Welcoming new year 2010

Asha - Surabhi function

Raag Pilu - Amol, AyonDeep, Davey

Nahi Samne - Harsha

Sajde Mein - Harsha, Jui, Sayli

Rimjhim Ghire Sawan - Tapan

Khwaja - Alankar, Harsha, Tapan

Aashayein - Alankar, Harsha, Tapan

Medley - All

Wandering mind...

A friends blog made me think...We live in present continuous and hence change is constant. Mind has an ability to twist facts of past and blow up the future good/bad to enormity. The things that you plan for future in the present, when truly become present might not even be anything of what you imagined and your reactions might be so different. So when you plan in your present for future, you actually are making your present an experience worth experiencing with feelings, emotions and passion. It basically makes you. Its just that it is so fast, that it cannot be time bound in a frame like past or future. Its the only real thing. Agreed the surreal unpredictable vision of future makes it worth living. Nature knows no past or future but it still thrives happily, but we relate to reality as if it were a finished event or an inevitable future, since we are so quick to judge outcomes. We live to attain happiness in future - happiness by success, social work, fame, money whatever it is. So basically we generate synthetic happiness and hope, the ingredients required to live in present. Future supports our realistic present.

Farmville to Fishing

Well it would be an injustice not to write about this game. I really thought social networking sites were very hyped and highly misused and still think sometimes its a waste of time. But this recent application really made me feel good in limits about this newest facebook craze: farmville.
The young generation taking so keen an interest in farming is a wonderful thing to see. Yes, the lingo is definitely surprising when someone says over the phone, "Give me 10 minutes, I need to cut the strawberries and harvest a new crop before I come." Lol...
This is a perfect use of gaming I mean as far as I can see. Its a constructive game as compared to those violent games. Still by far Mario and NFS are the best :) Before this people would get all info from books, but since new generation is techie, Farmville provides really good source for information. Not only does it give a better understanding of farming related things, its really good in the sense that it develops a sense of planning,responsibility and having fun at the same time progressing through it. Also at no cost of harming anyone or losing anything. Yes, people do go overboard with it once a while by buying each others farms and playing it on a full screen projectors etc ;) It also provides information on energy conservation. Its a complete ecosystem in itself. Quite an impressive game and kudos to the person who changed the shape of gaming on FB.

It's like using "Alice" to learn a programming language.

I would be interested in other such games. Recently I made friends with some new grads at UAB, who stumbled across a fish tank when they went to get some furniture from a family in UAB who was moving out. They have been since a semester now setting up the fish tank, buying fishes online, breeding them, and selling the new ones or exchanging with someone elses fishes. They even exchange snail for moss and food for fish and fish frys (young ones of fish) for some aquarium plants :) It works like barter system :) The most interesting I thought was the way we could buy fishes online and they actually are sent by post. It was scary, even I waited liked 3 days eagerly wanting to see how they arrive. But it was all quite well shipped. It has been an interesting semester of knowing how fish keeping works. Its not as simple as it looks and fishes are not quite boring either :P..We actually did track the variations of behaviour, color, response to light, dark etc. You just can't get enough of it.
I wish for such friends of mine, they would have an application too. Maybe I should ask my friends to actually suggest that app on facebook or make one..wats say Gau-Jui?
It would be wonderful to get a feel of such things before you go into it since it might get overwhelming. So good job with the apps!

Adios, Ciao, good bye :)

Yet another time in month of August to say goodbye to a friend. This has been an year of changes, with 3 of my roomies leaving BHM in August this year. I don't think we (me and Richa) have any more roomies left in BHM at all. It was quite a week with Meens Ritu and Goldi all leaving around the same time, all talking about how much they would miss BHM and remembering the old student days 4 years back over some evenings of tea was nostalgic. We made quite a sweet family with everyone having their own distinctive traits but similar interests and varied passions.

Girl friends are forever is really a fact. I think women are the most passionate of beings in this world. I cannot imagine a world without them. Darn! so boring it did be not to know the difference between peach and pink, not the know what sparkle meant ;), not to know what louis vuitton meant over sonama, not to know why it is so important to call each of your friends every weekend, not to know how it is to share each others stuff and dreams and support with kind words and take their side even if they might be wrong sometimes, not to know what it is to find a GF with a same shoe size (I and richa do have that same :D), not to know how it feels to get to one size smaller than you already are :), not to know why writing emails are so important than just mere dialogue, not to know why getting the best deal over books/food/dresses and sharing the sale info is important, not to know why it is fun to make silly mistakes purposelly, not to know to diet to get to eat that one piece of chocolate cake craved for, not to know what it is to be bad drivers :D, not to know how it is to laugh and cry at the same time and still be the strength, not to know why it is important to have a Daisy than a daffodil, why paper cutting is so much fun, why taking photos in a studio is important, why scrapbooking to preserve memories is important, why spilling milk over the burner forgetting it while talking and listening to it fall and sharing a laugh always feels the same way...Lol... The list is endless. I think this is becoming just too much and I should stop, before I start to spill out the actual crazy fun incidences .....:P

The sanity, strength and determination is fathomless.
For all my girlfriends for the heart of gold and strenght of a woman ;)
Its been a rocking stay! and since Ritu and Meenakshi stay nearby to each other and Richa and Me are still in BHM we have made plans to meet up each year and for Goldi we will have to plan out sometrip to the west coat :)
Till then follow the blog! Lots to share, rock on! and add to it.

