Eat, Pray, Love

EAT



For those who've known me, for an hour, a day, months, years or a lifetime, would probably smile and think to themselves, "Typical" or "why am I not surprised?"

Over the years, I've earned the title of a 'hog'. In school, in college and at work. Most of my time is spent in either eating, talking about what I want to eat, or thinking about what I could eat.

I cant explain my obsession about food. I'm always hungry. even after I've just finished a meal, I'm already thinking about the next meal.

I've been accused of converting non-eaters into hogs. And they've told me, sometimes seriously, sometimes jokingly, that they need to stop spending time with me because I'm making them put on weight while I continue to stay skinny as ever.

There's something about food that calms me down. If I'm sad, or angry or lonely or busy- food makes me feel better. Almost always.

But what you should also know is that I hate eating by my self. Food gives me a joy I cant explain and I have to share it with someone. Simply talking about it doesn't help. The other person needs to experience it and feel the bliss too.

When I cut into a slice of blueberry cheesecake, watch the spoon sink into its mushy core, pause for a brief moment at the crust, hear a soft click as the spoon cuts through the crunchy base and hits the plate, when I put the spoon into my mouth, feel the cheesy, creamy cake slide and roll around my tongue and melt away, bite into the tiny blue berries as their juices burst in my mouth and feel the crumbly crust leave a tingly texture on my tongue..... that's pure satisfaction. That cant be shared with anyone until he/she feels it too.

While most people eat to live, I, for one, live to eat.


PRAY




I'm not a very religious person, even though I come from a family who is. And I'm not sure if I'm too spiritual either.

I've never been able to explain to people what my thoughts about God are. But then, I dont think religion is something that needs to be explained to others. Its your won personal thing.

I also think prayers have nothing to do with religion.

I dont know how to pray. I've been taught, obviously. But over the years I've somehow lost the line that differentiates 'praying' from simply 'talking' to someone you believe in; God or otherwise.

Most of the times I feel like I'm simply talking, and to me that's praying.

I'm not going to dwell too much on how I pray because this isn't about that.

I dont know if I believe in the power of prayer. And I also dont believe that if you honestly want something, real bad, and you pray for it from the bottom of your heart, you'll get it. That just means that all the times I haven't got what I asked for, I haven't really wanted it badly enough.

That's not true.

I just think, even though its hard for me to admit, that you get what you need, not what you want.

Some nights back, I was feeling terribly low and lonely, and I lay in bed, crying, wanting so much, to be with someone who'd make the loneliness disappear. That hadn't happened in a very long time and I wished that for one night, for even a moment, someone would wipe my tears away. I 'prayed' for that moment; from the bottom of my heart.

And after all the times when I've thought God doesn't care about what I want, He gave this to me. He gave me someone who, for that moment, said something so simple, yet more than I could have asked for. "You have me."

When my grandfather was sick and people told me he didn't have much time left, I prayed. Harder than I'd ever prayed for anything in my entire life. For him to get better.

My cousin was expecting a baby and he'd be born anytime. And I wanted my grandfather to be around to see the baby, who'd be the first great grand child of our family.

I prayed, every night, every day, for a chance to let my grandfather see him ( my cousin had a baby boy eventually).

The night before my grandfather passed away, I was filled with something that could only be called 'enlightenment'.

Everyone told me my grandfather was in pain and he was suffering every moment that he was alive. He wanted to let go. But I couldn't stand the thought. It just made me pray harder for him to get better. Even when the doctors said there wasn't anything they could do.

But that night, I thought to myself, that my grandfather, even though I love him so much, had to released. I couldn't hold on to something that only brought pain and suffering. I had to stop being selfish. I had to let go. And I did. I prayed, for my grandfather one last time, to give him what he wants.

And my grandfather passed away that night. And he, and I, were finally at peace.


LOVE



There's nothing I can say about Love that hasn't already been said before.

Some time back, I was asked to define 'love' on a social networking site. And I replied with, "Am I qualified to define love?"

Everyone has a different perception of love, and there can be no fixed definition for it.

When I think of love, its something very simple: Love is when you're happy being with someone, anyone, who lets you be yourself.

I wont add that the person should be just as happy. Because I believe love is selfish.

Have I been in love?

So Many Times.

I've often admitted to myself, it doesn't take much to make me happy. Someone once termed it as being 'low maintenance'. I would have agreed to it had I not known better. Wanting the simple things in life is anything but LOW maintenance. Wanting to get the smallest things, which most people take for granted, is more difficult than having someone name a star after you.

Love, to me, is anything that makes me smile, or cry, in full honesty and sincerity.

I've been hurt by some of my closest friends. I've even cried for them. But it has been real. And I know the reason I shed tears for them is because of the love we once shared.

A month or so back, I was out with some of my colleagues, and after a couple of drinks, I remember laughing alot. And I remember I hugged my friend and cried for several long minutes because she would be leaving soon. I've known her only for three months, but I'll miss her. And to me, that's love.

A person, with whom I've not been on talking terms with for over a year, with whom I've fought on several occasions, shakes my hand when we meet several months later, that's love.

