Sorry for using a word .....

....that you don’t understand, but Lexulous does and so does the scrabble. Try it.

Scrabble and Lexulous are the games that are played online, mainly on Facebook. I play it regularly usually as a detour from my regular task of reading and blogging. With strangers I don’t enjoy the game but I like playing with friends, with whom I can chitchat and keep in touch. I have made many good friends on scrabble board and on Lexulous and have been regularly in touch with them. Actually, these games allow many weird words that we will never find in our text books, the trick is to place your letters, sometimes guessing a word, hoping that lexulous or scrabble will understand and voila, sometimes it does. But if it is at the expense of annoying my friends, then that gets me really stressed out because I really hate losing friends. I have very few friends and all very precious, wouldn’t like them to go off at a tangent over a game, which is just a game.

For me winning/losing is not the criteria, I just like to make the best word that I can. I have been playing this game for many years, precisely for more than twenty-five years. The first time I saw this game was during my trip abroad and I was fascinated by tiny wooden tiles. I played that game immediately and lost miserably but fell in love with it. I bought my first scrabble board, a tiny travel board with tiny tiles and holes on the board to fix the tiles ( this board and tiles, neatly saved and restored, are still lying at my home in Tenerife, Spain, hibernating and they come alive only when I visit my family)

During my college years, I taught this game to all my friends and we would play this game non-stop for days and sometimes all night. We allowed dictionary so that we could learn new words and we always played for fun; snacking and fooling in-between games. Over the years, I learnt some tricks on how to confuse the opponent and win the game. I taught those tricks to my friends too who would use it against me and make me lose. In Mumbai, I joined scrabble club, where we would play it regularly and even participated in many scrabble tournaments, much of which I lost. But I was never offended if I lost and always came out stronger each time.

Most of the time it is pure luck that we may get good combination to be able to make seven-letter word which gives an impressive score. It is not the deciding factor for showing off the intelligence or word power, nor are there any laurels to be won. The opponents who play with me regularly are equally good, and they do have impressive scores and rankings, so there is nothing to feel egoist about winning. But most of the time I am lucky. (maybe because I am unlucky in love. Huh?) I have some friends who continue to play with me and before one game ends they have already started a new one. They tell me that it is challenging playing with me and I get aggressive too.

But lately I have been offending my friends by winning. Now I can’t play badly and let my friends win, can I? That will not be fair. I don’t understand why they get so discouraged by my winnings? Why can’t they get aggressive and fight back? Why do they have give up on me? Must they always win and play with only those whom they can beat easily? Don’t they like challenges any more?

And why do I get stressed out if they give up on me? Now that is the question I need to introspect.

Diamonds are not forever

Finally I gave up my fetishism on diamonds.

It was difficult at first, what with me belonging to the culture (I am Sindhi) where diamonds play an important deciding factor for placing you at certain strata of society and earning that false respect. The bigger diamond meant a respectable position in Sindhi community, a front door entry to any important religious meetings, an admiring friend’s circle hovering around you, even though you might not part with a centimeter of your carat with them. Ah well.

But diamonds were my best friends, even though I could not compete with my rich cousins. Every time, my cousins flashed their real diamond jewelry I would secretly wish to buy me a better stuff. But my limited budget allowed me to live within my means (as my mom would often say, not to destroy my shack by building castles in air). Nevertheless, by the time, I reached middle age, I had enough of everything. Enough I say because I was satisfied with what I had, and I had everything in diamonds: ear-rings, rings, bracelets, watches, bangles, necklace, pendants, though not those big, huge carats, nah, they were not as impressive as my rich cousin’s booties, but was decent enough, some gifted by my mom, aunts, sisters, some inherited and some, I know not how they arrived at my tijori. I had planned to buy me some more really big ones, those fancy ones that you see in the shopping window, hoping some day in future (when I became truly Richie rich) I would own that too, until one day, suddenly my taste took a U-turn from gaudy to subtle, and it was thinking whether it was really so important to carry such heavy stuff on my neck and on my ear lobes that was dangling so much with its weight that I need doctor’s help to prevent it from becoming a torn chappati. I decided that I don’t really need it. Specially since it was also giving me unnecessary stress.

Now let me explain. What use is wearing all those real diamond-sets that cover your every possible skin so much, that people cannot see you beyond those glittering stones? And you are so busy flashing them, that your topic of conversation is limited to fashion and shopping, while your subconscious mind is eagerly waiting for the compliment that may not arrive from your envious friends. And then you are always living in fear of losing your possessions so much so that you become too obsessive in guarding them. You become vigilant about your cupboard keys and are always hiding the keys in such odd places that you cannot find them yourself. And when you have misplaced it somewhere, you start suspecting everybody: Your maid, your guest, your friend. Okay, you will tell me that I can keep them in bank locker. Then what the bloody hell is the use of freezing them if I cannot wear them? You advice me that it is important to save it for the bad times. So should I wait for those bad times when I can happily cash out diamonds and release them from lockers?

Instead of spending money on diamonds and freezing them in lockers, I have discovered a better value for money. Investing the money in proper way in funds and bonds and see it grow, yielding regular dividends gives special kind of pleasure. It is fun to travel with that extra cash in style. Buy some luxury items to enhance the atmosphere: nice bed spread, good curtains, jacuzzi. And sharing the excess cash with less fortunate and winning their million dollar smile is an heavenly experience.

Also, I am enjoying shopping for artificial costume jewelry, nothing flashy but classic, yes. I like that. No worries about guarding it, hiding it, storing. If it gets lost, I don’t care, I get one more reason to buy another one. I can now concentrate on reading and on other things that I can truly enjoy.