Julie and Julia and my cooking stunt....

Well that's the movie I saw with one of my old friends. The movie was special because it was a wonderful girl time out which started with a bit of shopping and coffee at bookstore, movie and ending with dinner. Dinner was not a part of the plan but just came about as an inspiration from the movie, inspiration for eating good and exotic food.
This is a movie based on life of Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) and Julie (by Amy Adams) who experiences Julia's life through her cooking and recipes and tv shows. As we entered the theater half knowing what to expect and started watching the promos, we saw the crowd coming in for movie..All middle aged women, 40-60. I guess they were all Julia Child's fans. She had a strong influence on that age group certainly. Suddenly a thought crossed our mind. Since no one of Julie's age came in we weren't sure if we had picked up a right movie. Soon enough the theater was full and the exceptions were 3 husbands again in age group 50-60 and 3-4 girls our age. Anyhow we were still excited since it was movie related to food. And nothing related to food could be half bad.

And that is what it exactly turned out to be. The passion for eating and cooking depicted so well in the movie in a very comedy way kept us hooked. Never was there a boring moment in the movie. The passion, drive for her to follow the thing she loved - eating and cooking in all tiny ways and at the same time a showcase of how well she led a beautiful life with her husband really touched everyone's heart there. The subtleties of relation of the married couples of both generations was well blended and as the movie shifted between generations I realize it only now that how hard the blending of stories form both generations might have been. Since I never realized it during the movie at all :)

The movie rubbed off on both of us and we decided to treat ourselves with a triple cheese dish and tiramisu. I was so moved by that passion that the very next day I decided to invite my friends over and cook something non-Indian for a change. I had tried Sheperd's pie once before and decided on it as a safe dish. To go along with a coconut Thai soup. I had planned to get the Thai soup available at store, since the Shepherd's pie was going to be handful. As luck might have it the store ran out of Thai soup. Awesome! On yet another day I would have swiftly changed from Thai soup to maybe minestrone or tomato soup. But I remembered Julia Child and I was not going to give up just then. Something told me to go for making it from the scratch. Having tasted it at Thai restaurants before I knew how it was supposed to taste, but had absolutely no idea how to make it, except the main ingredient coconut milk. But the Julia and Julie both characters were still going pretty strong. I tried to remember what I saw int he soups in restaurant generally. OK, so mushroom and spring onion. I decided to replace spring onion by Tofu..without a clue of again!

I first started with making cubed tofu and heating then in olive oil till they turned a little brown. Next sliced mushroom in very thin slices and sauted them a bit too. I knew the soup to be bland and did not add any spices to it. Next added the coconut milk and a little salt. Took a good bit of it on spoon to taste it. Yikes..it had the bitter taste of coconut. I again put on the thinking cap, what else..the online recipe did not say ginger, but somehow I remembered tasting ginger in it one time. SO I took the bold step of adding ginger to it. As I tasted and added ginger till it got a good strong flavour. But still though good it was bitter. i scavenged through a couple of more recipes online and as I read lime juice, it made it taste good instantly in my mind. Again I took yet another bold step of adding it one t-spoon at a time. In sometime, I found the soup turning to the taste I was expecting.
The Shepherd's pie turned out well and my friends definitely loved the soup though a little different. I was proud on myself for making the attempt. The only thing I might add next time might be spring onion, but otherwise it could all be the same. It tasted good. I had a great satisfaction. I did not know that cooking could provide that kind of satisfaction. Someones passion can really help discover your abilities. Well I would not go further to call myself an expert cook, but whatever I did I did with all the effort and zeal and it made me happy...Well my cooking graph did stay that way for a week, after which I was too tired, but I would definitely want to keep a copy of this movie and watch it while I cook next time over :D...

Short stories: Teachers Tales (as narrated by Mom)

Tale 1:
About 15 years back, I was a teacher at a public school in India. It was run at subsidized fees. It was a cosmopolitan school from students from everywhere over the country and from all standards of society.
I was a science and Math teacher for 4th graders. They were a lovely set of children to be with. I loved to answer all the questions they had and by far they always had a lot. There was in particular this handicapped girl, lets call her Swapna in my class who was also hardworking student. She came from a poor family and had lost her fingers in some home accident.
Once as I finished my class just before the lunch hour, I decided to sit back a bit to look through my notes before heading to the office. I noticed that Swapna first went through a struggle to open up her lunch box and then sat alone at her seat eating it. None of the students noticed her or even approached her to give company or share their lunch. I realized they all took the deformity due to accident very seriously and thought her to be different. It was no use explaining the students, so in a act of giving her some company I went ahead and opened up my lunch and shared it with her. As I spoke to her and ate out of her box and offered mine, the rest of the children in class, curious to know why the teacher was especially friendly to this student came forward. As I called in to them one by one and shared my and swapna's lunch with the rest they became more comfortable and friendly with Swapna. She reciprocated in a happy way and struck a good chord with other students. They probably din't understand then why they should not treat her differently, but definitely they accepted her as is and hence atleast for then they had learnt a good lesson of importance of acceptance.
This was one of those few times which stirred me and made me thank God for such a wonderful profession and opportunity where I could mold hundreds of beautiful, young, impressionable minds.