Who is Coming over for Dinner?

When I can’t think what to cook or too lazy to cook, I opt for Chinese. Why? Because it is the most tastiest and nutritious food that I can think of and it takes me just fifteen minutes to prepare it. My fridge is always stocked with fresh and canned vegetables, lotsa sauces and some dried mushrooms too. Initially, during my trips abroad, I would pick up too much food stuff from the supermarkets, most of packet would rot, exceeding their expiry dates, and there were some soup and sauces packets, bought blindly, would lie unopened for years, but now I am glad that we get everything here in Mumbai and I can do just weekly shopping in small quantities.


There is a small store close by, which stocks all the exotic foods. This week I picked up firm tofu (there were other types too like silky tofu and soft tofu, but thats for later), some fresh mushrooms, and Japanese Soba noodles (On the packet of this soba noodles it says that it is a traditional style buckwheat and wheat flour noodles with a nutty taste, I was buying it for first time. One packet only, see, economical? yeah?))

Now this tofu is really very tricky. Tofu is actually the Chinese cousin/version of cottage cheese (Italian) or Paneer (Indian). The method of making it is also same except that it is made from soya milk. Get it? But it is rich cousin, mind you and little ‘light’ to eat, melts in the mouth, a great source of high-quality protein, rich in B-vitamins, iron and an excellent source of calcium. The best way to use the firm tofu is to wash it with water, squeeze it out and then marinate it before using. Tofu acts like a sponge and it sucks in the juices of marinated ingredients. Since I am going to use it in Chinese, I have marinated in garlic, ginger and vegetable stock cubes. Okay, I have stored in my fridge, so for next two days I must eat Chinese if I have to finish it in two days. Of course, I will add in soup once and another time I will make salad, can’t have same stuff every day. Isn’t it?

But just now, what I had was quite tasty. It looked dull because I didn’t add colorful veggies like reds and greens (my friends always adds red and green peppers, but its okay if I don’t add when I am making only for self) but it was tasty.

Its so simple to make. why do my friends make such a fuss while cooking? So much drama over nothing!!

In the oil, I added crushed garlic and then I just stir fried shallots, mushrooms, bean sprouts green chilly and corn. Then added these boiled Soba noodles and tofu. Next added Teriyaki sauce, soya sauce, sesame oil and chilly sauce.and Voila!

Wait, let me take one more spoonful. chomp! chomp! burp!

And yeah, I made dip too. I just added garlic, ginger, salt, wasabi, dried herbs into curd. Mixed it and hung it for three hours, squeezing out the water. Then added olive oil to give a glossy look.

Yummy. When you come to visit me, I shall make for you too.

Sita joins the FB ??

Okay, I admit it that this is not my story,(I can only comment and give my tipri) I would never have such a talent to reproduce a story so cleverly. but it arrived in my mail box through the forwards and it has amused me a lot

This first page on the FB gives the Live Feed that shows:

 
I am amused that Bharat is 'pissed' with his mother and starts a group called 'Parents sometimes go crazy' the youth of today would happily join this group because they have a mind of their own and are hardly listening to thier parents. but the question is 'how many would bother going through this swayamvar?' It happens only in TV reality shows and viewers are actually 'pissed' with these shows, although they are still watching it. but that is how far it goes....there are no marriages in the end (remember Rakhi Sawant?)


that brings me to the second page of this Live Feed that shows:

haahaha! Even in the remote jungle, they have access to internet and are recruiting friends, playing 'Mob Wars' and writing on FB walls and discussing the laxman rekha? Amusing, Isn't it? Ram seeking Hanuman's help on FB wall....Can we trust our friends (in our absence) to save our spouse from...cough! cough!! no comments on that!!!

and the page three shows the Live Feed as:

And when Ravana is dead only 132,457 people like it. hahahaahaa! there should have been bigger numbers. but since Ram and Sita did not live happily after, Sita's page should not expire.

So what would Sita's activities be, had she not opted for earth to swallow her???

