Mélange – Random Tidbits – VI

..::.. Two weeks away from words. But not from thoughts. It was not the writer’s block or anything. The times of resilience. The times of fight within. Though I am happy that I did not waste much time these days. There were many pending books on my shelf, which I tried to complete. Few movies which I watched worth reviewing, or penning down the thoughts upon, but not enough to exceed few words and to become a post.

..::.. Shashi Deshpande’s “The Dark holds no terrors” is supposed to be her first book. I don’t remember why I did buy this book that time. Normally, I have never disliked a book I have bought. Every book which I feel was not interesting enough to hit the top list, was atleast worth a library read. But this one surprised me in exceeding the limits. The writing was good, expressive and had bit of depth in details. Still it failed me to impress me. It indeed shows the struggle of a married woman who ran away for love and then from the love, to fight with herself and her fears, and guilt. But the story was not that strong to support the beautiful screenplay. Simply put, I couldn’t digest the ending.

The days in Pattaya… Part I

The first day in Colombo

The Bangkok International airport was awesome. The peculiar design of the horizontal stretch and the 3 floors, with all the glass structures, makes it absolutely stunning. Maybe there would be more beautiful airports, but this was the first most beautiful I ever saw. After getting stamped the on-arrival visa, which cost 1000 Baht (1 Baht = 1.5 INR) , and exchanging some rupees to Baht from the exchange counter, we moved out of the airport, where the Thai guide, Mr. Bas, was waiting for us with our bus.

Two days were allocated in Pattaya, to where we were heading. It was around 2 – 2.5 hr journey from Bangkok airport to Pattaya. The highway was absolutely the highway, with long stretches, with only the tolls in between and just green land on the sideways for a very long time.

Aftermath of the Oscars

I thought it was going to be another Monday morning. I was just browsing through the various channels on TV to start with, and saw the 81st Annual Academy Awards function in Star Movies. It was the Oscars! And I sat there for the next 2 hours glued to it.

Smile Pinki got the award for the Best Documentary short film. I haven’t seen the documentary, but I am happy for her that she too was mentioned at the Oscars. How many are lucky like that?

A.R.Rahman and Rasul Pookutty did deserved the awards for Slumdog Millionaire. I won’t say “Jai ho” was the Best original song and all, but the original background score was brilliant and the sound mixing, editing,  or whatever term it is called, was brilliant. The story was simple and nothing much to talk about. But the photography, sound, music, film editing etc was brilliant.The speeches made by those Indians, made every Indian proud. Rasul indeed made history. I liked his speech more than Rahman’s, who was more professional, though he spoke Hindi, English and Tamil on the stage. It was indeed a drama to speak of the country and making it proud and all, but its indeed a priceless moment, which would rewrite history and would be boasted of much, in coming years.

Mélange – Random Tidbits – V

I guess, I will have more similar posts. There are so many topics but nothing much to say about it. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it enough to discard too. Just a few notes to self, or kinda thinking-aloud posts. The random tidbits I guess, hence would repeat. Maybe I just should change the random tidbits post title to something else. Any suggestions?

Valentine’s day is over, and now there is not much of Mutalik. People have got immersed in central and state budgets and elections and recession brooding. What happened to the anti-Mutalik organizations and the gifts? Even if the day was peaceful, there were attacks here and there. I am sure no actions would have been taken against the attackers. How can it be if there are no complaints. Which makes me think of the stupid clause of complaints. As long as the victims are harassed and threatened how can they complain? Not even in this case, but in any case. Say some beggars are killed on the street, won’t be there any action on the killers? Strange.

Easy potato onion masala recipe

This has been my favourite recipe. It may not contain much ingredients or nutritious or whatever it is, but its too simple to make for a lazy one like me. And thanks to mom for this simple recipe!

It needs very few things like

• 2 onion
• 1 big potato (or 2 small ones)
• 1/4 tsp chilli powder
• 1/6th tsp turmeric powder
• few black mustard seeds
• 1 or 2 red chillies
• salt to taste
• water
• oil

Colombo Travelogue

It was my first international trip. I had been to internal flights, but not the international. And hence there was no hassle of form-filling or the visa and all. And when you have the company of your loving mom with her friends circle, its kinda bit of feeling odd man out, being the youngest among the lot. But who cared. I was going on my first world tour!

