Chicken Drum sticks ...easy way ;)

I call it Chicken Drum sticks but not exactly drum sticks ;)

Ingredients:

Chicken leg piece : (Skinless– 8 Nos)
Ginger garlic paste : 1 tsp
Red chilly powder : 1 1/2tsp
Chicken masala : 1 tbsp
Coriander powder : 1 tsp
Salt : as required
Pepper powder : 1 tsp
Vegetable oil : 3 tbsp
Curry leaves : 5 to 6


For garnishing
Onion (sliced) : 1 (big)
Tomato (Sliced : 1
Lemon : one half

Recipe:
Gently spread the 1 tsp ginger garlic paste evenly to chicken pieces and keep aside. Heat a copper bottom frying pan and sauté red chilly powder, chicken masala, coriander powder, pepper powder and salt. Heat it only up to maximum 2 minutes on medium flames and mix well. Keep the fried masala mix to a flat ceramic plate and gently spread over the chicken pieces. Keep aside the left over masala mix. One slight cover up should do it. Once all the pieces are covered with one thin layer of masala, leave the chicken pieces for 45 to 50 minutes. After 50 minutes, microwave for 3 minutes each (4 pieces at a time). [ this is to make sure that the chicken piece gets cooked)
Heat a flat frying pan with 3 tbs of oil (Medium hot). Add curry leaves to the hot oil. Keep chicken pieces on the hot oil and roll them up with skewers every three to four minutes. Each time, sprinkle a little masala over the freshly fried chicken part so that the mix glues to the meat. 9 to 14 minutes frying should be enough. Move the fried chicken to a ceramic plate with tissue paper to remove the extra oil over chicken

Sprinkle lemon juice over arranged chicken pieces over sliced onions and tomato. Serve hot for best taste.

Life's Colors, It is gray!

It is easy to live in a black & white world where you can live with straight lines and defined shapes. As in the moral stories we heard in our childhood where the villain is full of evil and the hero is the living idol of good! Now when we see the world with a thin load of 20 to 30 years behind us, the picture we could draw about the world is never black or white. It is somewhere in the middle. Even when judgmental is the one thing we try to remove from our mind every moment of our life, we circle back to the same level next moment judging each of things or humans around us. The final outcome is never a black or white result; it just draws another undefined shape with the color ‘Gray’. Be it a relative, a friend a stranger, no one is of one color, they change color with time and circumstances and they fill a little of black and white each time they change sides! Some are of a lighter shade with less guilt and more are of a darker shade with a symbol of pride over their achievement. At the end of the journey, does it even matter if what our color is while we exit the world or does it change the true course of cycles of life as in re incarnation?

Camping - Vermont - Emerald lake

Ater a long wait, planning, re planning, scheduling and re scheduling finally we went for our first camping trip to Vermont – Emerald lake. Sunil took care of the reservations and checklist for shopping and we were on the way to Emerald by 12:00 pm from Abhishek’s house. (Plan was to leave there by 10 …just fell over by 2 hours). 5 guys on a small compatible car with truck load of stuff. A tent for 8 ppl, 4 pounds of chicken and pack fo 24 chicken sausage in an ice box, case of beer, vegetables and paneer for grill and couple of cameras. It was 3 hour drive from our place, reached the camp site by 4:00 – just in time so that the park office was open.

Took an hour to set up the tent and set the basic things. We head for the walk trail which looked so small in the map but a long trail with two (foot ball injured guys) in the group. The terrains where not so challenging but injuries take tolls :), have to appreciate my brave friends to go walking on such terrains with nurtured ligament tare and twisted ankles… Folks once on track are all in one aim to finish the trail.


We found one amazing lake bank idle for swimming but we missed our bath towels. After spending a while we realized we are falling short on time to get back to our tent and do the grilling part.
On the way around, we found a nice playing area where the foot ball players showed of their skills, a little time running behind the Frisbee and a lot of walking.



When we came back and started to sort out things in the tent, we realized we are short of drinks, missed chilly power, the grill needs a bad wash and we didn’t had the rite tools. So we head out again in search of a general store in a remote place relying on GPS and iphone searches. Meanwhile Deepak, Bobby and Abhi set the grill to fire. After tenuous effort for about 45 minutes, they got a clean grill with steady flames – hats off to you guys.



After a 30 mile drive and couple of bad search results, we found a super market and got everything we required and started driving back. One the way back the weather took a wild turn. The 30 % rain chance showed up that the 70% fell on the day time and rain gods blessed us with heavy down pour. By the time we reached back, the chicken was marinated, Paneer already grilled and tent was filled with two petromax and rest searching for battery for our big lamp.



The chicken sausages where already grilled and it tasted so good (we had a long day on trail, games and shopping and all we ate was that sausage which tasted the best sausage I ever ate(hunger and taste are definitely inversely proportional to glorify the taste) After a tough search for about one hour, we confirmed that the battery pack is missing and we need to spend our night with two LED lamps and moon light under on a heavy rainy day. But our spirits where high, drinks where on and so do the grill! Grilling and card game went on late until 1:00 PM! We had to keep strict silence as the camp had rules that after 10 it is strict silence …. Also our camping neighbors looked like its mid night for them at 10:00! So we relied on sign symbols and LED lights ….and here is a glimpse of what we ate for night :)



It was an experience on what all we can do in limited lights which included fire display, guess whose drink is where and keeping track of who left what and where.



By 1:00 we had three heavy down pour of rain and it looked like rain is going to stay. It was dream come true for me to sleep under tent with rain sound just over our head, a little warmth of tent inside woods … felt a serene feeling once you close your eyes and listen to the rhythm of rain over your tent.

