Winters call for warm heavy meals that make you feel fuzzy and comfy on the inside. When mom was young, grand mom used to make different foods for her and her siblings. One of the most loved things she made was ‘Gud yo lolo’. It is more like a stuffed paratha, and hence lolo (which is actually bread made with the ingredients incorporated in the dough while kneading) is a misnomer. ‘Gud’ stands for Jaggery. So this is a sweet bread stuffed with jaggery. I have inherited my mother’s love for this, and this is the recipe for it. The pictures are of mom making it.
Ingredients:
Whole wheat flour – 1 cup for each paratha.
Water – to knead flour.
Jaggery – 2 tablespoons for each paratha, shaved or thinly sliced.
Ghee – for roasting and flavor.
Process:
First we need to knead the dough for the parathas. You have to make it in the same manner as you would make for a roti. I am personally very poor when it comes to making rotis, so you can make it as shown in this wiki-how, or in this video:
Take a ball of the dough. Roll it flat.
Sprinkle the jaggery shreds/slices on one hemisphere. Leave 1 cm from the border which will be needed for sealing. We need thin shreds/slices so that the jaggery melts easily and makes for a gooey filling.
Cover this filling by closing the roti with the un-stuffed end and for a D.
Seal this by either crimping it with your hands. For that pull a small segment out, and fold it back upwards. You can alternatively use a fork to and apply pressure to seal it.
Heat a tava (pan), and dab a little ghee on it. You can use a nonstick tava, and use few drops of oil but ghee leads to better flavor.
Spread the melted ghee on the tava, and place the paratha on it.
Gently move the paratha every 30 seconds with a spatula to prevent it from sticking. Add ghee as needed.
Flip it after 2 mins. You will know it is done when the surface darkens with a nice sheen. There will be dark brown spots on it as well.
Heat this side in the same manner as above. The paratha may puff a little.
Take off the tava, and enjoy.
You can choose how to have it. You can break it open with a spoon, and let the warm gooey jaggery paste flow out, and eat with the broken paratha. Or you can bite in to it, and let the paste flow on your fingers and lick them clean later. I find the second manner more satisfying.
The key here is that if you break it open the moment you take it off the tava, the molten jaggery might be too hot for you. Let it stay for more than 5 mins and it will cool and start to solidify. Generally you can wait for 1-2 mins so that it warm enough to flow down your fingers but not hot enough to hurt.
I am not overly fond of brinjals. I try and avoid it if I can, but over the years one particular style of preparation has me grow fond for it. I will share the recipe for this method.
Ingredients:
Brinjal – 1 , cut into discs/slices
Potatoes – 2 medium, cut into the same amount as the brinjals
Onions – 1 small, finely chopped
Garlic – 3 cloves, finely chopped
Tomatoes – 2 small
Green chilly – 1, chopped
Red Chilly powder – 3 tea spoons
Turmeric powder – 3 tea spoons
Black pepper – 3 tea spoons, finely ground
Coriander (Dhania) powder – 2 tea spoons
Garam Masala powder – 2 tea spoons
Salt – to taste and for salting
Oil – to fry
Water – 2 cups
Process:
Cut the brinjal in slices 1 cm thick, and make diagonal cuts on it (as shown in the picture). Sprinkle salt on both sides and set them aside for at least thirty minutes. This will neutralize the unwanted excess taste.
Heat oil in a pan/kadhai. Lower the brinjals slices in to it once the oil is hot. Stir fry till the brinjals are golden brown. Flip them so that they are golden brown on both sides. Since I have a small kadhai I fried them in two waves
Take out the brinjals and set them aside. Peel the potatoes, and slice them. Make the same cuts on them as you did on the brinjal slices. Fry the potatoes in the same oil till they are golden brown on both sides and have a crisp outer layer.
Take out the potatoes and set them aside. Do not mix them with the brinjal.
Cut the tomatoes and put them in a grinder jar / chutney maker. Do notadd water. Grind them into a thick dry paste/chutney. The texture you’re looking for is similar to that of a salsa.
Heat oil in a pain. Add the onions and garlic. Once they change color, add the chopped chilly too. Mix well.
Add the tomato paste. Add all the salt and spices, and mix well. Leave one teaspoon of all spices aside, we will need that later. Add the fried potatoes and mix well. Add water and bring to boil.
Add the brinjals to this gravy. Place them so that they are just below the surface of the gravy. Sprinkle the spices you had set aside on them.
Cover with a plate/lid and reduce the heat to a simmer. Leave it like this till the gravy is reduced and sticks to the potatoes and brinjals. It will also make them softer. You will need about 5-10 mins for it reduce.You can add chopped coriander leaves or mint leaves at this stage if you like.
