wO wO wO

nottuB nimajneB hctaw ot em koot ti sruoh flah a dna owt eht ni sraey derdnuh a dega evah I

Rice Rice Baby!

Ok! If there are any readers left, could someone please help me with this? I cannot find ideal all-purpose rice in Bangalore. By all purpose, I just mean stuff I can use for making boiled rice as well as the occasional pulao. I don't want basmati, because we eat rice frequently and basmati seems to be really unhealthy, and I don't want red/parboiled rice etc. either, because they don't work for us on a daily basis. (Palak dal with white rice: your average living-on-the-edge-with-a-safety-jacket diet).

For a long time, I just picked the Rs29.50/kg rice from the local Foodworld shelf (dumb ole me did not even check the name! I am the reason Gainda phenyl and Ship matches have amazing brand value! 29.50 rice indeed!) Now the inflation ruined everything and I cannot find the same rice. It might also be because Foodworld is on a mission to ruin my happiness on every possible level, but that's another story.

So I'm trying out various kinds of rice, and I invariably end up picking up Sona Masuri under different names and prices. And boy, when that rice boils, it smells….well, not very vegetarian (neither set of parents is gonna visit soon, my sixth sense tells me). Also, the pulaos and khichdis turn out quite flat.

So that's that. Any help is welcome. Preferably with some idea on where I can get the rice, and of course, no expensive solutions please!

Push Push Push

Women of my generation have the dark circles under their eyes. Most of us do, anyway. We look like those one or two photos of our mothers that were taken right after they gave birth to us/our siblings. Why do we look like we've just been through labour? Perhaps because we've been giving birth to and rearing a new world ever since we were kids.

We're the little girls who ran away from amla/coconut oil hair massages because the light and scented oils had appeared on the shelves. (Now we take hair colour tips from Penelope Cruz because hey! we're worth it). We're the young 'uns on whom Nestle has successfully conducted a mass experiment on the long-term effects of sustained Maggi intake. We're the first ones who took bread to school in out cute little tiffin boxes. Pepsi (more importantly Eff Pee) made sure we not only had cola, but high-brow and low-brow versions. The first McDonalds staff smiled into our impressionable faces, and from then on, there was no chatpata moong sprout consumed after school.

Cable TV debuted in front of our eyes, and thanks to the existence of the Middle East (Khushamadeed, if you're reading from there), we stayed up late nights watching incredible reruns of the incredible songs of whichever incredible Khan happened to catch our pre-teen fancies. We changed the new world's nappies over the night shift.

We chose from over 10 options for graduation, and then promptly took up jobs at the first MNCs...where night was day and day was, well, never quiet enough to be night. We tried, tested and certified the call centres as cool when they were all about pizza dinners and airconditioned-pick-up-and-drops. The new world was born while our parents slept, or gave themselves ulcers about wherer we were and what we were up to.

We made lactose intolerance, dieting, and migraines mainstream. That's no mean task, I assure you. And now we're thriving in a world where marriage is optional but a career is not, where you're present for the late night office party AND the morning meeting, hungover or not. Hey, we've even made cardiology a thriving business among a whole new target audience!

No kudos to us or anything. It's just how things have turned out for us in India. It's given us the biggest generation gap ever, a world of new experiences, lots of thrills, some heartburn, and yes, dark under-eye circles that only the best of bridal makeup magicians can conceal for a day.

Song: मंगल गृहणी

Needs to be sung with a slight Harvanyi touch.

चाहें baby हो या granny, औरत तू है मंगल गृहणी
घर में मरनी कुछ णा कैणी, औरत तू है मंगल गृहणी

खाना बरतन झाडू पोछा... इनसे आगे कभी न सोचा
हंस के यह ज़ंजीरें पैणी, औरत तू है मंगल गृहणी

सास का झाडू, पति के पेटी, माँ की गाली खाती बेटी
किसी से अपनी पीड न कैणी, औरत तू है मंगल गृहणी

Dirty Definitions

Soiled pants = Nature's missed call

Fart = Nature's SMS

It's 12:33am, and I should be in bed, reading Cloud Atlas till I doze off.

Overheard Last Night

At Gangaram's, MG Road, Bengaluru. 10 minutes before closing time.

Man with chit of paper in his hand: Do you have this book….expecting fathers…

World's least interested saleswoman: What?

Man: Expecting fathers….

Saleswoman: Fiction or non-fiction

Man: Non fiction

Me: cough cough splutter splutter

Getting My Goat…

The road to office is lined with bakras and bakris who're having a street party. They must be quite surprised at the sudden change in their fortune. Green goodies are being flung at them regularly and they're chomping away, merrily one assumes, since their expressions don't give much away. Perhaps their parents/cousins went to the city last year for the party. They were never heard from again.