We woke up next morning around 8:00. We had to cook our breakfast, clean the camp site and leave by 11:00. Bobby again showed his master skills by putting back the grill on in 45 minutes which took a heavy toll from rain last night and some close to wet firewood. The rest of food was finished in no time! We noticed a young boy going to each neighboring camp site picking up the left over firewood (an arm load cost you 4 $s and felt even Americans do this ;)) A fellow camper came around and asked if they can take the rest of our firewood and we felt that these folks take this very seriously – to pay and get firewood. We left the site by 11:30 and were back in home on my bed by 4:00…

It is so refreshing to be close to nature, listening rain, eating from a grill with a shade of charcoal flavor in your food. Learned that getting the tent back to the packing back is a tedious task and all you need is one night to get attached to a place. Until the next camp, I am signing off …..

Shanks

World cup 2010 .......

What next ?

The question is what to do next. There are no more interesting videos in youtube. Most of the recent movies in available free websites are over. Read most of blog friends post or they are no more updating (busy with more important things in life). Not hungry, so can avoid cooking for today. Yesterday was not a big problem as the last thing I remember is folks dropping from the conference call making that ‘Beep’ noise which woke me up from sleep. I kept the phone away and closed my eyes, which was like 4:30 in the evening and I opened my eyes on 6 O’clock today morning, one of the best days …

The spring showers and a tornado kept the summer heat away and water in our pool is freezing, so cannot swim L. Tried 64 channels in our cable subscription, but not a single interesting movie and those on ‘On demand’ I can actually write up the script from heart. It was really a rainy evening today and I partially got drenched when ran into my apartment form the car. A nice tea + bread omelet made my evening ….(my roomie was pissed off as his omelet had a little too much salt (my bad))

But what to do next ? I have so many things to write up and post it here but most of the things are blocked due to one or the other reason. May be because some one told me not to write all those or I am afraid that they will read it here and I will get thrashed! It agains another empty passing phase I guess
.

Filters.....

It’s been almost a month now since I came from my vacation and just couple of weeks after my trip to my cousin’s place. A dry afternoon on a boring Monday with lots of pending work but I am seriously tired and sleepy! My right eye is twitching and I am unable to concentrate on anything now. To beat the sleep I walked up stairs, almost 8 floors up in 2 minutes and met my roomie / colleague and talked for 10 minutes ( that much to kill my afternoon nap).

To stretch it out, I did Google the reason for ‘Twitching in right eye’ lead to answers like “Causes of myokymia include, nervous system disorders, Staring at the computer or television screen for a long time, stress, fatigue, lack of proper sleep, consumption of too much caffeine and irritation in the cornea or in the conjunctiva of the eye”

From what I remember I slept from 12:00 pm to 6 AM yesterday night, had only one cup of coffee, did not stare more than the usual 12 hours at my computer screen and two hours at the television screen, so I have to blame it on stress and fatigue due to travel (read it as three hours of sleep in New Jersey transit train and Metro North Train). Now back to the heading of my post, yes Filters….As I mentioned earlier, I went to my cousins’ place and I had to watch my vocabulary, jokes and the kind of talks initiated in a family environment and on the way back, I came back to more of me ( bachelor vocabulary’ once I was back at my house). It started a series of thoughts about the kind of filters we use while talking and on conversation depending on whom we talk to and the place where we are.

An ideal scenario would be answering about a simple question ‘How was your weekend?’If it’s my client manager, it goes like

‘Good, went out played tennis, had an eat out, did some driving’

If it’s my cousin, ‘It went well, had a good play with my in law, made him pay for an expensive restaurant, ate and slept well’

If it’s my friend (just a friend), “it was great, had a good time with family and it went very fast’

If it’s my jigidi dosth (read it as one who stays in the circle) “Had a good time, made my in law sweat a lot over tennis, had some good fights with my nephew, had great food at cousin’s place ….

How about you” Basically, the message is, I had a good time, but depending on whom we talk the intensity, the things we share, the way we project it, details …everything around it changes. This is implemented by everyone, applying filters on what we talk, leaving some details and making it sound totally different. The best part is when you get to listen to the things as it happens which will be shared to very few (friends and family)Every moment we open our mouth to talk something in a group, there is a filter in place. These filters, they come in different intensity levels according best possibility on the moment! The best part of it is when you are around someone and then goes with them when they meet their friends, family relative and colleagues and they talk about something that happened where you also were the part of the crowd watching. This is the time when you can seriously watch a filter in work from a third person perspective.

Is this because we can’t be ourselves to everyone? To make an image or just to follow the ‘Social rule’ to be followed as it is painted on everyone? It works well as well defined and well in control filter becomes a part on ones personality ( either imposed or natural filters ) where one decide what to say, what not to say and how to say it.I am just talking about conversation filter here, but the thing is every one of us live behind a mask. The mask which filters out what your mind really want and what one can really express. Some go with the way it comes to their mind but still when they are around their loved ones / influential people, they watch their thoughts or actions.

Back to the topic, as a child I was not aware of having any filter in my mind, as my niece who will ask anything as it comes to her mind and she doesn’t care. As we grow up we tend to pretend or molded to something or someone, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. As we grow up, we keep on adding too many filters into our life and we lose track of it as we grow old were we just blurt outs things because our filter process is not in place anymore. I think I am carrying a lot of mask / filter lately, I guess that’s the way it works until I lose track and end up blurting out ‘me’ to many as it is!

Dude, where is my car ????????????

Dude , Where is my Vasu ?