Serve with rotis/naan or any other bread of your choice.
As part of the Diwali traditions, sweets are bought and shared with friends and family. As usual, we used the sweets I get from work, along with some sweet chiki we make at home. This year I thought of doing something new as well. Chocolate has long been a favorite of mine, and having a celebration without it seems unfair. This is the recipe of the chocolate fudge that I made:
Ingredients:
Milk Chocolate – 100 gms
Dark Chocolate – 50 gms
Fresh Cream – 1 table spoon
Nuts – 2 table spoons (Mixed and chopped)
Corn flakes/ Break fast cereal – 2 table spoons
Instant Coffee powder – 2 tea spoon
PS:
I used 44% Cocoa Dark Chocolate since the people I was to share with don’t like the bitter taste (:roll:). Please use 55% or 70% Dark Cocoa chocolates to get more of the bitter flavor.
Coffee powder has to be instant coffee/ freeze dry coffee powder you get which has to be only mixed in hot water/milk to be had. Do not use the coffee which requires the use of a filter.
You will also need
Butter paper – 1 sheet
While you can directly pour the mixture into a vessel/bowl/plate for cooling and setting, it is better to use butter paper for lining as it will ensure that the fudge doesn’t stick to the walls and you can lick it off clean once you’re done. Licking off the remains is one of my favorite parts 😀
Process:
Chop up the chocolates. Mix the milk chocolate and dark chocolate slices.
Melt these chocolate slices either in the microwave or on the gas using the double boiler method.
Take a large bowl.
Fill with water, and put on gas till water starts to boil.
Place chocolates in a smaller bowl and place it inside the bowl with boiling water.
Use a spatula/spoon to press and mix the chocolates till they melt.
Do not expose the bowl with chocolates to direct heat.
Take a bowl and place butter paper on it. Press the butter paper so that it takes the shape of the bowl. Ensure that there are no cuts or tears.
Sprinkle all the nuts.
Add the coffee powder and cream to the melted chocolate, and mix well. Optionally you can add a bit of ground cinnamon or hazel nuts.
Pour the chocolate mixture on the nuts.
We will keep the bottom layer crunchy with the nuts, and not mix them in the fudge.
Sprinkle the corn flakes / cereal of choice on top of this. As with the nuts, we will not mix them into the chocolate mixture but keep them as a top layer.
I mixed some Chocos along with my corn flakes for more flavor.
Cover this with the excess butter paper or plate and let it set in the fridge for 5-6 hours. You can peel off the butter paper and cut it into cubes before serving, or use a spoon to eat it from the butter paper it self. Since it takes the form of a disc, I just break it off and eat it with my hands.
I had a feeling of helplessness as I stood there, staring at the walls. The outer wall was once strong and protective, and now a blanket of green moss surrounded it. I didn’t want to spend much time there, so went inside to get it over with. I tried to prepare myself, for all that I could feel when I would get this over with. The walls were supposed to be once a symbol of strength, were now decaying with neglect.
The door was left open, probably by the last person who had been here to steal something for himself. The inner walls once bore a brilliant shade, but the purplepaint was now peeling off to reveal the plaster beneath it. I stared at the fireplace in the hall. When once the room used to be covered in the orangewarmth of its glowing fire, now lay the walls blackened by soot. A cracked shell of what it once was.
With great difficulty, I opened one of the cupboards that were there. The doors did not require much pull as they were swaying open with glasses broken, but I needed to strength to confront what I might find in them, present or missing. There were only two things left, an old notebook and a pot of ink. The pages had yellowedwith age, but the ink still remained fluid. The bottle of vibrant blueink held my eye, I assumed it would still glow if I saw it against the light.
I hoped to use this ink and write in the notebook as I once did. I would hold the nib of my pen for a second longer than I had to, when I would complete a chapter. It would amaze me how the ink would flow out fast and fluid, as it spread life in the pages on which I wrote. IT took me some time to look for a pen. I found one lying below the cupboard, its cap long lost. As I began to fill it with ink, I noticed that the nib was broken. The pen and the inkpot fell from my hand.
The ink spreads all over the carpet like a waste, quite different from how I remember it. Slow, and thick. I have a feeling of helplessness as I stand here, staring at the walls.
Shudh Desi Romance is the primarily the story of three characters Raghu (Sushant Rajput), Gayatri (Parineeti Chopra) and Tara (Vaani Kapoor) set in Jaipur, and the love triangle between them. The focus for the majority part of the movie is more about the insecurities and fears of commitment the three face. Rishi Kapoor plays the character of Mr. Goyal who is caterer and manages baarats.
