Last Christmas

Last year on Christmas Eve, we were at J’s house, and that was the first time we heard the news that S would probably get married. There was the French-Loaf-cake and the candles that wouldn’t stop burning. Now, a year later, S is married but is in Kolkata, I am in the capital thinking of amazing ways to avoid getting stuck with an ostentatious Bengali family on a picnic where little that matters and little that will make sense will be discussed. What would I like to do? Of course be in my city, with both of them, have a rocking time roaming around somewhere, quiet fun lunch, loads of coffee and gossip. But that’s not happening. A career is what should be happening. But even over that a big question mark looms. Sigh.

Having spent almost a month in this amazing city, I don’t know what I feel. The opportunities here are unmistakable. There is the promise of a career, independence, warm people (some at least!) but at the end of the day it’s not home. But then without a career, even home ceases to be home. It becomes a cauldron of unfulfilled expectations and frustrated aspirations. One just has to move out and suffer, or stay and suffer. Since if you stay you’ll have more leisure, the suffering is more acute and prolonged. But when you are here, submerged in a million worries--- job,house,rent,food,safety---it is easy to forget the pain. During the day of course. At night it’s a different story. The pillows hear the saddest thoughts. Faces of parents, worries, and the pangs of separation. Separation from parents who nagged, from the room inhabited for years, separation from friends, from the streets, sights, sounds and smells that meant ‘home’.

Anyway, Christmas was spent rather happily. Thirty minutes of standing in the balcony and staring at trees, a park and a lethargic security guard, talking with friends who were having their own adventure in Park Street (read lost phones, police stations etc), huge mug of coffee, bread eggs, a book, and a blanket. Who needs Santa!

Times of Rajdhani

Going for an interview can be pretty nerve-wracking but not when you find they have a dog... who enjoys being petted.(His name was Fluffinder) :)

The magic word while dealing with autowallahs is confidence... they can smell fear... so when they ask for 80 and you plan on paying 60, the answer is a super confident :
 "80 KYUUUUUU? 60 mein jaatein hain roz... ."
No batting eyelids, no shaky voice. Act as if there's a fleet of BMW's waiting for you and you are doing him a HUGE favour by choosing this mode of transport. (Don't be foolish enough to try this after dark, when you are stranded with limited transport options! )

Also the metro here is disconcerting, intimidating but not frightening... if you can read that is... everything is clearly labelled, so don't go asking for info from suspicious looking stupid people who will give you the wrong info very confidently, instead if you really want to ask... ask young student-like fellows... they know their stuff and are usually helpful. The first compartment is reserved for ladies and be prepared to get elbowed more in that compartment. Somehow ladies in the ladies compartment feel that now since they are in familiar territory they can poke around... it's cute...like the familiarity between lovers who make a pashbaalish out of each other's well-endowed legs. And the ladies are fun to watch, there are aunties dressed as 18-year-olds, there are office going well-groomed ones who eat cream-cracker biscuits and touch up their makeup, and there are kids... I shall stop right there.


Also..


You know God is kind when you expect to be bossed around at work and instead you are blessed with extremely nice seniors.

I think people in this city have their own warehouse where they dump their winter clothes in summer... where else will one keep all this junk? Don't ask me about colder countries... I have no clue how they manage.

And staying at a relative's place can be quite entertaining...from feeding crows on auspicious days, to offering water to the moon...it's a nice live show. I still haven't had to face the PG drama and though things are not exactly as home, at times you gotta be thankful that you don't have to worry about a nice meal when you get back and that someone will care enough to buy a Corex syrup when you have a cough. I shall enjoy this luxury while it lasts.

And now the blanket beckons.

Good Night!

It breathes! It thinks! It's not a mutual fund!

Hello. I have rather too polite in many of my previous posts, perhaps because I was blissfully sitting at home, meeting friends. But thanks to the wondrous occasion of Bijoya, coupled with the fact that my father is the youngest of 7 children, I have been touring the city to seek blessings from my relatives. I usually go on these trips, not because their blessings work, but because the visits don't last for than 2-3 hours. I can be on my best behaviour for that long. A little longer and the mask slips.  So it's usually few funny replies, a lot of very sweet smiles and some banal question-answer sessions. All of which is routine for me.

But there are  few individuals who scare me. Within two hours, they almost damage my ability to think straight for the next twenty-four. Now we all have some relatives who are self-appointed career and relationship consultants, offering advice at an alarming rate. This gentleman I will now talk about belongs to that category but transcends it. In the guise of giving me advice he talks about himself and his daughter.