Vasu is the short name for my car ‘Vasumathy’. We named my car so after naming D’s car as Kalyani kutti and A’s car as Meenukutti. (note: these are names of characters from two super hit Malayalam movies of Mohanlal, and when we discussed about naming my car, it was more like Vasumathy, ….athumathy, another movie dialogue, but not from Mohanlal’s movie)

This is happened on a very cold morning in November. The temperature outside my apartment was 26 degree f. (Close to -3 Degree Celsius). Time was around 6: 30 in the morning and I was rushing through my morning routine. I had packed up my lunch (whatever was left behind from the experiment in kitchen the day before), polished my shoes and headed out to the drive way. Then realized that I forgot my company ID card and came back to find that I left my wallet as well! So I had to remove my shoes again and get into the bed room to get all the possessions!
Phew!!!!! what a way to start the day. Doing all this, time was around 6:43. Every day or most of the days I have an in-person meeting with my team at 7:00. So my trip to office is a 20 minutes drive to cover around 17 miles and a 6 minutes’ walk ( others usually takes 12 to 15 minutes ) I have long legs and I always walk like someone is eating my lunch at the other end of the building, so I cut it down to 6 minutes.

So I had all this running in my mind that I am going to be late for today’s meeting as I am already late. To cover a 17 miles drive and a 6 minute superfast stride in 17 minutes, not a chance. I didn’t count the time to start up my vehicle, clean the ice off and warm it up so that it will actually run! Imagining all those, I walked to my drive way and alas!!!!!!!!!! I am looking at a different car in the place I had parked my car yesterday. I had lot of things going on my mind …..

Where did I park my car?
When did I park it?
Do I have my car key?
Where is the insurance paper?
Where is the title?

Do you know the moment your throat just go dry even if it is freezing cold and you were not even close to thirsty? Then the stream of thoughts went something like this ….
Ohh I lost a lot of things with my car ….was it stolen? How will I commute until I get the car / new car …. Lots and lots of questions! Then the thought came to call Thimmashan ( Mr D, who is the car guru in our group. He is a wonderful Business analyst but he love cars) so tapped his number and woke him up on a cold first light ….so the tête-à-tête went like this

D: Halla
Me: My car is missing

D: What???
Me: Eda, My car is not where I had parked it yesterday!

D: Look again, where did you park it yesterday?
Me: In the open parking lot next to our building

D: Are you sure you parked it here, or it was in a marked parking lot
Me: I am pretty sure, I parked it here ….(or if was one lot on the right side thinking in my mind ), So what to do now

D:What else, call up 911 and tell them your care is being stolen!
Me: WHAT ?
Me: Yes , go ahead and call them

So here I go tapping 911 …

Me: Hi
Officer: Hi, please state your emergency

Me: it looks like my car is stolen , I had parked in my parking lot and it is gone today morning
Officer: Can you please give the license plate number and the location

Me: It is XCP …. And location
Officer: your car was towed yesterday night at 12:30 as it was parked on someone else parking lot. Please contact the tow vendor at (address& phone number) to get your car.

Me: let me write it down and thanks for the info

I went back to house with D, and sat on sofa thinking ‘Did I park there ???’ Then called up the towing company and they said I have to pay 75 $s to get my car back. This is towing and handling charge …. So I bought my car again from the towing company for 75 $s…. I remember the incident where my mom bought me from a police man when he caught me for driving a scooter without a license ….That day I still remember the conversation with my mom and the police man.

Policeman: You shouldn’t allow your kid to drive the scooter at such young age
Mom: how much

Police man: 500
Mom: OK, I will make sure he doesn’t drive out again ….

And she came back home saying … Look what I bought today for 500 ….. Me.....

:)

Nothing is the same after a point in time. It’s like a point in space of a line, where things look so different and after that. For each and everything, all you get is one decision point where you take left or right and then it goes like rail lines … they don’t give many to change lines after you choose one. When you look back, all you can recall is the moment with span of seconds where you thought what to say, how to act and then its done which will never be un done. So think before you go with everyday life, because life is not lived in chunks of time, but day by day – moment by moment. All one need to enjoy is their time with their mind and a little energy to enjoy the same. No matter how bad things go, if you can strain on to the ray of hope, that’s all that take you to the end J smiling …

RT.....

Random thoughts

I guess these days I’m having more of random thoughts rather than any straight thoughts!
In this world of emails and n number of networking website and a hell lot of other ways of communication, I was wondering, if I see some one I know after a long time, will I even cross the street to meet them? I thought about it long enough in my hard race like driving from Hartford to my house. I am not sure what is all about this hurry for every one on the road. Anyway I was not in a hurry following the 65 mph limit and pissing off every one behind me in the traveler line. So back to the thought, In the era of gtalk / yahoo/ strings of emails/ facebook / myspace, we can always choose whom to ignore and whom to attend even without letting them know your choice. Even on your phone you get the choice whom to attend and whom not to. The same with the voice messages, you can always choose without hurting anyone. The technology gives us the luxury of avoiding / meeting people. There are some lucky / unlucky people are flurried with lot of communication and there are some unlucky / lucky people who don’t have much to answer. The technology doesn’t change the attitude of any one in their mind, it just gives you more option to do the same thing and have the same results. What would it take you to make that move and take the pain / pleasure to cross the street and say a Hi / hello and share the email / phone number / email id according to the depth of the friendship strength?

Yes, the major part of it would depend on the last meeting or the status of the person you just saw! No one would want to stir up some one they had avoided in he first place, but yes if it is a charming person who always remind you of the good times you had.!
So I was just thinking through the short list of people who would make me cross that little street form my daily amazing life and take time out to talk to him / her. I realized that there are not many who would make me do that, may be I have not met many charming people yet or they don’t find me charming.

