Ummmm...what an aroma!!

Cooking is my hobby and feeding others( generally ma family) is my passion.Though i love cooking contemporary dishes, i believe that somehow i can come up with so better recipes than those designed by the famous but apparently not so good(ya!!i know, but then that IS me..:-)..)5 star chefs..outrageous yeah, but then thats me!!
So i always go through some recipes, have some cookbooks in ma hand and then i use my brain and then go about with mix 'n match and come with some stuff which is really tasty,awesome but not the stuff i set out to make..hmm..confusing??ya, my mom definitely thinks so..i believe that i should write my own cookbook with my own ingenious recipes, but my mom kinda believes that i should learn the basic rules first and then stick to it..i really don't know why :-( I mean, the stuff i cook up is really tasty, well presented and finger licking good, so who cares about rules when the end result is all that matters?ya, sometimes i do mix stuff that don't mix, but then am an strong advocate for the theory that,"People learn from their mistakes"!!B-)

So, as i was saying, am a fan of contemporary food stuff.Ya, i can cook up a simple,normal(whats that??) meal for anyone any day but traditional was something i was yet to experiment with in depth.This diwali, fates played in my favour and put the ball in my court.Somehow it so happened that i was the in charge for the festive season food in my house for that particular time zone..Dawn broke on that auspicious day, and I, who never woke up soo early in a vacation, was shook awake. I was solemnly reminded of my duties as the chef de cuisine and i grudgingly took up the baton.So while my father went about the routine of pooja, i went about preparing the goodies to impress the "almighty" accompanied by constant instructions from my mom. Some southindian kinda brinjal curry,tomato dal, chutney and kheer...n ya..rice..somehow i always messed up that one simple thing..either too runny or too thick..but that day,i guess god was in a mood for good food..Rice turned out to be just perfect!!

So my session with the sniff from the south turned out to be awesome..everyone thought it was yummy..i obviously thought so too..but then it came with some really valuable lessons..First that mix n' match doesn't work everywhere..somethings are just meant to have some kinda spices..n its not named kheer since soo long for nothing..its a sweet dish in which all dry fruits wouldn't go..sweet dish,ya i know, but i wanted to dump in all the dry fruits mom had in store :-)
My mom very fondly likes to say that mix 'n match works for all those stuff who really don't have any name and are meant to be convenient dishes..Like sandwiches are like "THE GOD" of mix 'n match..So i finally learned to stick to the rules..but i still have that roguish and risque attitude in me..i never really could give up mix 'n match..coz the dinner next day was something like a bread pizza with so many boiled veggies, a bit 'o spice and all the spreadings i had with me..
The verdict?

They loved it and am not gonna change!!

Lyrics that touched ma hrt..britney spears..

I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman

I used to think
I had the answers to everything
but now i know
That life doesn't always go my way
Feels like i'm caught in the middle
That's when i realize

I'm not a girl
Not yet a woman
All i need is time
A moment that is mine
While i'm in between
I'm not a girl

There is no need to protect me
It's time that i
Learned to face up to this on my own
I've seen so much more than you know now
So don't tell me to shut my eyes

I'm not a girl
Not yet a woman
All i need is time
A moment that is mine
While i'm in between
I'm not a girl

But if you look at me closely
You will see it in my eyes
This girl will always find her way

I'm not a girl
I'm not a girl don't tell me what to believe
Not yet a woman
I'm just tryin' to find the woman in me, ya
All i need is time
all i need is time...
A moment that is mine
While i'm in between
I'm not a girl
Not yet a woman
Not now
All i need is time
A moment that is mine
While i'm in between

I'm not a girl
not yet a woman

Here it is..atlast or alas??

hmm..so my days of shameless leisure are about to come to an end..todays ma last day before the hectic college schedule encapsulates me..ya tomorrow its gonna be packing around and last minute shopping so today is my last day of tranquility before the frenzy of the college and autumn fest embarks..still i cant in all honesty say that am not happy to be going back to ma college..ya,home was heaven,loved everything here..but still that 'on your feet' college life beckons me..i miss my friends,the outings to nescafe,the stolen moments in between lecs of having tea at canteen...all the mischeif and midnight maggi parties..ya,i can make maggi here at home too..but if i wanna be alive then it better be at some decent timing like 6 in the evening(ya,i no..but mom rules!!)
and eating maybe just two spoons but sharing it with all those hordes of ppl actually makes it a whole lot more tastier..so i guess thats one thing which makes me say..atlast!!hols over!!..
but then when i do sit down to think that i will have to eat the gooey inedible stuff our mess will soon start to dish out..then am forced to say..alas!!hols over!!
so its like selecting between the sun or the rainbow??
or maybe like tea or coffee??(coffee wins,no dbt,but i kinda like both f dem now!!)
Well ya,am experiencing a tumult of emotions..a variety of mixed ones..but end of the story??
here it is..the end of hols...