If there were a way to keep a goat in a 1-bedroom apartment and prevent it from eating up your worldly belongings while you were at work, I'd have bought one today.

Hmm Hindustani

I have a new business plan. I'm going to be an AutoYogi. After over two years in Bengaluru, where the roads are rivers of yellow and black, I'm close to mastering the art of coping with autorickshaws. I can definitely whip up an audio-learning course with basic breathing exercises to tackle the stress of meters that tick a bit too fast, and the anxiety caused by a long string of autos that refuse to take you to your destination without extracting your day's salary. Available in mp3/mp4/wma/wtf and downloadable off the iTunes store.

Almost burst into tears when the Bharatbala rendition of the national anthem (the Siachen version) played in the cinema hall yesterday. I thought I was numb to it all.

Meanwhile India's battles against itself continue on the roads, where yesterday a non-Kannadiga passenger, obviously fleeced by her burly auto driver, was involved in a huge bye-lingual (two people speaking to each other in languages the other doesn't understand, so that they could as well bid communication bye bye) argument. The girl lost her cool finally and yelled at him: "Don't talk in that phonetic language!"

Bharat bhagya vidhaata…

Shush

We speak too much. Online, offline, and usually out of line.

Shut Up!

Behka main behka…

…ek hi nazar mein sab manzil-wanzil paayi!

J

Bee Are Bee

I is shlightly bishy and alsho shlightly tipshy becosh of liqueur chocolate that turned out to be not so subtle after all.

Big things are happening, or threatening to happen, so the blog is suffering. Thankfully it does not get cobwebby like the windows, fungussy like the balcony floor, or overridden with flying insects like Foodworld rice. So it's gonna be neglected some more.

 

 

How The US Elections Affect Life In India

Early this morning

Me: Wake up! I made tea for us!

He: Uh…Buh..Guh…Phhhh

Me: It's getting cold!

He: Hhhhhhh..Guh

Me: Look! Obama is winning!

He: Yay! Coming, coming!

By the way, what is "Change We Need" supposed to mean? It doesn't seem to make grammatical sense. Is it a corruption of The Change We Need? Or perhaps it is an excerpt from Yoda Speak: "Spent beyond our means we have. Around our heads our stocks crashing are. Change we need."

Thanksgivingy

Have become addicted to about 10 new blogs, which leaves me with no time or inclination to post on my own. Also going through a bad patch in the vocation department, and my facial screensaver is set to grumpy-grouchy.

Must list ten good things about life right now, to cheer up self:

1. Amazing Bangalore weather
   
2. Doting Husband
   
3. Wise Sister
   
4. Google Talk
   
5. Minesweeper
   
6. Air Tickets to Delhi (to be with parents)
   
7. Upcoming Diwali holiday
   
8. Feluda
   
9. Chocolate desserts at Barista and Coffee Day
   
10. Access to movies
    

This list is in no particular order, of course!

Kadva?

Dear Husband-Man,

Since you and I are both too militant for me to observe today's fast, let's just be careful to avoid accidents etc. Knowing your propensity for dreaming up stories and writing code in your head while you walk, I dedicate this song to you:

Babuji dheerey chalna

Karwa chauth pe gir na padnaa

Haan badey bhookey hain

Badey bhookey hain is raat mein

 

P.S.: With all due respect to the fasting ladies. Wish you and your loved ones a long and happy life.

Curious…

Remember how in the good ole days, when your mobile phone was lying next to your computer, the computer screen used to go all weird about two seconds before a call came? That no longer seems to happen! What has changed? The computers, the handsets, or the micro-waves???? Most puzzling!

A Non-Song

written around this time last year for a colleague who wanted me to write song lyrics for him. Goes to show I dunno how to write song lyrics.

पाँव थके तो हैं पर दीवाने भी तो हैं
जहाँ नहीं हैं रस्ते वहां बनाने ही तो हैं
उस धुंधली सुबह से जो वादे किए थे
चाँद डूबने से पहले निभाने भी तो हैं

तो चल के यह हसीं मंज़र तेरी मंज़िल नहीं
इस मोड़ तक आके जो रुक जाए वोह तेरा दिल नहीं
कुछ दूर अभी है अंजाम तेरे इस सफर का
ओ बाँवरे भंवर यह तेरा साहिल नहीं …

My Neanderthal (Great^100) Grandma Should Have Booked For Me...

This is the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs trying to help me find accommodation in Prague*

(The drop down list, of course contains two more years: 3909 and 3910.)

