong to. You have to subscribe somewhere and you have to choose a role. You can either be the leader or you can choose to bend your backside. And even if you choose to be the leader, to get to the top there is lot of bending to be done.

So who do you think is better off, you and me who are not aware until we give in the first and the nth time or the whore in Charlotte street who chose to be there?

Black and White must merge and break

2011-03-05T00:28:00.000-08:00

I just watched Black Swan yesterday a much hyped better than average movie. I just could not get the point, blame it on restricted intelligence. Anways here I am trying to prove my case and not detract from it.
A girl wanting to do extremely well in her exams to the point of committing suicide or paying for leaked papers. Or a very good actor with no contacts ready to jump into the director's bed. Yes the pain, the struggle to want something so bad is quite a story. How many of us go through that absolute madness and finally lose ourselves. With that understood, the story needs some spice, after all ballet is not everyone's idea of a raunchy sight. Bring in Dr. Freud, a single possessive mother and lo behold frigidity is explained through the lesbian world. And nothing better to fantasize with something that you are comfortable with to break the spell and turn yourself to the knight! Pun intended. And while we are redoing one of the greatest pieces of work "Swan lake" how can we resist a slip of drama that only red can break, into the dawn!
Now that I am saturated with insulting the movie, I do think Portman deserves the best actor award. She has done a fabulous job. Also the picturization if I may call it that, is exquisite, right from the wing like folds of the old instructor's skin, to the arousing tattoo on Lily's, to the ugly wings that sprout out of Nina. All said and done perfection is not a walk in the park, even with your tutu on.

Today

2011-02-11T02:17:00.000-08:00

Turned the radio to 100.1 to let in some awesome Carnatic music to fill the car while I zipped out of home. The first thing that caught my eye was these 2 really old women walking across and chatting so animatedly.They were bengali for sure thanks to the expressions and the saris draped around them. Just that moment I wanted my camera so bad. And then I drove on smiling at the usual traffic policeman.

And then on the route somewhere I saw this woman standing in her balcony wearing hell I don't
remember but could have been a nightie for all I care. The interesting thing though was she had
her goggles on and her hair left open and she did not look as if she was going anywhere. For a
moment I was disgusted, what a phony! But then I relented, that is what her life might just be
about. And it was allright to dress up and wait for nothing at all, all day long!

on a note that knows no dip

2011-02-11T02:04:00.001-08:00

when i am just a little high
and i am listening to Oh sweet me

there is this beautiful sweet pine
for a voice that doesn't exist
but in my mind and somewhere deep in my heart
which would just for a moment blur the sign

Something about the lives of security guys

2011-02-10T08:03:00.000-08:00

I drove right through the kuccha road and into the back yard of my client's office or so to speak. I have tried and tested this route to enter the place without having to go through too many painful security checks for an hour's meeting. But today as I settled myself a young security guy, an East Indian for sure, accosted me. Told him to come to the other side of the window and talk to me. He was like I really needed to get in from the main gate. I laughed and told him not to take it seriously and anyways I was not going to be there for more than an hour. He tried hard to convince me, told me he would be in trouble if I didn't go and register. I told him to chill and nothing would happen. Poor guy left, he was too well mannered to shout at me.
And then I thought to myself, here I was coming in the way of someone's honest efforts at work. Its a thankless job you know, a security guy comes out as a pain to deal with, trying to push you to follow a process. But that's his job really.
So I did my bit and felt so good watching him smile when I turned around and went to the main gate!

When I went to meet the sea

2011-02-07T20:46:00.000-08:00

When I went to meet the sea
He caroused me gently
Teased me, lifting my skirt up suddenly

And while I was enjoying the moment
He roughly pulled me onto him
And hurt me with his sandy skin

When I tried to stop him
A spoilt brat, he tossed me out
Back to where I came from
As if to say there are many more that will come my way
And I knew they would and so they did

But I know had my moment of love
Unshared with anyone else
The sea, he flaunted some of his many treasures
A beautiful monstrous sea snake, a dead multicoloured fish that reminded me of a piranha

Skins of other beings and a variety of mussels and crabs scuttling about in the sand
And while I stood mesmerised
An old women prayed with fire and coconut shells
To that haughty love of mine

I smiled to myself, and folded a page in my head
I would open it again when I have much aged
To reminisce this salty divine.

And this is how I blew the colors of the sky away on a Monday!

2011-02-06T21:57:00.000-08:00

There I was stuck in a jam for an entire stretch, early on a Monday morning right upto the last traffic signal. The fact that I was blue, that my arms ached thanks to balancing a machine I hadn't since a long time back did not help. And I was worried sick lest I be accosted by one of the eunuchs standing in line to rip a passer's bye off her money... And then suddenly everything just came alive with Lenny Kravitz. I raised the volume to my favorite song and saw this little kid going to work in a light blue t-shirt that had Playboy marked on it. With a green bag in one hand and a yellow and pick wristband on the other, he was dancing his way to work with his mum or aunt heading the same way. Somehow got my mood swinging and I raised the volume to "Are you gonna go my way"! And then right from the opposite side came my favorite silver Merc spinning out some more sunshine into my day. The lights turned green and I was all charged up to push the blue and color my blood back to red ignoring what Nike had to say!