He asks me what I intend to do. This is where things get difficult as my intentions don't always make sense to them. He asks me the "scope" of my chosen profession. I stare back not knowing what he means by the word scope. Then he proceeds to explain what he means.

What does an editor do? (Of course he assumes I am one. Which I am not. Yet.) So I explain. He then asks "Why will any author except a new one listen to what an editor says?" I try to explain that editors are not superior mortals trying to make everyone listen to them. They try to do what's best for a book. He nods.

Then it dawns upon him that I am not one. So he asks whether what I am saying is based on assumption or facts. I have forgotten my reply.

He then proceeds to express his view that this is a "behind-the-scene" job and asks me why have I not chosen one  in which  I can be "on the stage". The metaphor is quite lost on me. My mind drifts to the time I played the Shojaru in Ha ja ba ra la. Anyway, realising that it is a metaphorical stage,  I say not everyone wants the same thing in life.

Then he comes to the point. The point that has been the most annoying part of any conversation that involved me for the past few months. Since I have cleared the entrance exam for college lectureship and I can get a scholarship for further studies if I get into any research program it is a great puzzle why am I not doing that. 'Why am I not doing what?' I ask. Appearing for interviews, applying for a Ph.D etc. I say I don't want to teach right now. Also, that I don't have a proposal for research. Except that I don't say it bluntly, I ask "Who will write the proposal?" The sarcasm is lost on him. He replies "no one writes it for anyone." Thank god he told me!

Anyway he tells me that proposals don't just happen, one has to go very deep into the subject and discuss ideas. He talks non-stop for a few minutes.  My  I-am-a-patient-woman expression is almost giving way to an I-am-a-patient one, when he stops. Stops to tell us that his daughter's IQ is above average and that he is known by everyone in his para, from rickshaw wallahs to vegetable sellers. Then he returns to his favourite topic. Me.

"I am not discouraging you," he begins,  and tells me that this line has no safety and security.  I say I can't teach now, because I need to sleep at night. His wife, so long busy serving refreshments, gets offended and asks why do I think teachers don't sleep at night. I hurriedly explain that I meant if I don't do something that I really want to do, I won't sleep at night. ( All this is extremely ironical because I am a chronic insomniac, but they don't need to know that.)

Then to highlight the insecurity of this line, the gentleman entertains us with the tale of a journalist who headed a respected newspaper few years ago and is now the head of a recently launched daily which is not that great. I wonder what line he was talking about when he comes to my rescue and explains - this media line. With great emphasis on media in the way people talk about escorts, brothels and stuff. I don't even bother to explain that I am not in that media line.  I am too busy eating an egg-roll - the only saving grace of the evening.

These paragraphs obviously represent an edited version of what happened.

Am I overreacting? I am sorry if you think so. Though I agree I need to be more indifferent because at the end of it all, these people don't matter.

No, I do not come from a house which has not allowed me to do what I want. I have done exactly what I want, at every step of my life. My parents have never objected. So have many of my friends. But it has not been easy. I know some did not even have this luxury and face more serious challenges. But I can't speak for them. I know parents and relatives want the best for us. I do not question their intention. But what they think is best for us might not be what we want.

They have spent huge amounts bringing us up, have given us the best that they could in terms of education and I'd like to believe that the more responsible among us, keep that in mind. ( Some don't. Like the ones buying 5 phones in a year. I am not talking about them.) Their investment is not only financial, they invest time, perhaps the best time of their lives, and also I can't begin to talk about the emotional investment. However, that, and that alone does not give them the right to dictate how we live our lives. Safety, security and status (of how I hate that fucking word) are relative.

So dear would-be parents, if you want to treat your yet-to-be-born kid as a mutual fund that must provide a high return on investment, then take my advice and invest in a high-quality condom.

Good Night.

Durga versus Meredith.

A delicious Moha Shoshthi spent at home watching TV, reading, chatting on the phone, suffering headaches and power cuts.

I have watched many, many, many episodes of Grey's Anatomy. What is that you ask? My dear intellectual friend, kindly bring a paper and pencil. Good. Now draw four, or five or may be six dots. Name the central dot - 'meredith' , name the most shapely, adorable dot 'Shepherd', others don't even bother. Now draw lines. Lines connecting the dots. Lines hovering around the dots. One line passing through three dots, making triangles etc. Now over the lines write "sleeps with", "dies", "marries", and "has a baby" ...  you now have a blueprint of the plot. But it's still very watchable. Don't you dare judge me.