I don't think it is year 3908 according to some non-Gregorian calendar, unless they're also one day-of-the-week behind for some reason. It simply means that all hotels in Prague are full till Kingdom come, although there might be limited vacancy for the week before.

*Not going there anytime soon. I was window shopping for a vacation. Is that so bad?

What's That Rubbish Your Kid Is Reading???

Right between Johnny Johnny Yes Papa (moral: Lie all you want and get away with a big smile) and Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew (moral: students in the West have an awful lot of spare time), there is this stage when every kid reads cutesy stories with hardcore morals in them. Some memorable morals are that in all Russian families, there are 3 sons and the youngest one is the most kind, intelligent and forgiving, small animals are kinder than large animals, demons are vanquished by the cute and not the brave, and anyone with three kids is either gonna die and leave them squabbling, or face a lot of sorrow in life.

I read an awful lot of moral stories too, but the one that probably defined my attitude to life was an unfortunate little book, of which, for some inexplicable reason, we had two copies at home. Probably some wise kid, not realizing she was inviting two sisters to her party, gave us both the same book as a return gift… there is really no other explanation.

Now in my ripe old age, the title of the book has escaped the zoo of my mind, but the story was roughly this: there's a barnyard in which there are many little animals, and they're all hungry, so Mother Hen says let's bake some cakes… I now wonder where barnyard animals got their fascination for processed food from, but at the time, hen-made cakes sounded like a good idea. So she and her kids gather some grains, and nobody wants to help them….she asks some random critter to thresh the grain, and he flat out refuses. She approaches someone else to knead the dough, and they make excuses; for baking again, nobody helps and she makes it herself…ultimately, the hen and her babies do everything, and the cakes are ready. Now almost-ready cakes give off this nice cakey smell, even those made by hens…..so all the barnyard critters are sooper excited and run up saying hooray let's have a cake party!

And then comes the masterstroke: Mother Hen tells them all to bugger off and has a party with just her kids! No being nice to lazy asses! No being charitable! Pure, unadulterated, triple refined, iodized justice! I dunno if the book was intended to teach me the steps of baking or the basics of the English language…what it entrenched deeply into my kiddie brain was that if you're working your ass off, what you get out of it belongs to you.

And therefore, despite spending 14 years in a school that made kids have debates on topics like"which is better: sharing & caring OR loving & giving?" I am a staunch believer in earning and keeping.

Grr

Since nobody else is updating this blog, I'll just have to do it myself, won't I? Huh!

With the new long working hours, I feel like a machine. All my waking hours at home are occupied by non-voluntary activities, and that makes me mad. Never ever have I sat in one place for as long as people expected me to. I like to think I work faster than most, and can finish most exams in half the time allotted for them. I also rarely have problems meeting deadlines, so I think I deserve and extra star, or atleast the flexibility of leaving when I am done. The school teachers who did not let me leave after I finished my paper were plagued with the crashing sound of my sketch-pen-castle collapsing in a silent exam hall, or elaborate drawings on the question paper, which they had to scan for "cheating" material embedded into the artwork. I am still thinking about how I can make an entire office miserable so that they'll let me go home. It's tough.

?

One night last week, a bunch of people stopped us at the Brigade Road-Residency Road junction around 9pm. The group of two men, two women (in bright pink saris) and two kids (ten and one) asked us for some money for food, since they had not eaten for a while. In my usual Dilli ki Bandit Queen style, I walked past without paying attention, but the darling Husband stopped to listen. He offered to take them to a restaurant instead of giving them money. The only place we knew of nearby was closed, so we walked up Brigade Road to a shady-ish place. They sat down and we ordered Dal, Sabji and Kerala Parotas (is that how it's spelt?) The Husband paid up the bill and we waited for the food to arrive.

Ten minutes later, there was no sign of the food, and knowing we had a long walk ahead of us, we were keen to leave. However, Cynical old me was convinced this was a scam and right after we left, the folks we brought in would leave too, either with half the money from the restaurant manager, or without anything, coz they'd get thrown out of the place. So we decided to step out and stand in a place from where nobody in the restaurant could see us, and watch what happens.

As I had suspected, barely ten seconds after we stepped out, a guy from the restaurant came out, saw us, appeared to walk past, made a call, stared at us again, and then went and sat on the nearby steps. We stood our ground for a few more minutes, and then walked past the restaurant again. This time, we saw the waiter laying plates on the table. No food was in sight still. The spy was still sitting on the steps, looking at us.

We gave up and walked back home. We'd like to believe everyone was honest, the folks got fed, and the spy guy was probably doing something else. But I think the reason we walked away is because we sort of knew that would not be the case…