Either way, it was a good thought and it left me with a good smile and some faint memories of some good old faces …..winds of smile and thoughts …it just flows through

Something to smile about

How do you celebrate every day in your life ? Do you celebrate sometimes ? I am talking about enjoying the smallest and sweetest things in the world which is not actually the biggest but which gives one of the best feeling. Because I do get up some days feeling so dejected and lonley and starts thinking ‘ What am I doing here ? ‘
Why exactlly I am here and what I am supposed to do about something, matter of fact about everything. I do have quiet a good job, a little bundle of good friends and family and a lot of other things to wine about. But what actually contributes to my life ? Is it my salary ? Is it the kind of work I do or is it the way I feel every day. Happiness is bound to be what you make out of everything you feel
Following are some of things I enjoy these days a lot. Its not much but these are kind of luxuries I (WE) have in our life which most of us ( I did) take for granted. Now atlest when I am in my good sense, I do really take the time to appreciate it and enjoy it. I had good hard reasons to enjoy it. Some tims mind is too busy to see the details and focus on the big picture. I am going to list down some of them and looking forward to keep that things that way …… Its kind of akward, but it works for ME !
1. When you wake up hald slept in early morning on a weekday and realise that its just 4:30 in the morning and you have another hour to sleep. It is a luxury to have a cosy bed and time to sleep at your will. Not many have it this early in their career because many of them have an angry boss’s face when they close there eyes to catch that ‘ 5 minutes of escasty sleep’
2. A little time in the morning to make a good nescafe coffee for your self and sip it through the rush hour morning wondering what I am going to do today about the hedious production defects I am going to sit through today. Most of the time, the activites of the day steals the coffee effect but there are days where I can sit blank and just sip the coffe and appreciate its taste and aroma. Just a coffee but it is really good when you enjoy it.
3. The morning songs I listen to! Now this is a bigger luxury to have your own choice of music to be played that early in the morning where a nice search would get you any song available in intert in youtube. It is strage that I some how love the song ‘Dil khoom khoon kare’ but my roomie gets sad lsitening this song and requested not to play it. You now know what I meant by luxury
4. A good bath! You might be wondering if ever a bath ia luxury. Belive me, I am now living in a new england winter where the temperature seldom falls above 5 degree celsius. I just get mesmerised standing on a hot shower and let the face skin feel each droplets of hot water. It starts with a sharp knill but it leavs a feeling og hot nails which I love afterwards.
5. To have at least a crush or a face to think about when you actually dress up for the day. Mostly we end up non – noticed but this is something I enjoy. Just wondering about a moment where some one might catches you on a good costume and you get to know that ( seldome got this luck, but yes I do some times)
6. My favorite song being played in shuffle when I drive. Its again a luxury that my co travelers let the song complete as we seldom get people pf same tastes ad same mood at same time
7. A slot of 5 minutes for myself at some or the other time in a day. Now a days, life just rushes through from one tast to another! Its kind of too fast and there is never a moment to ourselvs, just to sit blank and enjoy the moment of glory ( even if its not a gladiator fight) we do win our wars at times
8. To have such a place where I can write such piece of crap and still people do come here, read up to here thinking what is this guy up to but still reads to the end :D ……. Ok this one was far fetched and I am stopping the luxury details here …….

CRUSH

I guess it is a good thing to have a crush going on, in life at any given moment. This is what I read in one of the dailynews recently. Looking back, I could say I had my fair share of crushes from my childhood and most of them are one way crushes starting from Hemamalini( yes she is almost 30 years elder to me ) when I had that thought in my mind. If I recall it correctly, the next one was my music teacher in my 4rth standard (do people have cruses at ages like that or it’s just my evil perverted mind?) I don’t know, I still have a soft corner for the fairer side who are really good singers. It went on with couple of girls in my college life and that was it. Somehow the work life kept me so busy that I never found any face / person interesting enough to catch my attention (may be a pretty smile somewhere). I am not sure if it was more of a realization that crushes doesn’t help much unless you work on it. (In my case even you work on it!)

So it leads to the question what happens if I try to work on a crush to take it to next level? Most of the time I get crushes to the best person around and I end up joining a marathon run rather a short sprint with limited people where I have at least a chance to finish and ends up my heart being crushed! So the million dollar question is why I am talking about crush at this point of time. Yes you are right! I got that long forgotten feeling of having a crush over some one lately. A pretty face which I bumped into in my current workplace! I am not sure if having a crush in mind for someone is ok and if it is good to write about it here! I hope I will be able to keep this in my blog long enough J and no one comes walking to my desk to break my legs / hands

More about the crush lady, I have to come up with some name which cannot be traced back to this girl. So I will go with Crush Lady- CL. I have never tried to work on a crush to see if it would reach somewhere. This time, I sat back and thought, When I had such a thing going when I was in 4rth standard, my thought process went like I am just 4, let me grow up. The same thing came back on my adolescence, again thought I had to grow up a little more. When I got my first job, I tried something and didn’t get the best of results! I think, that is the last time I ever tried until now.