Picture Portrait

I have this huge picture of my spiritual Master, Maharaji Charan Singh, nailed up on the wall, in the foyer. It is very old picture of Maharaji in white kurta and white turban with the backdrop of blue and it has been there as far as I can remember. The picture has different expressions at different hours of the day and they change according to my moods. On the days when I am happy, I see the smile and on the days when I am angry, I see the grin. My friends, who don’t know him, ask me if this is the picture of my father and I always say ‘Yes’ cause he is the only father that I have known, having lost my biological father at the age of three. This picture gives me inner strength.

Maharaji was very photogenic and I think he used to love to pose. Whenever I had visited my paternal aunt (who was a very close friend of Maharaji), I used to see the beautiful poses in her house of her trips with Maharaji. There would be picture of his trips abroad; there would be party pictures and many more in my aunt’s personal album. There was one picture that I had liked which was actually a painting. It was a huge painting of Maharaji sitting on an easy chair,outdoors, cross legged, in churidhar-kurta and a shawl, looking out into the fields, his gaze fixed at hundreds of sevadhars doing manual labor of lifting/sifting sand, transporting it on their heads. I used to love that painting and I would always stop for one moment longer, whenever I passed by that painting.

My aunt is no more and so have Maharaji Charan Singh too, but what happened to those pictures and that painting, I have never asked.

But I am thinking what happens to those pictures when the person is not there no more? How long do the people preserve the photographs before they decide that they don’t need it anymore? And how do they dispose it?

With the digital camera, now we click too many pictures and then dispose off those which we don’t care, but in the days gone by, each picture had a story to tell. Whenever we visited our family, and if ran out of conversation, family albums were taken out to discuss the pictorial stories. Portrait pictures were clicked in the photo studio and blown up to life-size to decorate the foyers and the bedrooms and the halls.

I, for one, don’t buy pictures nor calendars of Gods or of any spiritual Masters because I worry about the storage. I would not like to insult the photograph and throw them away in the garbage when I don’t need them anymore. Why must we buy so many pictures and put them up in every room? We just need one picture to remember and admire the person. Some people like to keep it in their wallet, visible only to themselves, and to admire it secretly. But having too many pictures, all over the house, is quite scary to the non-believer.

When I inherited my family house, first thing that I did was to bring down all those life-size pictures that ruled every wall of my house. I have packed them up and stuffed them into the drawers, out of sight. There are too many albums sitting in the cupboard and I really do not know what to do about them. The photograph which don’t have me, don’t interest me and I am sure that even if they become antique, they will still not get me any copyrights.

Only this picture of Maharaji, which I had loved it even then, is still hanging up in my house, but that’s because it speaks to me.

I don’t store nor develop any more memories, I would never want the abuse of my pictures, even after I am here in this world, no more……..and I am certain that nobody else would want it too….

Muse over FB message 'Acceptance'

With twitter and facebook becoming a strong board for exchanging ideas and thoughts in this social media network, not all status messages are funny and light hearted, some are thought provoking too and force us to re-think on issues which could be just a passing phrase. One such message, that I copied on my page and then was pleased to see it on my friends’ page too was:

"My wish for 2010 is that people will understand that children with disabilities do not have a disease; children with disabilities are not looking for a cure but ACCEPTANCE........93% of people won't copy and paste this, WILL YOU be one of the 7% that does and make this your status for at least a hour?”

I saw this message on many of my friends’ pages and someone even argued saying that “Just by copying and pasting are people going to change the attitude? No offence to your friends who have already copied and pasted it, they may have done it because they are among those few people who understand that children with disabilities do not have a disease......”

My reply to that comment was: “yes! Attitudes do change with the wind. .specially by those who believe in the message and pass it on....and unfurl those soft pebbles off the hard rock...

But the page that really caught my attention was when someone commented:

“Wait a minute... I'm pretty sure that people with disabilities ARE looking for a cure... No one willingly accepts that they are disabled when there is a readily available cure out there that can make them "not disabled."

He found it difficult to accept the fact that handicap people can be accepted in this society as productive member of the society if they are allowed to perform the task to their best of their ability.