As usual I have digressed, what I really wanted to say was, that I feel like a surgeon and I shall analyze the syndrome of thakur dyakha.  No one actually sees the Goddesss, which in some places is a 15 inch thingy worshipped by a puroot (I spell it this way, since it rhymes with churoot, and I always imagine the former with smoke coming out of their orifices) . So the Goddess that symbolizes this Divine power, exists as a schizophrenic entity- the gigantic one to enthrall us, and the tiny one, worshipped by the puroot. Then we go about messing with our Pujor chuti and do more hectic stuff than we do on non-chuti days. Pujo-madness, pujo-frenzy, pujor-jama, pujor-egg-roll ... all to lull us into the comfort of believing that we are very sane people who don't shop all the year round,  people who don't touch junk food at all etc. Baudrillard baby would have had a field day with us. We would be like field rats in his lab.

Anyway.

There are species like me, who are very enthusiastic as long as they are well-fed, not feeling pee/poop/puke-ish and not experiencing any leg ache trauma. Then there are species like my father, who are self-proclaimed nastiks (atheists), yet will visit a pandal in the North Pole if they can. Just for fun.

Of course he visits the pandals on his own. Now that I am an adult (an obese one by the grace of God), I can't be dragged into these adventures.  So he comes home in the afternoon and all I have to do is ask , and he rattles off half a dozen names- Shuruchi Sangha, Badam Tola, Cheshotti Polli, Mudiali.... I beg him to stop. He proceeds with the description of each pandal and each idol, and the opinions. Camera? That's for less articulate losers. My father told a man with an umbrella that he was doing a great job by carrying an umbrella, that saved not only him but others behind him in the queue from the heat. The man apparently was very happy because others had been complaining about poking and stuff... losers of course they were. huh.

Once we went to visit the Mohd, Ali Park Pandal , where the theme was peace. The Durga idol had pigeons instead of weapons. The symbolism was lost on my father, and he asked the already-exhausted organisers- "ki korechen dada? payra, payra, payra ...eta Durga?" ... we pretended we did not know him.

Then once I was dragged into a 'bojra', a 'launch' which sailed on the Hooghly between the two bridges and it was supposed to be beautiful. However it was not because the loos were dirty. Then Tanusree Shankar's troupe was supposed to dance on another 'bojra' and we the lesser mortals were to view this divine dance from our own 'bojra' after that there was hindi songs and ... Biriyani.

The grand ride home was in the car of a  friend's crazy relative who took revenge on a driver who did not know the directions by not giving him the directions. Crazy relative kept mum as the driver took wrong turns and kept asking 'dada kon dike jabo?'  Friend, who sat  beside me , sms'd "I am sorry" throughout the ride as I glared at her. My bladder would have burst. It did not. I live to tell this tale.

There was a time when my entire maternal family went for a whole night trip. One aunt of mine, eats a lot, her children too eat a lot but she always thinks they are starved, UN-calendar, rib-cage-exposed-type babies. Anyway so she ate a lot and just before the car reached College Square- nature called. Very loudly. She was led towards the pay-and-use toilet. A concerned relative offered a bottle of water you know just in case. This relative's son immediately screamed ... "Ma ota jol na...Sprite."

I don't know if one has ever seen the Goddess on these trips. I haven't. (Had I been a guy I would have been pleased with other kinds of Goddesses but even that is impossible. ) The point is, I have seen enough to stay at home and watch Grey's Anatomy on Shoshthi. Shantih.

PS:  Latest Updates-
a.Bitchy woman doing her research in yankee-doodle nation is back town.

b.Father mistook one person's wife for another's and wondered why the father-in-law of the wife1  was spending so much time with wife2. Mother revealed that Father-in-Law of wife 1 is the father-in-law of wife 1. Mystery solved with a hearty laugh and zero embarrassment. Welcome to my family.

c.If someone asks my youngest niece her name, she says "Ami Ghosh", her mother's name is "Maa Ghosh" and father's...of course "Baba Ghosh".

Okay Bye.

Influenza

Don't you just love the word Influenza? Of course you won't if you think of a mucus filled snout but just think of the word as a word and forget the meaning ( Signifier ... Signified...remember? Yes now forget it.) If you still don't love it... then say it out loud...I n f l u e n z a....  it has a certain musical quality.

If it wasn't a disease it could have been ...erm...

"I am Princess Influenza ..."

"I'd love to visit the exotic land of the Influenza tribes."

"Harry Potter stared at Professor Gogoretti as he performed the 'Influenza' curse on the mule, of course Hermione wasn't looking, she knew it by heart."

etc.

Hmm. Beautiful.