For now, I sat and thought long enough and thought if I don’t do it now, when I would have such an opportunity? Looking at the time gap, last time I found some one interesting was around 4 years back. So I guess my eyes have a specific filter for such faces and it’s not something always available out there. With the backing of such farfetched thoughts, I tried making conversation couple of times over office communicator and ended up getting cold answers. Cannot blame CL as how comfortable any one would be talking to a total stranger over messenger! What I am talking about is not a yahoo messenger or a chat box but office communicator! ( yak what a pervert!!! ;))

Do you know how tough it is to get a lady to talk to you when you really want to her to talk! If the girl already got signals of the possible crush factor, the girl is going to make sure that every window /door and any open communication media are closed out for any kind of inroads (unless she is really interested). I think after the futile chat attempts, the earlier half smile / eye contact (which might be another farfetched thought of mine) was denied. One thing people don’t understand is being friendly to someone doesn’t hurt anyone but as a matter of fact,’ something in demand is always short of supply!’ With my friends who are really good at getting crushes, I always ask them what happens if you just smile and walk past to those who are really behind you and these folks have never given me a good answer on why they keep the straight face.

One thing strange is I always find a little crush feeling only with the best ( at least something which falls best for my eyes ) and I never come in the radar for any of those ….matter of fact I wonder if anyone had a crush feeling anytime towards such a freak (ME)….I don’t think so :D. So I am still thinking about whether to wink at this CL or let her have fun with her life and avoid the elevator she is already in :) you know, next time she might slap me with the laptop she has in her hand!

Yes, I have a ton load of work to finish and an everlasting to-do list but somehow these are the times when the blogger in me pops up and says, it’s time to write up something. It was really busy two to three months with lot of travel, not much of work but lots of catch up. Two of my good friends got married (this time – guys not girls!) and they are still through the period of getting a new person in their life. It often happens that when friends get married, it mostly like throwing in a log into a standstill pond with a lot of friend-ships floating around. The pond and the log will be together and there will be a lot of ripples in the pond until it stabilize. We all know that this log is going to stay in the pond all lifelong and going to tumble some of the friend-’ships’ floating in the pond. The interesting part is the initial time ripples are too big as the log splashes into it washes up a lot of tiny ships around. Many a few who manages to be still and be around just floats! I know this analogy is farfetched and you (whoever is reading) didn’t get a clue of what I am talking about.
Anyways, current 'in-thing' is 'fitness' and somehow six packs suddenly sound nice to me. Yes currently I am a lean figure who looks like I will die of dehydration if I walk fast, but nothing is impossible. (This kind of crazy thoughts is what keeps people going)So I am slowly goanna start jogging to burn off my little 'tortoise on a pillar' like tummy I am having right now and will try at least to get a firm tummy, dreaming about a six – four- two packs :) . The biggest challenges I will face is the random beer fest and the sparkling wines which tempts me at Italian and Irish cuisines which goes so well will steak and freshly well done meat dishes in client meetings/ potlucks. I never used to eat much in such official meeting until recently where I grew confident enough to cut and fang the cooked food with forks and knife. Until recently I was afraid that the chicken piece I am struggling with will end up with my engagement managers' plate or if the noodle string will slip out from my mouth to the plate. Still not 'James bond of forks and knife' but got a good enough confidence to take out the tools and use it when I am really hungry ( still struggling with the chop sticks as it hurts for a days after trying to eat rice soup without slurping sounds)
So as my plans are holding, I tried to get in the path of jogging and abs exercise and now I am left with a wonderful pain over my belly and thighs which is preventing me from smiling as everyone has to be happy with a smirk! A good laugh is hurting as it moves stomach muscles and a stair will just pulls my things apart. One serious questions coming back to me is, does these six pack guys actually laugh at all? If they don’t it’s just because it hurts like hell after the work outs :)
After three days of gym and a lot of pain, I am having serious second thoughts about 6-4-2 packs :D

Wishing well

I had been going around this wish well too long I guess, once I tossed a coin and it vanished. Nothing happened from there. I went on with my life thinking that well has a bottom pit and it will hit the ground some time. I had sighted coins lying around but never got the courage to take one again and wish again. Did tried picking up one lately and for a moment I touched it! I felt like it was heated and my hand got burned. It was the slightest moment and never knew if it was burned or not. I dropped it on the floor without picking it up and tossing it over to the well again. Waited too long for the first wish itself, so thought again and again, Left in the back burner of my mind and tried to forget about it. But this damn coin stares at me every now and then popping up the same question, don’t you want to check it again!

So finally I am going to pick it up again, hold it for some time to see if it is hot or it was my illusion. If can hold it, I will toss it again and wish again whole heartedly. I know it is crazy for a grown up still to believe about wishing wells but I am still a kid inside …. So holding it to see it if it is fuming I’ll get to know that soon

Wish me luck !!!!!!

Crazy analogy but if someone figures it out, keep it to yourself :D

STUPID

Red: Seriously I mean how often do you look at a man’s shoes?
Dialogue from movie ‘Shawshank Redemption’

I never thought that this dialogue will be so truthful until I went through it! Yes it was my shoes on that strange day in the picture. There was nothing different about the day altogether other than I was stupid as I could be! I was walking form my desk to the lab which is like a 6 minutes walk rite across my office. I usually walk fast with big long steps and people have already told me that I walk like I am on a time frame to reach some place. Yes, they some time do have to run with me when I have something on my mind and I am just walking fast … On that day I felt a little different walking. One step was too comfortable and the other was little tight. I was wearing two different shoes, each from a pair I had. One of Boots from bata, about a year old and the other was wood land, about three years old. I looked at my shoes and smiled at myself which grew to a proper big laugh by the time I reached lab. Lab lady was looking at me which a ‘?’ on her face as I am not usually a smiley face.
The day went un eventful other than I forgot my laptop battery in the lab, took a permission from my manager to go home and change shoes but told her that I have a FEDEX package to collect as I was a little shy to say I am wearing shoes from two different pairs. Unfortunate for me that the day was ‘Columbus day’ UPS and FEDEX were closed!
Again through the evening I made a vegetable stew which came out really tasty but I forgot the half kg beans I washed and cut left on the table fresh-raw and I forgot to add salt in the stew!