Plot Synopsis:
Raghu is a registered tour guide, but also makes money from commissions he gets from stores where he dupes foreigners to buy things at exaggerated prices. Apart from this, he is a baraati for hire. Gayatri is also a baraati for hire and works at a coaching class. The story starts with Raghu and is baarat on their way to Ajmer for his marriage with Taara. In his talk with Gayatri(whom he has hired for his baarat) he confesses that he agreed to get married to Taara because she was good looking, however he now has his apprehensions as he doesn’t know if the two are compatible or not. He learns that Gayatri is an independent woman who likes to live on her own terms, and has had been in a relationship before.
He goes on to confess that he is attracted to Gayatri. He can’t handle the pressure of marrying someone he doesn’t know and runs away, leaving Taara in the middle of the ceremonies. Gayatri runs into Raghu two weeks later, and Raghu still feels the attraction towards her. He moves in to her house and they try start a live in relationship. When the two of them decide to get married, it is not the turn of Raghu to be left at the altar as Gayatri runs away.
Raghu runs into Tara, when he is a baarati for hire. There is an interesting confrontation between Taara, her uncle and Raghu. Taara and Raghu meet in Jaipur, and start a relationship. Taara’s actions bring a better understanding in Raghu as to how it feels when someone leaves you without an explanation. Things turn for a toss when Raghu and Taara run in to Gayatri at another marriage.
The movie starts with a monologue by Raghu in which he breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience. There will be one such monologue by each of the three characters at key junctures of the story. Raghu mulls over the fascination of the nation with arranged marriage. There are four key parts of this monologue:
Not only men but women also have desires, and they look for different things when they check out/look for a partner. While in itself it is not the revealing of a hitherto unknown fact, but the admission of it is deviation from many Bollywood movies.
Even if a guy and girl just talk, they become Vikram and the rest of the world becomes Vetaal to hound them.
He can’t understand why people tell him ‘Zyaada mat socho, bus settle ho jaao.’ (Don’t think too much, just settle down) as if ‘Shaadi na hui, glucose/ ICU ho gaya, har chees ka ilaaj’ (As if marriage is like glucose/ ICU which is a treatment for every ail)
The best part was: ‘saara hindustan settlement karane pe laga hai… saatth saal se do padosi se settlement kara nahi paae bade chaudhary bante hain’ (The whole nation is behind getting settled, they couldn’t settle two neighbors in 60 years but still think of themselves as something great)
Another interesting scene of mention is the confrontation between Raghu, Taara and Taara’s uncle at a marriage. While Raghu initially tries to avoid running into him, they come face to face. The uncle creates a ruckus and calls on some people to beat him up. When Taara intervenes to stop the scene, he tells her that she is her ‘responsibility’. What follows is pure brilliance.
Taara goes on to ask him when was it that her parents (who had died quite some time ago) handed over responsibility to him. She says that she alone is responsible for her life, and that doesn’t need help from an uncle who met her only once in the last four years which was also in a marriage. In fact they were doing this not because they felt for her, but they wanted revenge for themselves.
Taara is my favorite character in the movie. While Gayatri is an independent woman as well, Taara shows more presence of mind, an understanding for human emotions, and is the only character who accepts things for what they truly are, so that she can move on. When she is left standing when Raghu runs away, her reaction is to ask for a cold drink instead of breaking down (for which she gives a good reason later).
There are many nuances that are built in the story and dialogues that make it a gem. When Raghu and Taara are to get married and the baaratis ask her to show her face from beneath her ghunghat (veil) someone comments in the back that such a beautiful girl is being married off to Raghu because she is orphan and her relatives want to get rid of her. The opening song sequence shows many different couples in the city, how they are moving about, including wannabes who ogle at girls who pass by or the cops punishing couples found in parks by making them do sit ups. My personal favorites are the monologues by the characters, in which the double standards of our systems are traditions are questioned.
This is why I believe that the star of the movie is not an actor but writer Jaideep Sahni (who also wrote the script), who has written the scripts for ‘Chak De! India’ and ‘Khosla ka Ghosla’ before. Director Maneesh Sharma does a good job. The chemistry between between Sushant and Parineeti is better than that between Vaani and him.
Watch out for the opening song ‘Chanchal mann’
and ‘Gulabi’ which has Sushant and Vaani in different parts of the pink city.
The idea of a standalone music player has always appealed to me. Apart from free time, I like to listen to some of my favorite music when I go on the occasional morning runs, the commute to work, and while cooking.
