Should I vote for Taj Mahal or wot?

Everybody is talking about ‘Seven wonders of the world’ and Indians are very much obsessed that Taj Mahal may not be listed in the new list of seven wonders. And there is so much craze on voting for Taj Mahal, on TV, on radio, on Forums, everywhere they are asking for votes. I think the cell phone companies must have already made million from the vote messages. I have never seen Taj Mahal in my life. When I tell my NRI friends that, they cannot believe me ‘Wot? You no see Taj? Why?’ they exclaim. I promise them, that I will see it during this life. My promise is about to be materialized. Yeeeh! I am going tomorrow to see it ….finally…....Yupeee! and then I shall decide should I vote or wot?

Games we played...

Those were the days…there were so many games, when there was no TV. All day long we played. I wonder how our parents tolerated that! Every evening all my friends would come down in the building compound to play games. We loved to play 'kho-kho', hop-scotch, spinning the top, gulli-dhanda, langdi, hide-n-seek, seven tiles, Fire in the mountains, statue, tug-a-war, kabbadi, volley ball. Then we played cricket, basketball, badminton. The best was dhabba ice-spice where all would hide, and we would come out from hiding and kick the dhabba as hard as we could. It used to be fun, my friends and I would hide into our home, eating sandwiches and watching the person searching us, from our balcony while eating. When it was raining, we played indoor games like snakes and ladder, ludo, carom, chess, scrabble, monopoly or other board games, or simply playing with dolls (house-house) or Dumb shera, antakshri., whispering a tale. During college days it was scrabble. There was so much craze on scrabble that we would play non-stop for eight to ten hours. During summer holidays, early hours, we would go for long walks or cycling (double seat) all the way from Bandra to Juhu beach. And we had so much energy! good ole days!

My art world

My favorite pass time is creativity. I love making odd things out of nothing. Take for example this balcony. Everybody loves this balcony that I made from Chinese cane calendar, cut out with blade to make door and windows, stuck plywood slabs to make a balcony and drinking straws for roof. Made intricate designs with thick cord of thread and painted the whole thing in bronze. Voila! A piece of art! This is the painting in oils, where there are three friends playing in the courtyard. It took me six months to complete it. This one is of a model who parades while a Rajasthani native stares at her. It is painting in oils. This is a Rajasthani native waiting in anticipation for her lover. I have used em-seal to make jewelry and frame and painting is on oils. One of the walls, I have just stuck leaves with stems painted with acrylic paints. The painting surrounds the set of five miniature pictures. On one wall, I have set of four picture, the frames are made of em-seal and painted in bronze and it frames my cross-stitch work. This is the flower arrangement of dried flowers. I stuck them on a mirror. The frame is painted in bronze. These are the things decorating my house, presently.

Gurus in India.....

I was watching TV program ‘CNN today’ and they showed some devotees in their trance. They looked happy and contented and they were the followers of Osho. “Sri Sri Ravishankar and Osho are today the glamour boys of Indian spirituality. They are charismatic and offer a new spiritual product: how to take the good life to the fulfilled life’’, said the reporter. “They are the modern-day sects of the successful. They teach you how to meditate and celebrate. The two will never clash. It's a personalized designer religion that allows you to love your material aspirations with no guilt. Sects like those of Osho and Sri Sri Ravishankar are today really popular with the young and successful. It's a young and personalized religion that allows them to enjoy their materialistic needs”. The people looked quite contented doing what they liked best, be it singing hymns or meditating. Their focus was on their own experience. If they took part in dancing sequences, they seemed to enjoy every moment. There is no teaching in Osho, you only have to strive for yourself because there is always danger in imitating others. “With gurus like Osho and Sri Sri Ravishankar, nirvana is hip. The community, therefore, is global and the holy life merges with the comfortable life.” said the reporter on CNN live. In Osho, Capitalism is in, charity is out. It’s not really an arduous pilgrimage. This is the philosophy of "Me". Well, everybody has their own choice to make; it all depends on our attitude towards life! image source: http://www.ibnlive.com/

Kheema Cutlets.

I buy kheema from market and decide to make a snack. I want to make something different. I am expecting guest and they want to try something new. Should I make Shami kababs? Now everybody makes Shami kababs, and that is so trite. I like to be creative in my cooking. My guests always expect me to. I always make every dish, just once. It is my inability to re-produce the same dish. (however, a painter cannot repeat the same strokes, can they? and I treat cooking an art ) That is why I cannot repeat the same taste. My brother says, enjoy this dish and don’t ask for a repeat, she will never reproduce it. (and he is right) I think that’s the reason I don’t work in a restaurant, nor have opened one, because everything has to be measured and cooked to produce same taste. (How do they do that?) I have tried many times but I still cannot reproduce same taste. I decide to find some innovative recipe from a book. I have so many recipee books on my bookshelf. But it is always the same. I feast my eyes at all the recipes and admire the glossy pictures, sometimes drooling over them, but I am always short of one or two ingredient and then my mood is fused. After going through endless recipe books, I am still undecided. The Indian recipes are same, with little variation here and there, and now-a-days I don’t like too much masalas. In Chinese book there are hardly any recipes for kheema. Damn it. I decide to make one of my own style. Dekha jaye ga! My methods are simple and easy. (I don’t like to spend too much time in the kitchen. I just grind together onion, garlic, ginger, chillies. Mix them into the kheema. Then add soya souce, chopped basil leaves, corn floor, some soaked bread, rosemary leaves, parsley. I mix it well and bind it into firm patties and steam it. After steaming, I flatten it; dip it in egg batter and shallow fry. I serve it with salad and French fries. I stand in a corner and watch my guest. They have sliced the patties and are about to eat it. I turn my head; covering my ears, look at them from the corner of my eyes, as they slowly munch on the morsel, juice filling their mouth and a grateful belch. They are asking me for a recipe!