My immediate boss pretends to be busy just so my boss would take a look at my work and know I've been getting better, that's love.

Love may have been last on my list, but in life, it isn't necessarily so...

Mumbai through my lense- II

This is the National Center of Performing Arts, NCPA, where I met Cyrus Bharucha.











Mumbai at night looks like this...a blur of lights, sounds and activity....














Mumbai's life line- the local trains..it was one of the very few times when it was empty..10:00 pm on our way to dinner at Andheri..The trains make up for one of the most important elements of Mumbai and I spent a minimum of 3 hours on it daily.. Miss it now? Not so sure...













Crazy bus ride from Belapur to Bandra.. at 11:30 pm the bus driver thought he was flying an airplane..not sure how many people, fruits, babies, bags fell during that ride...













The Bandra-Worli sea link that I could see from my dad's uncle's place. An amazing sight..













Me at the Lakme Fashion Week...one of the hundreds of pictures my colleague and me took during the break time.












The Taj Palace Hotel at Colaba...a magnificent piece of architecture...completely blows your mind...
















Me at the Gate Way of India and the Mumbai Marina in the background...














My friend and me at dinner in Andheri, near her office at Aaj Tak











At the same place, same day...with chicken, fish and vodka..













With my superhero- Spidey! at Belapur.























MAD OVER DONUTS :- the best place on earth.recommendations-the dark knight and hazzle dazzle.













At Pop Tates/ Jughead's with Long Islands, Black Russian and Chocolate shake...crazy pasta and steaks...










All in all: Loved being there with my friends <3 :) <3

LIVE from Mumbai VIII

4th March 4, 2011
Nariman Point
Mumbai


I know I know. I haven’t written in a long time. After the last time I wrote, nothing great happened. I wasn’t inspired enough to write and I didn’t want to write a post simply for the sake of writing, and waste my time and your’s (if you’ve been reading, that is).

Yesterday I wanted to write because I’d had a good day. But then I got too busy. Which I loved, by the way. The past week, I didn’t have much to do. All I was doing was collecting story ideas from things around me. Reading the papers, looking for stuff on the internet as to what all is new in the entertainment line, updating the listings page (that’s the event calendar in the city supplement) etc. All that wasn’t fun at all. I wasn’t even sent on any more press conferences so I could write about new places and about the people I met.

My boss says that in journalism, it’s more important to generate ideas and get them approved than writing a story. Writing anyone can do (I so wanted to disagree with him, partly because not Everyone can write, and I’m the writer, that’s all I am. I got nothing else but my writing skills). But I didn’t argue. I nodded along. He says that I shouldn’t wait for story ideas to be approved. I should just keep looking for more and more ideas and think of how I can make them work in a way that’ll add new light and perspective to it. I’m not saying that all that isn’t important. It’s just that talking to people and finally getting down to writing is what’s better for me. So the past week wasn’t all that interesting.

But yesterday I finally got to work the way I know it and love it. I started working on 3 stories. I won’t tell you yet what they are about. Maybe if and when they’re out in print.

I called up a dozen people with regards to the stories, got good responses from a few, not so needed responses from the rest. But one story turned out to be particularly interesting because when I’d started out, I had just one name. Then it went up to 10, and then to four. I’m hoping that by the time the stories done, I have atleast three if not more.

I then called this sportsperson whose kids I’m interviewing. He was really nice to me. Spoke politely and frankly about what he feels and I really liked him. Not everyone speaks to us journalists properly. I’m not sure why though. Or maybe I do.

For the third story I had to call the secretary first, then the main guy who’s out of town so the interview will be done via email. Like many others. Sometimes that’s just so convenient.

After a fulfilling day at work I left office feeling really happy. I’d left early to accompany my friend who broke her two day fast last evening. So we’d decided we’ll go for dinner to some nice place rather than our regular one.

In the middle of that, our ‘phone woes’ (phrase stolen from my friend’s ‘chappal woes’) continued. After finally getting a local number from Uninor, we discovered that the network was utterly horrible. You had to stand in one corner of the room on one leg and in some weird physically impossible position to get coverage. After being thoroughly fed up with that, we got an Idea number. The coverage was great and call-rates and things worked out fine. And then yesterday, what should happen but our connection getting barred for not submitting some required documents. Our idea lines not in use, we switched to the much hated Uninor number only to find that that number too was blocked. Great. We couldn’t get in touch with anyone. We eventually switched to our Baroda numbers and have been using that right now. Hoping that our troubles will be over soon. This is just too much.

So anyway, we set out for dinner at about 9pm and one of my friend’s dad suggested a good restaurant a little further off from where we were staying.

Let me tell you that by that time we three were 3/4th of crazy lunatics. My insane pangs of hunger, my friend’s unbelievable day of boredom and the other friend’s extremely tiring day at work had left us suffering from partial dementia. I had a mad look on my face when I suggested that I want to eat laddoos, the bored friend walked from one mattress to the other to show me what she did all day at home and the other was ready to kill people. We were at our irritable best and snapped at everyone. But then we also had sudden burst of laughter for no apparent reason.