While my smart phone is perfectly capable of playing music during all these times, I have my own peeves while using it so while running or commuting. You see whenever I get a call, an sms, a ping on one of the messengers, a facebook pop or any other notification, the music stops (even if so for a brief moment). This lead to the idea to get myself a standalone music player.
Before I could buy one for myself, her Cracked-ness asked me if I liked listening to music. The conversation ended with her telling me that she is sending me an iPod via the sister who was in her vicinity.
Thank you 😀 It is being putting to good use.
Written for Day 5 of Write Tribe Festival of words
I am fat, and quite frankly there is nothing to hide about it. Not that looking fat matters that much to me as much as some people tell me, but there are other things that matter.
There are the obvious health and fitness concerns. Not only does being obese increase one’s chances of heart attacks, diabetes, and other diseases which will hamper me in the long run, there are also immediate impacts such as going out of breath when I walk fast. I can run little without having to stop to catch my breath. My general body flexibility is lower than normal, and my body spends more time supporting the extra mass than it does doing anything else.
My being fat has less to do with my genes and more with my habits. Being the foodie that I am, I enjoy eating a lot. However that also involves a lot of fast food and other unhealthy foods. My physical work is quite low to balance the intake of so much calories. While I have been ‘chubby’ and ‘healthy’ for quite some time now, but it didn’t matter much in the initial days as I used to get at least an hour of volleyball every day apart from the fifteen minute warm up run. With the decline in the amount of time I spent in sports, my fitness levels fell.
Sometime after starting work, I did join a gym. In the few months that I did go to the gym (and did all that the instructor asked me to) there was very little loss in weight. But my fitness improved greatly. The amount of time I could spend on the treadmill and the elliptic trainer without puffing kept increasing steadily. Of course it is poor on me to say that, I haven’t been to a gym since long.
Apart from these there are other things to worry about. I will like an outfit, but it won’t be available in my size. It feels cramped while sharing seats on public transport, and in some cases one has to be really careful with old and weak furniture that might collapse.
It’s not just a matter of going to the gym or being part of a sports team. Quite a few people I know who can’t make it to the gym as well, but take up cycling or running to improve their health. So I guess it’s not just a better body I want, but better lifestyle choices that will in turn lead to a better body.
Written for Day 4 of the Write Tribe: Festival of words
I enjoy gaming, and by this I mean playing games on the laptop or a console. While I haven’t owned a console since the 8 bit console mom bought me, I have played quite a few games on the computer. When I was younger and didn’t have a console of my own, vacations would start with getting together to play cricket and then video games at a friend’s place. Oh the fun we had playing Super Mario Brothers, Contra and Dragon Ball Z. Hours would go on before a parent of one of us friends would call us for lunch.
Mom got me a console when I was in the 9th standard (by when the Playstation was out, but I didn’t interest myself with it). Since I had my own console now, I would try out many more games and Aladdin, Exit Bike and Islander were my new favorites. I even got mom to play with me and she would enjoy Circus Charlie and Duck Hunt. Post-dinner plays on holidays were common with the two of us. A year later, mother got me a computer. The computer my gaming habits a shot in the arm. The amount of time I spent gaming (on it, since the console now lay packed in the storage) was significantly higher.
While I started with First Person Shooter games like Medal of Honor, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Quake 3 Arena, I later dabbled my hand at racing games like Need for Speed. Worms deserves a special mention as it brought quite a few friends together at my place to play that. A friend introduced me to the Playstation 2. Since neither of us has had it, we would save up from our pocket money and play on it at the gaming stations. I don’t know how much time we spent playing WWE (wrestling) and teaming up against the other players who would come there.
All this increased gaming also meant lesser time studying, and it had to be put on the backburner when I had board exams up. The initial years of college saw very little gaming except for the occasional Counter Strike with friends on LAN. It was only when I got a laptop towards the end of the third year that I got back in to gaming, for it to go slow again one I started to work.
In the recent times my favorites have been Batman: Arkham Asylum, Portal, Portal 2, and Batman: Arkham City and the lot of Assassin’s Creed (which I have played till Assassin’s Creed 3). One of my memorable moments has been while I was playing Batman: Arkham City when a character says “We have positive ID on Batman. He is kicking all kinds of ass down there” while I was in the middle of fight. It was wonderful.
If I think about it, one of the reasons why I do enjoy gaming so much is the escapism it offers. I get so engrossed in the challenges of the game, that I forget everything around me. Now that I have given my laptop to mom, I don’t play that much. I want a new gaming device (console or laptop, but a new laptop mostly) so that I can get back to gaming.
