I prefer Manolo's...

A lot of my conversations with my girl friends are about men. Not surprising. We talk about men and how they are such c***s (use the choicest of letters; it could be Hindi or English, doesn't matter), and how we don't really need them. One such interesting and hilarious conversation led to the following conclusion -

"Men are like Manolos."

We don't NEED them.
They're bad for our feet.
But, we GOTTA HAVE 'EM.

Why don't you become a chef?

They just have to ask me that. Every time. And I'm flattered. And well, honestly, I LOVE it when I'm praised for my culinary skills. I love cooking. Its so so so relaxing. Therapeutic, even.

My roommate is a lucky girl. Chocolate-covered luck. Her ever-so-sweet "Daaaaady" sent for her birthday, a 3.5 lb slab of Hershey's chocolate. 3.5 lb of chocolate. "It's gonna take you months to finish that off. You know what you should do? Take it to school and give it away. That'll make sure the chocolate doesn't stick around as adipose.", I said to her on a lazy Saturday morning. "Aah.. don't you worry. Won't take me more than 10 days." she quipped.

Cut to Sunday morning.

Dear roomie calls out to me,"Praj I'm fed up of this chocolate. Make something out of it please please please!"

I love it. That call. "Please cook up something exotic for me?!" is the ultimate, one hundred percent, foolproof pick-up line that works ON me. That's the only one that works. Pity, no one's used it yet. Not as a pick-up line. Sigh. Men. Impossible. Synonymous.

Anyway, getting back to the chocolate slab. Well, as excited as I was, about this new project at hand, I started looking up some of my favourite food/recipe blogs (links on the right!) for inspiration. Erm..well.. more like, for a recipe. (Yes, yes, easy way out blah blah.. yadayada..) Now, when I'm looking at recipe blogs, especially the well-illustrated ones, with crisp, colourful photographs, and a decent family story before the recipe, its like a time warp for me. I lose all consciousness of the task at hand and just flow with the recipe. I can smell fresh asparagus when its just mentioned. Yes. I'm obsessive about food. I also go on tangents; so long that the main issue seems like a tiny dot. (More about my various mental, neurological [they're different!], psychological disorders in later posts).

An hour or so later, roomie hollered. "Praaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaj!" and I jerked back into the world. Alright. Something had to be done. Soon.

I decided to risk it. No recipe. Follow your instinct. Jo hoga dekha jayega. I chopped, sifted, blended, ground, whipped (basically, all possible action verbs one could do in the kitchen. Oh wait.. didn't do all :P) for an hour, licked the cake batter off the mixing spoon (It's amazing how deceptive cake batter can be. It always tastes good; even if the cake turns out to be a disaster.) and shoved the baking dish into the oven. And waited; nervously.

45 minutes later, my roomies floated into the kitchen, like Jerry floats on the aroma of cheese. (Jerry of Tom and Jerry. Duh!) "Aah, get it out of the oven now!" And so I put on my cookie-monster mittens and took it out. It looked alright but I couldn't figure what was going on inside. (So tempted to metaphorically pick on Mr.Wrong). And as I got back from my time warp, well, what do you know! It turned out amazing. Perfectly decadent. Sinful, I'd call it. Just like the dense, slightly-mushy-gooey, perfectly sweet chocolate cake.

I live for these moments. And yet, I know that I don't want to be a chef. Too much therapy will make Praj a lunatic :)

Morya re!

Today is Ganesh Chaturthi in India. My family is preparing for the festival and everyone is over at my place. Everyone. My favourite cousins, all my aunts and uncles; even the ones that I'm not very fond of.

Ganesh Chaturthi has special significance in my life. Its just the closeness I feel with Ganesha; and I'm not even religious. I don't pray everyday. I don't recite or even remember any mantras. But I still feel very close to Ganesha. Maybe because Ganpati has been a big festival in my family, and I've seen how important it is to my family. Its just the electric atmosphere of my uncle's house - all the women cooking up delicacies, the men chatting over oblivious issues, people catching up, kids playing all over the house, people yelling at these kids, the serene music. How can such a noisy place feel like bliss?

It does. It does. Its so peaceful to watch this scene. Just the hustle-bustle of Ganpati (festival) brings so much energy. Its like the environment is charged.

The high point of this festival (besides food - Modaks yum!), is the Maha-Aarti. My maternal relatives are artists. Each and every person in my family is either a singer, painter, plays the tabla, harmonium, sitar, guitar or all of the above! Needless to say, when all these artists come together, its like one great art festival. Music is the soul of their gatherings. And only they do justice to the Maha-Aarti. Every time, since my childhood, I remember shivers going down my spine when I listen to the Aarti. Its a completely spiritual experience; one, that cannot be experienced anywhere else. Perfect rhythm comes so spontaneously, it looks effortless. The ringing of the "taals" and the beat of the tabla just take one into a trance. I could stand there forever.

Ganpati bappa Morya! :)

Interesting quote

This quote was a friend's status message today. Couldn't help but post it here. Don't know where she read it, or if she arrived at the conclusion through personal experience(?!). Couldn't disagree.

"Mirrors and copulation are abominable since they both multiply the numbers of men."

The hiatus

Lo[ooooooooooooooo]ng time, no see.

Yes. I have to recount the events that commanded preference.

Go on.

Well. Most eventful, but also most saddening summer I've ever spent. Lost golden [no wait, platinum;studded with diamonds] internship offer because certain government agencies took their own sweet time to process my employment authorization documents. Short trip back home was horrible considering I was at home and bed-ridden for more than half the time. Another disaster happened at Philadelphia. And last, but certainly not the least, got heartbroken. Yet again.

:) Didn't anything nice happen though?

Oh sure, yeah. Only, not to me. Well, maybe. I think I'm numb now. I hardly cried after the heartbreak. I've been working out and playing a lot; which makes me feel great. Maybe its all the Serotonin.

Whatever it is, don't you think you learned more than what you would have, if things went well; or shall we say, as you planned?

Mostly, yes. But, well, about the heartbreak, I beg to differ. I did everything right. Oh, but wait. That IS right! I learned not to let anyone walk over me; even if I had the biggest crush on him. Yep. I learned that.

Good. It was about time you realized that.

Yeah. I also learned that loneliness is actually solitude; that I'm no longer uncomfortable with silence and that I love yoga for what it has done to calm my mind.

So it was an enlightening summer then? :)

Oui ! :)