Taj at Coonoor!!!

Taj at Coonoor is part of a priory built 150 years along with this church.

Beautiful place, a fireplace in each of the cottages.

This is one must visit destination.

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I like

Bread!!!

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Facebook and I - part 2

I have finally uninstalled facebook from my mobile :)

Worth posting it on facebook. Huh ;)

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Arjun... :)

In all his glory

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Facebook and I

I have a Facebook account for quite some time now and I have (not) been using it for all that long as well. Earlier I thought its more for youger crowd and probably i have just outgrown it. But I see a lot of people who are my generation, friends, some people I used to work with and are quite older to me, do seem to use it with ease. So, this argument does not hold good.

Well, now I know that I am not the most open people there are in terms of sharing personal life. Very few people working with me have visited my home and a even fewer number whose house I went to. So, then I though may be its the people who are on facebook and as they are ranging from friends to just plain people I have known once or know through a friend etc which is causing me to share stuff online. But then I realized that I am happy with those people reading my blog and have no such issues there, sharinh what I want to put it down. The blog is not written for others, its my brain-dump which i keep putting on these pages. So - this surely is not an issue as well.

Then I thought about it.. it looks like there is a basic weirdness about facebook and that is that its about other people all the time. I am eating here, I have a smart crack.. its all about sharing it with people for the people. Very less is intented as a brain-dump etc which you are ok with even if noone reads it.

Its the whole idea about thinking about what I should tell others and puttin it down is a big turn-off for me. I am happy to share some information about myself here and there, but I am comfortable with it being on a need-to-know basis. If someone needs to know, will just call up the person and tell him/her rather than publishing to the world.

This does not mean, facebook is crap - the advantage is that you can find a long lost friend, who otherwise you would never get in touch with - now, its ok if thats the case, nothing stops because i cant get in touch with this person who I have never spoken to for past say 11 yrs - but its, in Goscinny's language "Justforkix". :)

Dusssara - Today is special

Why???

Because I cooked all tthree meals today. Nice kuskara in morning, dum aloo pubjabi and jira fried rice in afternoon and light and nice jira ke tadka wali khichadi :-)

Dum aloo punjabi - receipe

Made this. Came very well. Simple way -

Ingrediants -
1. Baby potatos
2. Garlic - 2 cloves
3. Tomatos - 2
4. Onion - 2 medium size
5. Chillies - 2-3
6. Garam masala, salt, haldi, amchoor powder, jira
7. Ginger - small piece
8. 2 cups of dahi


Method -
1. Peel off potatoes, dont boil them.
2. Put holes in aloo with fork.
3. Put oil in frying pan and fry the potatoes till they are pink-brown.
4. Whisk the dahi and keep aside
5. Put tomato, onion, green chillies, garlic and ginger in mixie and make into a coarse/fine paste.
6. Put some oil in frying pan and put some jira in it.
7. Now put the paste in pan and let it be for around 10 mins till its nicely fried
8. Then, put haldi, dhania powder, amchoor powder and let it fry for 5 mins.
9. Move the pan away from gas so that it can cool a bit. Keep it away from flame for around a minute, and then put dahi
10. Put it back on flame for 2 mins and then add aloo.
11. Add a spoon of garam masala and salt to taste
12. Let it simmer for around 5 mins.
13. Add water, milk if gravy is too thick.
14. Add coriender, cut green chilly and garlic to garnish.

Enjoy :)

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My experiments with Listerine!!!

It tastes like iodex. Almost feels as if am putting harpik in my mouth and flushing it.

Germs, you are welcome to stay, adm not using listerine again.

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Ambition to buy a small car.. O sorry - plane

Its is expensive for a 6 seater

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My car

Amazing isnt it?

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My cycle

Enjoying the ride. Amazing..

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a plane

We were discussing the convinence of buying a small 11 seater plane. So many things can become so easy and accessible.

While nitya agrees, she still does not want to inveast in this.

Still might be worth looking at economic aspect. Just in case...

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Test

Testing the new blogger app on my android

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Reputation in God's hand

Compliance is like Moral Science, just replace God with reputation.

Are you busy??

If you wanna get your job done, assign it to the busiest person :)

World Cup 2010 - Argentina

It almost looks like its goin to be Argentina this year. Maradona is back with his "Hand of God" and this time, surely looks like its going to lift the world cup.

SOS - Same old shit!!!

I am surprised that England still hasnt found anybody good to replace Gerrard and Lampard. In fact Lampard is now the England captain.

Both of them still struggle to pass a ball to their team members. Same story for the past 12 years.

You know you are in Bangalore when...

you find an Udipi which does NOT home-deliver.
A good restaurant which does not have parking.
Bombay blues which does not sell Nachos and does not recognise the item Onion Rings.
A Sanskriti counter selling dal-bati but does not know what that is.
Auto walas who always ask for Rs100 no matter where you wanna go.
10 AM in the morning can mean anywhere between 10 to 9 PM at night.
When it drizzles, people behave like its acid falling from the sky and start looking for umbrellas.

Bangalore !!!

I like Bangalore till I dont think about Mumbai. Then, I feel differently about it.