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."

~~Les Brown

Just me..nothing new,nothing special...

Dear Linda,
It took me long to come up with a suitable name for you..
How does one go about naming a dairy??
And look what i came up with!!ya,a westernized name i know,but i've been itching to ape them since a long while and anyway i was reading this book where the central character was Linda.
I liked the character,though can't say the same for the book and so i stuck to the name.
So here i was,beneath the smoky sky,just before the breaking dawn,searching for some stars.Stars that supposedly rule our lives,our luck,our future.If that's true then am stuck with a system gone totally haywire with no ruler to its name.My gaze went around n around but i could find no star..No sign that i would be soon out of this nothingness, none at all..
The cycle continues and am here waiting....
There is a frenzy of activity everywhere.People running around, jostling each other, eating sweets,wishing each other and then a boom every so often.Ya, today is diwali.Am also sitting and chatting and trying very hard to be an extrovert. Am also running and wishing everyone,and perhaps leading everyone in those riveting booms and dazzling lights.Am also smiling and laughing so hard that its infectious. I really don't know why then my smile feels pasted to me.Why everything seems to be a burden...
Everything i cared about in my life was coming apart,Everything i believed in was proving to be moot..i was having a constant fall out with my friends,who were bewildered as to what was happening to me.I went through all the daily routines, but without any real interest in anything.My parents are my beacon of light,when i am swimming in this ocean of distress.And when i do drag myself out of the wet,gloomy ocean i find myself on the island of despair..
But what can even they do??They don't even know that am burning,that somethings eating me alive..not even a hint of it..
And yet am waiting, for some sign,that all is not lost yet..That there is hope,somewhere,perhaps its hiding from me.But its elusive presence in the vicinity would itself be soothing enough..
but am finding not even a delicious wiff of it now..when i need it most..
I want,no i demand my peace of mind.I was happy being sane..This insanity of doing the right thing is killing me..
Am i the only one whose dragging their bundle of problems behind me?am i the only one allowing the weight of my burdens to drag me down?
Yes,i suppose..
I see so many others actually playing along with their burdens and floating in this ocean carelessly,joyfully..
Why am i looking at my troubles through a magnifying glass??
but they don't seem small to me..nor do they seem magnified..i feel as if they are eating me alive..
am trying hard to keep up..am trying to fake it till i make it.But am horribly aware that my face is just a mask of radiant happiness right now,its beauty just skin deep..I want to laugh from my heart,but everytime i try to,i feel like sobbing my heart out..why is it like that?why am i the only one bound by the shackles of my own helplessness??
why is it just me??
i want to come out of this,i want to climb out of this ravine of helplessness but i need a ladder of hope and the shine of a sign for it..hope so that the urge remains strong and sign so that it leads me in the right direction..
am waiting..
and that is all that i can do now...wait..
i hope not till the eternity..
bye for now..
al tell you when my wait's over,
love you,
Lhs..




PS-nope its not me..:-)

There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.
- Voltaire

Rediscovering the 'ZERO'!!

hmmm....testing my GK, I think it was our very own Mr.Ramanujam,who had the honor of inventing the ‘ZERO’. And soo many years after that groundbreaking conception of the oval, am rediscovering it..N ya sometimes sucking at it and at others, loving it..

For instance, now with diwali in clear view, I thought lets go and give ma Dads money a run for it..well, the malls were way ahead of me..they had already drawn the game plan for giving everyone a run for their money. Every item had a tag with so many trailing ‘ZEROES’ that even ‘I’ couldn’t indulge myself. That’s one very obvious place where I had rediscovered the huge oval!!

Going chronologically backwards, then there was this time when we had examz…everything was ‘THE’ rediscovery where the mighty were concerned..The syllabus had our brain jumbled up with nothing but them. And then the preparation itself had us envisaging our marks as the huge old dreaded ovals and eggs. And when they did arrive they were just a bit more than our dear old friend.

And speaking of eggs ,every poached egg and an omelet(sunny side up, yummy!!) had me thinking of ‘ZEROES’ again. Don’t ask me why. Every Gulab-jamun, pani puri, rasgulla(yup, yummy again) had me thinking of….guess what..

Maybe cause every time I give in to these temptations in disguise, my calorie count is again packed with the trailing ‘ZEROES’!!

And when an utterly jobless hour stretches leisurely in front me, I pick up my remote and turn on the IDIOT BOX. And there goes again!!Totally deranged creatures(no offence meant folks!!)sashaying around, covered in suave and elegant scraps of clothes, scraps nonetheless, and flaunting their size 'ZERO'.

And being a comps engg(to be!!), looking at my lappy daily and knowing that its native language is again full of ‘ZEROES’ triggers the journey of my blissful rediscovery..Every electronics device reminds me of its digital lingo which is again full of my ol friend, this time, turning them ‘ON’ and ‘OFF’!!