The Srilankan Airlines, were not that good as I expected, but considering the low prices, it did meet the requirements. The flight to Colombo, Srilanka, was in the early morning on Saturday, 15th November 2008. The mini TV behind the seats of international flights was a new thing to me, but before I could search for the movies or any other shows, we had almost reached the Bandaranaike International Airport, Colombo, as it was just a half-one hour journey. There was no breakfast in the flight, and me and mom thanked ourselves that we did had few dosas in the morning which served as the mini-breakfast.The airport was pretty good. It was the first international airport outside India I landed.

It was a start with trouble. The guide who was supposed to pick up at airport did not turn up. We wasted bit of time there and eventually reached to the allocated hotel, with the help of airport travel authorities. The airport had a sight seeing facility of Colombo, with a charge of  USD $10 per person. And to realize that we were charged by the travel agents $15 per person!!

Futuristic Introspection

The sky is cloudy again.

This week has knocked me down again. I missed out the daily posts one day, because of no power for that whole day. There were times when I had so much to write, but found myself very lazy. Some short stories, some film reviews, some travelogues, everything is in pending.

I tried to be active on twitter, and even crossed 1000 tweets. Not that its not a good sign, but the thing is it made me realize whether I was blurting out nonsense. About the running time. About wasting it. About myself. And what I am doing and saying to make myself feel worthy.

Kaayal from Kerala

Along with money, love and time, which drives human beings mad, is love for food! And especially if your are residing outside your city, it increases exponentially.

Bangalore has been known to me as the hub of NRM or NRK – Non Resident Malayalees or Keralites. Its an altogether different matter that you will find them wherever you go. Chennai was far better in that case. It gave me the realization that I was in a different land, but which served you with good food!!! I had started liking various South Indian dishes only after staying in Chennai. There we had the famous Tharavad and Kumarakom restaurants for Malayalees. I had not liked the Bangalorean food for that matter, for reasons which cannot be disclosed due to security reasons! Every time, we went out, I had gone for North Indian or Italian or Tamilian or Fast Food, or more commonly Mallu (short form for Malayali) food for most occasions.

Kaayal restaurant was one of the few we have been dining off late. The options were Malabar and Kalavara of which Kaayal turned out to be the winner. I have heard of some other restaurants too, but they all are at far distance from my reach and this restuarant is nearby Jeevan Bhima Nagar (near Indira Nagar) and hence easily reachable. At times, it drives us mad, having a single Kerala Sadya menu and nothing else, when we wanted to have something other than rice! But still, it remains the only choice still now. The ambience and the food and the menu have been good enough till now.

Any other recommended Mallu restaurants in Bangalore?

Tear Analysis of Roger Federer

It seems every Monday of this year is hitting me hard. Last month, a similar Monday, I had started off the new year. And today, I start off another month. But the situation remains the same. I did try to ward off the blues but I guess, its the hangover of yesterday’s match which made Roger Federer cry!! (Yeah, I do keep blurting out PJ’s in between to cheer up myself!)

From last night, I had so many ideas in mind, but the clouds didn’t seem to clear. I was reading whole morning of the news reports of the Australian Open Final match. Especially the interviews and photos. Not that I am such a dying hard of both the players! (I came to know about tennis and these two only very recently, thanks to RK) The outburst of feelings and emotions, and then the consolation of Rafael Nadal, had stirred my mind regarding the friendships among the rivalry. And also the common topic of men crying in public.

Gandhi and I…

January 30. The day when the father of the nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was assassinated.

I remember this day from the school. At the assembly, on this day, we would be reminded to follow the silent standing ceremony at around 10 or 10.30 am. The bell would ring at an odd time in midst of the class period, and we would all stand for one single minute in silence to commemorate the assassination of Gandhiji. We considered this break a warm welcome to the same routine of the teaching. In those days, I don’t remember having a break in the morning session.

In the high school, we had to study full history and autobiography of Gandhiji, “My Experiments with Truth”, in the form of English-II subject. Though it was the edited or the simplified version, we had to study his whole life. It was interesting at some points, but from the point of view of exams, it was not. I even once wondered, if Gandhiji was not there, we would have escaped this subject etc!

When I was in school, I remember watching the film Gandhi, on either August 15th, January 26th or October 2nd. But I remember the school book rather than the film.