Now let's come back to mucus-filled snouts. The problem is all good things in life are fast disappearing. Earlier whenever I had a cold, a tiny part of my heart felt great, because it knew that I would have two teaspoons of that delicious, orange Triaminic Syrup. Then it became Numenic Syrup. Then it disappeared.

I also loved the white tiny sweet Homeopathic pills which never did any good. Now that my mother allows me to do what I feel like, I don't choose Homeopathy treatment, but I miss the pills. Then there were green rubbery capsules filled with some kind of oil. You just had to put one in hot water and inhale the steam, capsules dissolved and emitted a nice smell. That has been banned.

Now all I have is disgusting Otrivin which leaves a bitter aftertaste and Cetzine without which I can't live through a cold and which makes me sleep like a log.

Anyway. Bye.

Paneer Roll : Pet Pujo

Since I'm not shopping for Pujo, this is my kind of pujo, pet pujo. Hari Om. Let's begin!

Okay so many of you may be seasoned cooks out there ... and you may feel this post is silly but I don't care. I am going to do this. I made two yummy paneer rolls for breakfast (okay post-breakfast, coz breakfast at 7 a.m. was Maggi ... m still regretting that !) . Well now that I have wolfed down the rolls I can put up the pics. This was basically my take on this recipe.

First I prepared a marinade with yoghurt, turmeric powder, garlic paste, besan, ginger paste, chilli powder, garam masala, and kasuri methi. Whisked all that and then added the paneer cubes. Left it for 20 mins during which I chopped up onions, cucumber and coriander leaves.

Prepared the dough with atta but added few drops of oil with the water. Then made tedha medha rotis ! (Don't you dare criticize ... it's my first time! I am super happy about it!)

And getting the paneer cooked on high flame for about 5-8 mins, don't worry if you have extra curry, it dries up in the end.

Then it was all about assembling ....

and eating!

Okay bye.

Masterchef Favourites from the previous seasons.

Yet another Masterchef season is over. And for the umpteenth time , no NOT India. I don't watch the India series, so wouldn't know. The indian series brings Aishwariya and Akshay Kumar so I don't give a damn about it! I'm talking about Australia. I have swollen lymph nodes, a wisdom tooth that has decided to grow horizontally  and I have work, but my head tells me that I want to blog about Masterchef right now. Thought I'll list some of my favourite contestants.

Disclaimer: Series 1 was not aired in India. So my post refers to Seasons: 2, 3. Not 4, because it's too fresh in my mind and I'll end up putting all of them here. Especially since I had so many favourites: Andy - Ben (the love-buddies), Kylie, Julia (Dessert queen), Mindy, Amina and Alice.

1. Marion Grasby . Twitter: https://twitter.com/marionskitchen

Who doesn't love her? With a smile that makes her eyes invisible, she just strode into our hearts with her amazing dishes. She won so many challenges and was a power to reckon with in this particular season. She made some of the toughest dishes in the competition. She didn't win it but we all know she's a winner! Love her. Here's a blog post by a fan, written after her elimination : http://ruesdeparis.blogspot.in/2010/12/marion-youre-being-missed.html

2. Jonathan Daddia: https://twitter.com/JonathanDaddia Okay. Towards the end he was not winning the challenges and cooking mind-blowing stuff. Yet he was cute. I liked him. A Lot. He faced god knows how many eliminations and survived. Loved the way he got psyched up when he met Heston Blumenthal.

3. Callum Hann:

Finalist of the season at 20. Boy did I want him to win! Young, super-cute and a super cook. Loved his smile and his desserts!  Website: http://callumhann.com.au/

4. Hayden Quinn: Sexy surfer who is a great cook. Need I say more?  If you didn't watch that Cronulla beach challenge girls, you missed it BIG TIME! My favourite was a fish and chips dish that he cooked in one of the challenges. Was really sad when he was eliminated.  Website: http://www.haydenquinn.com.au/

5. Kate Bracks: Such an inspiration! All the way through. After the retro-coffee-cake, she sort of stayed away from the spotlight. But she grew from strength to strength and in the end, I don't think there was anyone who wasn't supporting her. A mum with a dream, who chases that dream. Love her... and her coffee cake and of course that Gingerbread house...Mr. Adriano Zumbo's masterpiece. And guess what? SHE WON!

6. Dani Venn: She's crazy (Korean rice burger anyone?), she's fun and she's passionate. The only person to have won two immunity pins in a single season, says a lot about her skills. Some of her risks didn't pay off but she was never too scared to try! Love her spunk. Website : http://danivenn.com/

This was fun. Might do a separate post on Season 4 Favourites. :) And perhaps one on the most irritating contestants (read cry-babies and overconfident ones). Okay bye for now!