He argued that “You can’t accept someone who is disabled as a productive member of society when you still have to watch over them and make sure that they don’t fall and/or jump in whatever they need assistance. If that’s the case then there is no full acceptance, only fake acceptance that will make these disabled people feel a false sense of security of their place in society. And to be honest, if I was disabled and wanted people to treat me with respect, the same respect they treat everyone person, and you were patronizing me in this way and treating me as if I was less of a person then I would hate it. Your saying that disabled people want to be treated like everyone else.. well you can’t treat them only half way, because they still aren’t equal, and never will be. It’s all or none. I’m afraid.”

Actually I would hate it too....but that is where my point was, I meant to say that either the people are patronizing the disabled too much or ignoring them completely and both ways it hurts the differently-abled person.

Society just cannot see the talent beyond the handicap at a first glance, a differently-abled person has to prove their capability from time to time, they have to prove that they are capable of performing as perfectly as any normal person , and there is no need to sweat over them if they are able to deliver....independently....every disabled person can also be the productive member of the society, if he is allowed to follow the profession in which he excels and in which he has faith in, but the society never allows him to forget his handicap.

Every individual should be able to decide when they need to be over-protective and patronizing and when they should just accept them and let them perform to their fullest ability and in every case, acceptance in important because they are not freaks.

And he was confused as to where does one draw the line?

What gives anyone the right to tell one person that they fully capable of working on their own and another that they cannot be trusted to be on their own and must be supervised? He argued that when people say that "We wish that society would accept disabled people as being productive members of society, there isn't a special clause that states: " this only applies to people who are able to function independently, with out supervision, everyone else isn't fully accepted as fully functional and must be watched and cared for."

And he wondered as to what happens to those who don’t meet those specific criteria? Are never to be accepted as part of society and considered the useless ones who have no place in the society?

“ I know it seems harsh,’ he continued, “ but if they cannot be accepted as productive members of society then what are they? Or do we reevaluate what that criterion is so they can be accepted? But what about the people left over from that? Who are not accepted after that second evaluation of who is productive and who isn’t?

It’s an endless cycle that will never end.” he concluded

And I am left wondering whether the society will ever wear the cap of acceptance…ever……

Bus Ride in Mumbai City

India is shining. Or rather, I should say that the things are improving a lot, specially my regular four hours journey (back and forth) to my school which I take every alternate Wednesdays.

The bus ride has become a pleasure for me since the introduction of AC bus no 105 from Bandra to CBD.

No more do I have to sit on the hard seat, reserved specially for the ladies, by the window, because I am afraid to sit on any other seat where I might have a male stranger dozing on my shoulder. No more do I have to worry about over-crowded bus where I would feel guilty when I saw more than thirty standees, all jostling for a seat. No more am I exposed to dirt and pollution, and the bad stench during my bus ride that passes through the route of Dharavi and Chembur.

Many a times, I was subjected to the stench and shit that I would see on the road if I wished to peep out of window. I would see the open toilets on the road, the main doors broken, exposing the people in the act. Reading was impossible because there were too many jerks, and I would have difficulty in focusing my attention on vibrating words. I used to prefer to plug the music to my ears and slept most of the journey, not that I could sleep, but shutting my eyes to the realities of the world, I could snooze off to my own imaginary world.

The only time I was awakened from my slumber was when the tempers ruled the bus and people got aggressive over a slight dispute. That was the time, when I too would be curious to differentiate the victim and the culprit during the commotion. I would then secretly take sides, team up and wish for my team to win an argument. Sometimes the argument would get worse and there would be exchange of blows and slaps and the bus would be abandoned in the middle of the road and we would wait till the cops arrive. Sometimes the cops would take too much time to arrive and all the strangers in the bus would become friends and together they would suggest an alternate punishment and pass the verdict.

Yes, travelling by bus exposed me to the difficulties and problems of a common people. It was the closest I could get to them.

Now, I have graduated to AC 105. The seats are comfortable and the bus fare is three-fold. Most of the seats in the bus are empty. There is music playing at the dash board, which is either radio or CD of old Bollywood songs. There is an electric-socket for people who wish to connect their laptop. Most of the people are busy on their mobile, chit-chatting. Recently, they have introduced in-vehicle retailing service managed by the ticket-conductor and soft drinks are up for sale.

During the smooth bus ride, I look out of window, no more, because now, I see the life-styles of a common man only in my books.