What more to say, there are these days in our life where nothing just works for us, it just goes from wrong to worse and I was really feeling silly but I was so happy that after each I had my mind laughing at me again and again …stupid, no other word would come to my mind

Wonder ring.........

I am on the wrong side of 20’s! I am not sure why there is a wrong side and right side but any way I hope you got what I meant. The only news I get these days from my friends and colleagues are marriage invitations or engagement announcements. Believe me! Half the crowd in my batch (School, college or office) are settled with their better half and half of them still call me up and say ‘I’m lucky’! The other half says the girl I am going to marry is lucky. I am sure you figured out which half says what!!! But I am not sure which part would be true. It must be the phase of life where all the fuzz around is about getting married / engaged. The term ‘Getting engaged’ has altogether a different meaning in US! My colleague who has been living with his girl friend proposed her last month. I have seen and heard this thing ‘proposing a girl on knees – Will you marry me ?’ only in movies, never in real life. My colleague’s voice is just like the character Diago( The lion in the trio) in ICE Age, so I will address him Mr. D. Things went like this, Mr. D told our team that he is going to propose his girl friend on Friday and looking for some ideas. So my team [Team has three ladies, 50ish (my manager), 40ish (My DB admin) and 24ish under writer] was giving him ideas, where to do it, how to do it and lines! While watching an English movie I have seen all this but never thought that it is this serious and people do value the words, place and ‘ how you do it’!
As I never had the courage / opportunity to propose a girl, never thought about this long and hard! Given a chance, going over knees with a ring in the hand, in front of a big crowd, asking a girl a question which is going to decide the whole life of two individual is something daring to do! I guess there are things which look easy until you get to the spot. You sit on the co-passenger seat and driving looks so easy. It is just reading signs and turning the wheels. Once you get behind the wheels you realize that there are maniacs out there on the road who will drive you crazy or make you drive crazy! So the proposal which happened so close to me was like this.
Thursday Morning:
‘Mr. D turns up with rashes all over his wrist and hand and we were like ‘what happened?’ He had planned to have the proposal thing at his porch on Friday evening. The front porch shade lamps where long gone and he cleaned it up and fixed with a new bulb ( Who want to propose in half dim light and miss the initial reaction ( if you can call that initial after living for more than 5 years together!) Poor MR. D got an allergy with the dust from the shade lamp and he ended up with rashes on Thursday morning.
Friday Afternoon:
My Boss came around wishing Mr. D best of luck. B was showing off a nice ring to our entire team. A big discussion went on what flowers he should get and there where different theories going around.
To give plastic flowers or real flowers! Plastic flowers last forever and the girl can cherish the moment every time you look at them. But plastic is not natural so do you want give that! Finally it was settled on natural flowers because flowers are flowers only when they are fresh and blossomed. Then it was about the color, Blue for safety, white for peace, red for love and went on. Also they were thinking about Orchids or roses as Orchids last longer. Then it was lines. I had to run for a meeting and I missed that part of the discussion.
Ussssshhhhh. I never knew that this much planning has to go for a moment in the life (the biggest moment for the girl) So Mr. D was showered with advices (I hardly had any other than ‘Best of luck’) for the day and he went home early. Next Monday morning he was in all smiles. But he had MMSed his Fiancées’ palm with the wonderful ring on, on Friday evening itself, which mean he got a YES, ‘I’ll marry you answer!’. Afterwards when he talks about her, the word ‘Fiancée’ comes out of his mouth after a big hard struggle. We all know that the ‘girl friend’ when updated to’ fiancée’ and ‘wife’ changes the way things works. I am pretty happy that in my world, I don’t have to be on a spot, go to knees, hold the girls’ hand out and ask the question ‘Will you marry me’. I would love to do that to ‘someone’ once found but I bet I will have hell lot of butterflies up in my stomach if I am going to do that!
(I hope that things in my world don’t change :D)
After what I heard and saw here, proposing a girl is a very big thing!

Instant Sleep Syndormzzzzz……ISS

How much time one takes to fall asleep from a fresh mind? You might be surprised if I say that I take mostly 2 minutes to sleep anywhere, any position! If someone comes around and tells me that I have 10 minutes, I would be first checking if I can find a place where I can sit and doss off for five minutes. Yes you got it right, I am the one person who stands & sleeps in train, before the train even leaves the railway station, sleeps before the flight even leaves the runway and sleeps even before the KSRTC bus leaves my stop. Best part was during the monthly commute from Bangalore to Trivandrum in Volvo. The bus comes around Madiwala and leaves to Hosur. I have hardly seen anything after BTM bridge which is like 2 km from Madiwala, By that time I would be fast asleep watching some amazing dreams dancing with the current bollywood heroine or playing the last ball sixer for my cricket team (In dream you never know what u end up doing!)
The other day, my roomie and I was discussing something about a movie which we saw. He was so much into it that he went on describing the cast, the script etc etc. I reached my bed by the time he started about the Movie screen play. Next day he told me that he went on for another 20 minutes before my ‘hmms’ died out. But truly, I remember only the movie name, rest was just ’hmmms’ from sleep. I am surely happy to have this trait from my mom because I see lot of people struggling to sleep at times. They do so many things to get sleep and they wakes up right after 6 hours and wander around the house like orphan-ghost ( Anaada prethanghal) while folks like me sleep happily until one of the life’s primary needs like hunger / nature calls disturbs me! This trait is carried through my mom’s family. She had started watching Jurassic park three times, but by the time the helicopter reaches the park and the old man gets out of the helicopter (an amazing water fall scene), my mom would be sound asleep. The best part is when she falls asleep while talking to someone( I realized that even I can do that last week). It had happened so many times with me, I will be enthusiastically narrating the current day cricket match about my imaginary swinging Yorker or about the big sixer I hit, and I wait for her response ( a too good, or great ‘ Kollameda’), will leave me waiting for a while and I realize after a while.