So - what car do you drive?? German!!!

So, what do you do for living Mr Schumacher?
I drive.
He drives.
What do you drive?
Cars
Hmm... Well, I want a driver actually, do you know anyone?

100 up

this is post no 101 :-)

An order for food

Do you have dal tadka?
Possible sir.
Possible?
Yes sir, possible.
Ok, you have steam rice?
Possible sir, it's possible.
You mean you have it?
Yes sir, possible.
Ok, and paneer tikka dry?
Yes sir, possible sir.
Ok, cool. Please send it to my room.

Punjabi Chole

This is the second time in last 5 days I made Chole. Last time it was fantastic - almost the best chole I ever ate. But this time, I made it for 25 kids for Arjun's school khana turn.

Its a very different ballgame making for 25 people vs for 4 people. I feel really good about it :-)

Will post the receipe in next blog.

Valentines's day

UTV movies is showing ads that they will show Delhi-6 on Valentine's day.
Whats the relevance ???

A conversation

So when does Mr Maker come?
After Bobinogs.
Ok, and when does Bobinogs come?
mmmm.. before Mr Maker.

Why I like Roger Federer

Well, I have seen a lot of great Tennis Players before. But Federer is simply the best among them all. The difference - well, the ability to annihilate the opponent in straight sets. That too in final of a grand slam. It seems that the 1st seed player is 100 places ahead of second seed.

Federer, you are God of tennis. I take a bow.

Pizza Hut Powai

I remember the first time I ate in Pizza Hut Powai. It was some Jan-Feb time just after our marriage, more than 6 yrs back. Nitya and I really liked it then. We used to live in Andheri E then.

Its been a long time since I visited Pizza Hut Powai. Today after a long time, we went to Pizza Hut to eat. I still liked it quite a bit. They have launched these new range of pizzas and pastas. The masala lemonade is outstanding.

Somehow though, if you wanna order pizza home, dominos still has the upper hand but i think Pizza Hut is a great eating out experience.

So, if I wanna order Pizza - I will still go for Dominos but if I have to go and eat, Pizza Hut it is.

The GPS Navigator - new toy

I hv got the MapmyIndia GPS device. Model VX140 and its pretty good. Am impressed.

3 Idiots - movie review

Everyone told me its a fantastic movie so I thought lets see it. Lets at least try. So got my pack of 5 movies for 60 rupees - one of the movie was of course 3 idiots :-)

Third big movie from Rajkumar Hirani and really speaking, its 3rd if you try and rank the three movies he made with both Munna Bhais.

Why does Munna bhai score over 3 idiots - Originality. And no, I am not getting into the "loosely based on book" debate - not at all. What I mean is there are some issues in the world which will all evoke a very strong emotional response from people and almost everyone will have a similar opinion, like education system of India, terrorism, child labour, poverty, bureaucracy, Indian constitution, x-tra marital affair etc etc. A lot of people do mostly say the same things on these topics without providing a solution.

3 idiots is no different, it re-emphasises the fact that change is must however, after stating this universal truth (like The Sun rises in the East - with "S" of Sun and "E" of East in capital), does not get into providing solutions, its almost like in a project - the solution has been defined in the "Not in Scope" section.

Acting and all is good, Aamir is a master and Sharman and Madhavan have been ok. Strangely, Kareena Kapoor has proved that she can still look sensible, I was impressed - she was not completely repulsive.

At some points, movie is OTT and some sections seem to have been added for no reason - or at times, to prove a minor point, a lot of story has been told, characters added.

The movie could have been made with a lot less characters only focusing on the main ones more so as to make their presence felt rather than 3 people travelling from Delhi to Shimla to Laddakh in a bright red Volvo XC90.

Cinematography is good - nice landscape shots of Shimla and Laddakh. Music is so-so.

Overall, surely a watchable movie - after watching this movie, people will start thinking about what they are doing as job against what they have studied. All the IIT, IIM grads will start thinking of themselves as confused lot :-).

Well, not to worry anyone, nothing is wrong with anyone. All is well!!!

I think...

So, I am opinionated.
I like it that way, ONLY ;-)

Irony of life...

ever wondered in a non-QWERTY keyboard of a phone, typing selection and rejection use the same keys. Thank God HR does not use sms as a medium to announce interview results ;-)

My camera

Picked up T1i of a friend and played around with it. Am sooooooooooo happy that I bought a Nikon and not a canon.

Electric Feather - Book review

Compiled by Ruchir Joshi and publicized by Times of India and Outlook as the 'coming of age' of Indian fiction.

Supposed to be a book on erotica, its just really crappy porn which will not appeeal to anyone with even pea sized brain. Starts with a monologue by Ruchir Joshi on how the esteemed writers turned his offer of writing stories for his book down, more like a self-praise that despite all odds, this book is out, type of message he wanted to give.

Well, the book is out for sure but I would really like to meet those reporters who think this is any good. I would rate even Mills and Boon a lot better than this. Seriously.

Not a readable book at all. If 1 star (*) is poor, I will rate it -1 *.

Sorry Ruchir, but this also means that I am not reading any of your other works.