So there we were, hunting for food. And I say that in a literal sense. We didn’t find the place we were looking for and we were somewhere in Malad west/ Goregaon looking for a non-vegetarian restaurant. After walking back and forth for around half an hour, we finally settled on this one place that looked kind of expensive. But by that time we were so starved that we were willing to pay anything for food (and my bored friend was eating up her words by then).

We ordered for butter chicken and egg curry and once our order was placed, we began staring at our neighbour’s plate of chicken lollipops. Oh what a sight they were.

When our dinner came it was heavenly. And not because we were crazily hungry, but because the food really was good. We ate like cave people and didn’t care about anyone else. Boy was that an amazing dinner. After that we had ice-cream because we felt our meal was incomplete.

We then caught a rick and went home at about 11.

Decided to watch The Social Network before falling off to sleep, but like the past week or so, I fell asleep after just 15 minutes of the film making the total number of films I’ve watched in Mumbai so far to….wait for it…ZERO. I simply can’t stay up at night. A huge huge change from my condition in Baroda. An incredible change.

Right now I’m at work. I just finished an interview with one designer and now waiting for the rest of the people to respond. Will be meeting my friends for lunch at Colaba. Looking forward to that if there’s not too much work load by then.

Well that’s all for now. Will try and be a little more updated on my blog the next time.

Tada!

Goan Cuisines

ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY!!

Goan cuisine is sure to leave your taste buds asking for more and there is definitely a lot to choose from for everyone

The picture- postcard paradise on the west coast of India, Goa is a perfect blend of exotic beaches, lip smacking cuisine and warm good-natured people. And all this can only come from being spoiled by nature’s bounty in this cistern of plenty: rivers and sea teeming with a variety of fish and shellfish; hillside lush with vegetation nourished by rich, red soil; and its planes a patchwork of palm-fringed paddy fields.
Goan cuisine is an art in itself. Its preparation is one of a kind and no where will you find such an array of dishes that suits everyone’s pallet.
Goan cooking is two-fold: the traditional cuisine of the Konkan region i.e. the Saraswat cuisine mainly of the Goan Hindus; and the Portuguese cuisine followed by the Goan Catholics. The Saraswat cuisine consists of a staple diet of rice, fish, vegetable and coconut that finds its way into every dish, sweet or savoury.
The Goan Portuguese cuisine is famous for its sea food which is eaten and relished by people almost religiously. A die hard non-vegetarian will have the time of his life relishing sea food ranging from sardine, Bombay duck, pomfret and mackerel to the majestic kingfish, oysters, prawns, lobsters, squids, crabs and clams of every size and colour.
Along with seafood, meat finds an almost indispensable place in Goan meals. Chicken, beef, lamb and pork are prepared with a concoction of spices that are both traditional and modern. Kashmiri chillies, bimblim, kokum, Goan jaggery and vinegar, teffla and many other spices are blended together to make pastes that go into almost every preparation. Vindalho( pork/chicken curry), Cafreal( spicy grilled/fried chicken), Xacuti(chicken/crab curry with roasted spices), Rissois(lamb/beef mince rissoles), Sorpotel( diced pork and liver in spicy curry), Recheado(fish/meat cooked with red spice paste), Pao com Chourico( Goa sausage rolls) etc are some of the most common yet most relished meals.
States Leo Pereira, manager of The Fisherman’s Wharf, Mobor in South Goa “The food here caters to everyone; whether a Kashmiri, Punjabi, Gujarati or even those from other countries. We come across people from various cultural and culinary backgrounds and no one goes back unhappy. The combination of dried and fresh spices, wines and liqueurs, and unique methods of baking and confectionery makes it a truly gourmet feast.”
For those who aren’t meat eaters, there is a wide variety of vegetarian dishes to choose from that are equally Portuguese and appetizing. Steamed cabbage, brinjals, black-eyed bean curry, drumsticks, pulao, raw mango chutneys and pickles, sweet and plain sannas (steamed rice cakes) and many more delicacies add to the richness of Goan cuisine.
Aadit and Minette Dias jointly run a catering service in Carmona, South Goa. “We get orders from all kinds of people; both vegetarian and non-vegetarian,” says Minette. “It is quite a delight cooking for people of such varied tastes. Each item is thought upon depending on the preferences of the customer. While some preparations are simple, special occasions call for elaborate meals like Galhina Cafreal or even stuffed roast suckling pig.”
People with a sweet tooth can treat themselves to various scrumptious desserts. One of the most popular Goan sweets is Bebinca, which is a layered pudding. Besides this, there is guava cheese, coconut crepes, caramel puddings, toffee, dodol (made from coconut and jaggery), rose cookies (fried waffles), and coconut and jackfruit cake.
Goan cooking, as it has evolved, is fusion cooking in its truest sense: the marrying of diverse flavours, ingredients and culinary techniques, in this case Portuguese and Konkani, to create a unique cuisine that is a satisfaction to every tongue. ▌