I have seen people do these the following things to get some / good sleep

1. To take a bath at mid night so that they can sleep for couple of hours
2. They smoke so that they get sleep
3. They watch movies until their eyes swell up and sleep
4. They take sleeping tablets to sleep
5. They take shots (Taquela) / alcohol to get some sleep
6. They burn out their bumps in gym for 3 hours so that they get tired and sleep for couple of hours ….and folks like me fall asleep talking to people, listening to seminars and lately attending client meetings …I was lucky to keep my phone in mute for the last call otherwise someone would have caught me snoring on the call.
But if I am ever feeling sleepless, a glance to my office inbox or a sneak view of my current certification material will make my eyes heavier.
One of the biggest problems created by this ‘instant sleep syndrome’ is tears. I get a lot of tears the moment I feel sleepy. In my school days, this was a standard question I used to get.

Teacher : Why ‘R’ whts so senti about my class, why are you crying ?
Me : Nothing mam, something fell on my eyes (trying to give a fresh face)
Fellow classmate: No teacher, he get tears when he feels sleepy …
followed by cracking laughter sound in the class…..the drill of staning on the desk, wahing up my face or sit next to girls bench continues. ( Now even if I sleep in the call no one asks me to sit next to girls L )This ISS continued to my engineering classes also, where my teachers found me very sentimental about their subject and they instantly threw me out of their class. I don’t know how I got so sentimental in mathematics class as well! But invariably mathematics teacher found me crying In his class like ‘My titanic sunk!!!’
Guess what, the trait still follows me and now a day I get sentimental in client meetings and clients are often moved with my involvement in the escalation P1 and L1 meetings. May be they haven’t seen a man crying when there is an escalation in his project!

The KD story ......

If you are wondering what KD stands for, it is ‘Kaama Devan’ which roughly translates to ‘Eros’ in Greek philosophy. It all started when one of my friend ‘Youth’ took a 7 day wonder diet. He took this diet and lost 12 pounds in one week. So everyone (who got some extra pounds to lose) got inspired and took the challenge. For more details on the diet plan click here

I was wondering about the Americans ads about diet – healthy diet – happy diet etc. I never thought that people are so mad about diet and their looks until a small tummy which looks like tortoise on a pillar started to appear on me! But earlier this week I saw to what extend people care. Our so called crazy4, except ‘me’ started the GM-Diet plan. I am an underweight - mal nutritional guy who will die if I skip a lunch :D (Most of my friends do agree to this ;)). These three folks out of crazy 4 D, P and A), they just live to eat! So I thought this would be an eventful week. The first day was full of enthusiasm on dieting. There were animated discussion about the things they are going to eat, a list of things they would eat and how wonderful they are going to look after one week.
The first day we ended up visiting Stewlenords/ and bought vegetables for the wonder soup. Also picked up 6 packs of soup mix from Shop N Stop to make the soup! First day, they can have only fruits and vegetables. The after effects were visible! My friend P ran into the car with a bag of apples munching into it yelling out how tasty an apple can be! Then they prepared the wonder soup with little customizations, as they put only 4 onions in place of 6 and added three packs of soup mix instead on one. But believe me; the soup did taste really good for us. US – Me and ‘B’. We were not in the diet plan in the first place ( Intro for B - best Chappathy maker I have seen as he make very soft tender chappathy, which even I can eat 8 or 9 one go) So the wonder soup was more of an appetizer for us and the whole dinner for the KD’s. The dialogue of the day came from A!

‘A’ looking at the bag of potato chips. : Can we have an exception for two potato chips?
D : No, rules are rules
P : No way, you only told us that there will be moments of hunger which will test out patience, so no to anything fried.
A : Don’t listen to all the crap I said then, now the lays chips looks so crisp. I am ….
P: No, we are all together in this, don’t you stand for your word?
A : Nee onnum nannavillada ….@#$%^&* and drank a glass of water and went inside.

(Cursing that you guys will never improve on a lighter note looking at US who are eating away chappthy+ curry + curd with side –baked potato fry when the three are eating only fruits and vegetables for the whole day!)

Day 2.
The initial enthusiasm is missing, three of them A, D and P are just waiting for the breakfast. The diet doesn’t allow them to have tea. So they came to the cafeteria and had boiled potato with some pepper and salt. Second day is the toughest as it is a vegetable only day. By 3 O’ clock in the evening, I could see what a day’s fasting can do to ppl. Three of them where looking like tired plants on a desert. Their cheeks were already sagging. At dinner time, they had again started with cut vegetables (were eating just raw + boiled broccoli with pepper) and the wonder soup. Wonder soup which tasted good yesterday was not so tasty for them today. Even fruits where not included. Between this,
D: From today I re-define ‘Dried dates’ as fruits, so I am going to eat them and started munching into a pack of honey dipped dried dates
P:I cannot stand this torture, I am going sleep! Oh my god, just get us to 12 O clock, at least I can start eating some fruits and give rest to this boiled vegetables , cabbage and lattice

Day 3

They had baby carrots for breakfast and were just praying to get over the next day. It seems that by end of day 3, guys were already into a mode where they are getting used to ‘Starving’. Three of them were cursing about how bad the wonder soup taste and still having it as it was their only option other than vegetables. Three of them looked energy less and were roaming around like zombies.