Written for Day 3 of Write Tribe: Festival of words
I want a Kindle and a really big book shelf. Why both, do you ask? It is because I love to read (even if it means re-reading some of my favorite books more times than I read new books). There are reasons that I want both though.
Let’s start with the Kindle. The Kindle is an e-reader that was launched by Amazon in 2007. It has evolved over the years (quite like Pokémon) and gotten better. As of now there are two basic versions of Kindle on sale. There is the basic Kindle, which uses E Ink for display of text. It is Wi-Fi enabled and has 2 GB onboard storage. One can use the Wi-Fi capabilities to read books off Amazon’s cloud storage as well. In itself it is a nifty device and one can use its buttons to change pages, books, and navigate.
The advanced form of the Kindle is the Paperwhite (which comes in two variants: Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G). It has ‘Paperwhite’ built in display which simulates the print on a white paper, and moves on to a touch screen for navigation. It is much better to change pages with the flick of your finger than clicking on a button. It too, has a 2 GB on board storage and access to cloud via Wi-Fi/3G.
One of the key advantages of the Kindles is that you get to carry your library with you. You can easily store about 100 books on them, and access more via the cloud. A number of classics are available to download for free. You can read bits of any of your books as and when you need, or read a book after the other on one of those long trips without having to lug the weight of many books. The Kindles have a wonderful battery life as well, with the Kindle having up to 1 month and the Kindle Paperwhite having up to 8 weeks of battery life.
As far as the bookshelf goes, it is part storage for my books and part sentimental value. I have quite a few books which occupy half of my cupboard (since I don’t have a book shelf). Some of them are packed in two layers of polythene and kept on the storage area just below the ceiling. I would like all those books to be released from their confines and spend time in the open. Where I can pick them up at my whims, even the text books which I harbor from my college days. It would be like giving them a proper place (apart from the place they hold inside me). Some of the books are those with which I have a physical memory, of them growing old with the increasing number of times I spent reading them.
So there you go, I want a Kindle and a really big book shelf for the practical and sentimental aspects of my love of reading.
Written for Day 2 of the Write tribe Festival of words
Seven as Lord Voldemort says, is the most powerfully magical number. It is no surprise that you have the Seven Wonders of the World, the seven seas, the seven continents, the seven octaves in music, Seven color rings of power, and so on.
The idea to use 7 as a prompt came on the Write Tribe Group, where it was proposed to hold a seven day long writing festival called ‘Festival of words’, from the 1st to 7th September. The only prompt was the number 7, and one can have a run with it anyway one wants.
I chose to do 7 things I want. Each day I will write about a thing/aspect that I want, why I want it and what (if anything) I can do about it or am doing.
Day 1 – I want to be able to be a fly on the wall.
Not a literal fly on the wall, but the proverbial fly on the wall who can secretly observe what is going on at a place .An important aspect would be able to transform back and forth from Human to said fly at will. I don’t want to be stuck as a fly once I transform. What good would all my observations be, if I am stuck in the form of a fly? My life as a human would be gone.
I wouldn’t mind being a literal fly on the wall too, as long as I can be an animagus (like in Harry Potter) but that would still be no guarantee as to which animal I transform into, but at least I would retain my human mental faculties when I transform. This is one of the most important aspects that needs to come along. Of what good would it be if I were to turn into a fly and then be a fly mentally as well? That instead of sitting (or is it sticking?) on the wall and observe the people I want to, I would just buzz around looking for bins and poop to sit on?
No, I need a better method. I remember that Dumbledore and Voldemort can cast dis-ilussionment charms so powerful that they become invisible. This would be wonderful, for I would retain my human form and faculties. However, if I were to get the magical knowledge and power of Dumbledore and/or Voldemort then it would be a different thing entirely. Imagine the possibilities! No looking for things for when I would lose them, I would just Accio them! No spending on transportation, as I would either fly to or just apparate at will wherever I want to. Let me not digress from topic though, If I had to write about all that I could and would if I were a wizard like the Potterverse wizards then I would probably exhaust myself.
The whole idea of becoming a fly on the wall came from the Heisenberg Uncertainty people which can be condensed in the line “It is impossible to determine accurately both the position and the direction and speed of a particle at the same instant.” This has also been referred to as the observer’s effect. When someone knows that they are being observed, they don’t act in the normal way and you don’t get to observe them in their natural state.
Of course this leads to the question as to why would I like to be the proverbial fly on the wall and observe in the first place? Because it is wonderful to see people work. When people are lost in nothing but their work and doing what they want, it is simply beautiful to watch them just be.
Written for the Write Tribe Festival of words. Seven blog posts in seven days
And I write 