Randomly speaking, everything in this world, at the break of the eternal dawn, comes down to ‘ZERO’. The universe started from a ‘ZERO’ and as they say in bible, will end on Armageddon, yet again at ‘ZERO’. Kalyug is up for a run these decades, and when its number is up, again back to my favorite ‘ZERO’. WTC fell, the rubble mass was ground ‘ZERO’!!

Zero Zero everywhere, not a spot to think and spare!!

And with all that binary programming last sem, I really miss my friend this time..;-)

And with MIT this sem dealing in hexadecimals, I guess its time to let go of ma rediscovery and practice safe hex…;-)

Lolzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!

J

;-)

B-)

:-P

J

PS-Well ya, this is the outcome of an utterly jobless hour and an over imaginative workshop!!

:-P

Garnishing lyf's recipes...

GARNISHING....sounds yummy huh???yeah...opens the flood gates in our mouth...
So why does the word tickle our taste buds hmmm...
Garnishing, put in layman's words,means...To make the food look good..appetizing is the word..and now the question is why do we need the food to look good??
Well,personally speaking, i like it that way...N so do scores of others..we actually start anticipating the taste.Its not as if the food has gone bad or something,its not even as if it doesn't taste good..its just to make it better.Ya, we don't need the garnishing for survival, but we do appreciate its presence.. Easy on eyes,as they say...
And this funda of going easy on eyes seems to be applying everywhere.That's the reason why we suddenly have our world platform being dominated by anorexic women who call themselves 'size zero'..And that is the reason why people are getting more and more obsessed about their looks..Ya,cosmetic industry is flourishing but that is just one upside to it..And yeah,the audiences enjoy at their expense, so there goes another upside..Is anyone stopping to even think about the plight of those under the cameras and the aspiring wannabes?
Most of us dont...And in addition to it,most of us are actually joining the race of the wannabes..
First impression is the last impression...ya,i know that..but then shud it be the only impression??
Doesn't character matter anymore to anyone?No one has the time to taste the food anymore,they are just happy with the decorations..No time to stand and stare..(but perhaps in this case,time is just to stare and not to care...;-)...)
Some years back on a very popular channel there used to be a serial which was intially about how a girl with brains tries to stand out in industry on the basis of her knowlegde (jassi....)
The serial was interesting when they showed her struggles..We oohed and aahed..but we always knew how impractical and against the odds her success was..And towards the end,they finally had to show her transformation into the beauty queen then it was the same run of the mill story..And the morale of the story??...beauty reigns...
Low self esteem, self confidence everything coz people expect everyone to look good..it all comes in a full circle..trying to look good,liking others looking good and hence again trying to look good...
N so..We all shud've been professionally chefs...the way we are garnishing our lifes,hiding everything beneath it, woud've made a 5 star chef proud of us!!!
SO THREE CHEERS TO OURSELVES PPL!!!

TENSION??yeah,right!!

As the dragons loom ever larger upon us,i take out time outta my busy schedule(dont ask doing what!!) to ponder over how all of us(or rather most of us)changed over the past two years..

yup,am happy to say am going all besaharm with my studies...gone are the days when i used to start preparing a week ago(that,I thought was the worst i could go,but then,i like to surprise myself:-)..)

Here I am,in 3rd year doing comp engg,with just a day to go for ma internals, hitting all the keys on ma keyboard with a fury that would get anyone thinking that am long done with my syllabus..ahem ahem..i dont even know the exact contents of my syllabus ;-)

Well if any of my contemporaries are thinking what led to this outpoar,then fellas,am going through my borrowed copy of tannenbaum trying to get hang of CN and then skipping over to the cormen(which torments!!) to do AAD...That should make it clearer..

If i keep up my rate and modes of current prep then am so going to flunk my xamz that eyes are going to bulge..but i dont feel like budging from my stance about the preps...poor me and my conflicting interests..:-(

And to keep me going,am having this constant dosage of cool n WTF status msgs by my frns,which shows just how far gone they all are just before examzzz...(lucky to note that am not alone!!!)

I still say,when xamz poke their ugly head round the corner,or rather as in this case,breathe down our throats,we come out with stuff(or is it just me??)that dazzles,startles and freaks out the more normal mortals fighting for existence in our academic insti...

For all my wishfull thinking(of some calamity striking our clg,or papers leaking out or all the paper in the clg getting burned!!;-)),its just my subconcious mind trying to get free(ya,prtty heavy wrds for someone as far gone as me,i know!!)

I know that i will have to drag my a** , come tomorrow,to the dept to tackle and try to clear the hurdles and tortures being specially designed by our esteemed faculty..

So am having this feeling(divine intervention huh???!!!) that i should get myself into some semblance of presentable preparation before the countdown begins!!

Gawd!!help me!!

N ppl wish me luck...

N ya best of luck to rest of the world too (as if they need it!!;-)...)whose noses are already buried deep within the books..;-)