Day 4

This was an anticipated day for P as he loves milk. He was planning all along about how to distribute the rationed 8 bananas to the entire day so that he won’t feel hungry. The three glasses of milk were a little compromised by taking big glasses. Folks were feeling a little relived as they got through the toughest day where they were eating cabbage and carrots for the whole day. I wonder, rabbit eats these two their whole life and still they are so energetic!

Day 5

By day 5, D had lost 8 to 9 pound, P lost 9 pounds and A lost 7 pounds. They were very happy about their wait. Day 5 is the feast day and rice looked so delicious to them. Again there was a debate whether it is one cup of uncooked rice a day or one cup of cooked rice. Finally they settled for one glass of cooked rice. The tomato part was again compromised with fruits

Day 6

Again a vegetable day and folks were tired of things. They wanted to lose 12 pounds and from 9 pounds, 3 pounds didn’t look that good. So they left the vegetable day to fruits and a little bit of bread. Also D and I had to travel out of state which disturbed the whole balance. D was again tested as we went into a ‘Karakudi Resturant’ famous for Tamil style ‘ Naatu kozhi curry’ (Country chicken curry) But he held his restrain by eating only rice and a little bit of curry without taking any meat. But he consumed a lot of fruits. ‘A’ was settling with a proper pulishery (Curd curry) and one glass of rice and hibernated rest of the day in his house. P rigorously followed the plan and had only vegetables and one cup of rice

Day 7

We all were sitting in a Mexican restaurant munching into cheese quesadillas and fried chicken wings. Three of them were convinced that the ‘Wonder Diet’ will work out with 10, 9 and 9 pounds reduced from their body. There was a visible change in each of them, but a little tiredness also. So after 7 days, the folks didn’t turn to a KD, but they did turn some faces around and made them ask
’What happened? You are looking different!’ !!!
Also at least three or four folks started following the diet plan looking at the KD’s change
Following a diet plan and getting out of it when you feel like, looks funny. But looking at our life style, the kind of food we eat, I am pretty sure that we end up following stricter diet rules by the time we will be 35 to keep us alive until 50. It is not always the food, but the life style which makes us so vulnerable. Less water, more of sugar, carbohydrate, and no or very less exercise, a lot of oil….I guess this is enough to reduce once life by 10 years! It is not so long before each of us will hear what to eat and what not to, from a dietician or a doctor! One thing I learned is following a diet is not fun! So if I can take control of what I eat now (How much), I can at least taste these delicious food items until I recognize taste!

Fried Chicken Masala!!!!!

Fried Chicken Masala
Utterly bored on a Saturday and I decided to try out a recipe of chicken, aimed to get this to blog as well. So did snapped up the ingredients and step by step process
You might have heard and tried this recipe many times. But I am just putting it down from top from my head as how I managed to cook it. I don’t take any responsibility if any one tries this and ends up with a bad stomach. I will look for some people to write some feed back as comments for this recipe if they are out of the rest room after trying this
Ingredients
Chicken breast – three large pieces
Egg -2 (for marinating)
Tomato – 4 (Medium)
Onion – 4 (Medium)
Green chilly -4
Garlic – 2 gloves
Ginger – 2 inches
Coriander leaves – for garnishing
Chicken masala – 4 and a half table spoon
Oil – 5 tea spoon

For the whole process, a medium to medium low flame is advised.
Fry four table spoon of chicken masala in a dry frying pan at medium flame for 3 minutes. After three minutes of frying you can judge it by the flavor of masala in the kitchen, also looking at a little darkened brown color. (I had the chicken breast from ‘Shop and stop’ and had to defreeze them under hot water for 7 minutes). Clean the chicken breast and cut them into cubes of size 1 X 1 inch. Mix two table spoons of chicken masala, the chicken pieces, a little bit of salt and the content of two eggs. Once properly mixed keep it intact for 40 to 45 minutes. In the mean time, cut onions (small square pieces), Green chili, garlic, ginger, tomato and coriander leaves. After 40 to 45 minutes marinating, microwave the chicken mix for 6 to 8 minutes. It is advisable to do it for 6 minutes and do it 1 minute at a time to judge the tenderness of chicken pieces as it differs from chicken to chicken
In a medium big hot pan, pour two to three tea spoon of oil and put onions. Add a tint of salt for quick seasoning. Once the onions are transparent, add ginger, garlic and green chili and fry it for two minutes. Add the rest of chicken masala to the mix and fry it for one minute with constant stirring. Add cut tomato now and keep stirring until the whole mix is homogenous with the masala. Add quarter cup of water and keep idle for 4 minutes with intermittent stirring to make sure that it’s not burned. Now on another bit copper bottom vessel, add two table spoons of oil, keep it in low to medium flame for 2 minutes, add the chicken mix from the microwave. The chicken pieces covered with masala mix will be partially cooked. Fry the chicken for 4 to 6 minutes, with constant stirring to make sure that no side is over burned. Now add the ‘masala paste prepared with the onions, tomato, ginger and garlic’ to the big vessel and strip to make a homogeneous paste. Once the a uniform mix is obtained, add coriander leaves and close the vessel for 2 minutes with low flame. Mix well before serving.
This curry would be great with soft chappathy, Kerala parota , Rotti, Nan and with White Appam ( Vella Appam)