And to enjoy the company of people who can see and hear, just me.

Lunch out at 'Banana Leaf'

It is rude to look at other people’s table to see what they are eating but this is something which most diners cannot avoid, especially if you are visiting the restaurant the first time and want to know why it is so popular that you had to wait for about twenty five minutes for the table to clear for you.

‘Banana Leaf' was as curious to me as its’ name. The food was served on a banana leaf with the tastiest south Indian Cuisine. It said in the menu card that “the name conjures aroma of the yummiest mouth watering delights of southern flavors. As the meal comes to you in ‘Vazhaillai’ a freshly cut banana leaf, the traditional experience transports you to southern states of India. Eating out of Banana leaf requires combination of reflex, skill and practice and the benefits are multiple, clean and hygienic”

Some time ago, my friend had suggested this restaurant to me saying that this one was most famous for its Appam and vegetable curry. As soon as we entered the restaurant my friend warned me that the food was good but was over priced. Which I didn't think so cause that extra charge must be for the ambience and the service, and both were good. The waiters were friendly too (one even posed for my camera haha!) and he was the one who suggested the dishes that were good and popular amongst the diners and was cooked with care and interest and he was the one who suggested that I have Appam with spicy vegetable curry, although personally, I think that the next time I go, I might try Appam with veggies in coconut curry. Ahem!

The restaurant had great décor with graphic on the wall, (which made enjoyable time pass practicing my reading skills) but the tables were quite close to each other and it was distracting (especially if the person on the next table burbs too loud such that you almost get soffocated and choke on your meals). hahaah! just kidding! The food was spicy. We had raw mango juice that has tangy flavor, and we order khichdi and uttappa. What I liked the most was the free assortment of chutneys like garlic chutney, mint chutney, coconut chutney and rasam. The service was quick and the pan that they served after lunch melted in the mouth leaving a minty taste.

It’s a good place to take my NRI vegetarian guests for lunch. And it is not very far from my house, on the back lanes of four bangalows, in Varsova, it takes me just fifteen minutes to reach there from Bandra. I am going again, as for my guests, they will like it, I am sure.

A free Entertainment

Nothing comes free and that I am sure, time and again I have been fooled many times and each time disappointed. I have learnt this long ago but how do I explain to my friend who is always looking for freebees and tagging me along? And Me, never able to refuse, always suffer a silent death. This evening was a free pass to some musical show-cum-stage show and my friend calls me up to accompany her to this show. Now I had already reserved this evening for a book launch at Crossword. I wanted to attend this launch because I was attracted by the title and the promising story of 5 Sindhi ladies. A book called ‘Beyond Diamond rings' by Kusum Choppra. Here I was asking my friend to accompany me to this book launch and she was flashing free passes. I finally relented, just rushed to crossword, picked up the book, could not meet the author (since they are late comers and don’t start the program as schedule, supposed to start at 7pm but till 730, there was no sign of the author nor any audience, just a flute player playing music till the author arrives, I would have loved to hear her talk about what inspired her to write this book and which was her favorite passage) anyways, my friend couldn’t wait for me to enjoy such luxuries, so I rushed off with her to attend this show at Rabindra Natya Mandir at Prabhadevi

I was surprised by the loud music of drum being played at the entrance to welcome the guests. There were cameras flashing at every guest. Never before have I attended any stage show with such loud reception. I asked her whether we were attending some festival or some wedding occasion, but all she knew was that she was attending some show that was free and it had snacks and drinks on the house too. I just followed her, picked up my share of snack and drinks and entered the auditorium to wait for the program to start.

We sat near the exit and watched every guest that entered the auditorium. It seemed like a fashion parade. Most of the audience was either Sikh or Punjabi, and every body was a guest. Well, it turned out that this was just a promotion program for the upcoming TV serial to go on air on Doordarshan from 13th April onwards at 10pm, every Tuesday. The TV serial on life of 'Maharaja Ranjit Singh'. The 52 episode serial by Ral Babbar Film pvt limited, is a historical epic story of Ranjit Singh, the warrior who protected the borders from Ladakh to Punjab. A few hundred Sikhs, living on their horsebacks were ever ready to challenge the might of the invaders. The Sikhs were victims of a number of massacres both at the hands of the Mughals as well as the Afghans, which only made their resolve stronger.

So here I was, not attending any stage-play or musical show but attending a serial-promotion show. No Surprises then that drinks and snack were free and the program was fully sponsored by serial producers.

Over the next two hours, we heard different people relating the story and the behind the scene stories, Jaggit Singh who has sung for this serial gave a part of his performance, and then we were introduced to all those people who contributed to this serial and finally some film shots on the big screen.
Ah so boring…well, it was free.. so no complains.

However, I think I would have still preferred the reading at the Crossword.

Exotic Meals

When cooking is a pain, salad is the better option and happy that I like salads because it is just boil and mix.

Last night I went for marketing and brought lots of veggies. When I was back home after shopping, I organized everything immediately, boiled those small potatoes and steamed corn and fresh mung.

In the morning I was ready to make salad for me. Mixed boiled potatoes, steamed mung and steamed corn, added sprouts, tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper and carrots, added dried herbs, lime juice and salt, mixed little mustard oil and served with millet crackers and dip.

I make small quantity of dip at a time. Normally my friends use hung yogurt. But I just take a normal yogurt, add cream cheese. Next add black pepper, salt and dried herbs and little bit of coriander leaves.

I just had salad and noodles soup. It’s a complete meal and I kinda enjoy it, a day without too much of masalas and no headache of cooking too.