General – Page 7 – And I write

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Santulan · 13 Comments

Monika’s Sin-A-Mon tales

Our story starts like quite a few stories in the childhood of the character. Born and brought up in Delhi along with three sisters, her working mom and hands on father gave her the ideals she lives by. When asked about her childhood, she says “The strongest lesson that our parents taught was the importance of education and being independent in life, I think partly that’s what has made me what I am today as a person and I am proud of it”. She has been married for close to nine (9) years now and has a son who is 5.5 years old. An MCA and MS in computers, and a self-confessed nerd at heart; she is Monika Manchanda.

She has more than 10 years of experience in IT development with companies like Wipro, Nortel and Intel. She was performing a juggling act while balancing work and once her maid quit after getting married. Since the IT industry was also going through a slump at that times, she decided to take a six month break to spend time with her son. Time flew, and the six months grew into a three year long break. It was during this break that she got the idea of starting Sin-a-Mon.

One of Monika’s fondest memories from her childhood is that of her mom baking tutty-fruity cakes for the family, and the joy and excitement it brought. After she recorded and blogged about her experiments and passion in the kitchen, she received a lot of praise from her friends and readers. She decided to go back to school and did a diploma in bakery and confectionary to improve her skills and knowledge before turning her passion into a profession. When asked on how she chose the name Sin-a-Mon, she says “Cinnamon is one of my favorite sweet spices and also something widely used in baking dishes. We tweaked the term a bit and named my startup Sin-a-mon. Sin for sinning and Mon for the initial letters for my name”

It took her close to five months for Sin-a-Mon to go from concept to launch. Setup costs, infrastructure, and need for quality raw materials were the few obstacles that she had to overcome before she could find a steady business. Her first order was delivered to Chirag from Chaipatty who needed a regular supply of desserts. While Sin-a-Mon started with started with simple bakes and cakes, has now grown to a wide range of goodies from artisan breads to savory bakes to spiked bakes. Not limited to just baking and cooking, she has diversified in to workshops and food consulting which has given Sin-A-Mon an edge in the business.

monika_cup1

Some months ago, she received a call from Prof Rakesh Sud who told her about the Goldman Sachs 10K woman program. The initiative is built on the premise that partnerships between education, development, and business experts can help bring about significant change through improved business education for women. It is a 16 weeks long course that is partnered with ISB in India. She has successfully graduated from the course.

Being an entrepreneur is a tough and lonely job, and she has to spend time with her son she turns the internet on the phone off. As far as the upbringing of her son goes she believes, “When it comes to values kids learn what they see on a regular basis and one of the biggest value I want to instill in him is equality and respect for woman and for that I feel I need to be an independent strong and happy woman.”

Truly, Monika represents the independent woman who wants to make her own ground and first hand instill values of equality in the coming generation.

You can check out Monika’s blog here, and the website of her business here.

Written for the Indiblogeshwaris Ladies Independence Special Contest in association with http://womenentrepreneursinindia.com/

Posted on August 9, 2013January 18, 2014 by Santulan · 18 Comments

Chapter 5 – First stroke of luck (Tribe whispers)

We all know about this game called Chinese Whispers in which one person whispers a message to another, which is passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group. We at Write Tribe are doing just that but with stories on our blog. One person tells a short story on his/her blog, the next Blogger will continue the story, till it finishes on Blogger no. 9.

*****

Chapter 5 – First stroke of luck

Ankitha kept staring at the man who sat in front of her. As much as he looked like Shishir, his behavior and mannerisms were totally different. The Shishir she knew carried himself with a sense of certainty, and confidence. The man in front of her was a bumbling man, who was reduced to stammers on being confronted by whom he thought was a stranger. She ignored the phone call she received and kept her attention on him. He was not taking it well. While he was just stammering before, he seemed a nervous wreck now. Sweat was trickling profusely from his temple, trickling slowly down by his ear and onto his neck. At this pace, he would begin to draw attention from those who sat in the café.

“Why don’t you visit the washroom?”

“I d-d-d-don’t have to.”

“Look at yourself, you’re sweating heavily. Go wash your face.”

Whatever protest he wanted to make, went down in a whimper when he saw the look on her face. He nodded and slowly walked towards the washroom, with his gaze on the floor all this while. She took this window of time to run through the back pack he had on him. There was a laptop and a hard disk in one of the compartments. While the contents of the hard disk interested her, she didn’t have the time to copy the data from it on to the memory cards she carried in her purse. There were some print outs of a project report, of which she quickly took photographs. There was a bunch of pen and pencils in the other along with a few bars of dark chocolate.

He hates dark chocolate, she thought. Why was he carrying a bunch of it then? It could all be part of his cover. That didn’t make any sense to carry so many of them, though. She quickly put a bar in her purse as well. She could hear him fumbling with the door lock to open it. She quickly zipped the bag, and kept it back on the floor. He came back looking refreshed, but still nervous. If this was an undercover mission, it didn’t seem that he was going to tell her about it in public. If he wanted to, he would contact her through the means they had already had in place for times like this.

“What, what d-d-d-oo you want from me?”
“I am sorry, you look a lot like my friend Shishir. He had disappeared six months ago. We are all worried about him.”

“I am sorry, I d-d-d-ont recognize you. My name may b-b-bee Shishir, b-b-but you have mistaken me with someone else.”

“I understand, sorry to have taken your time.”
He got up and walked out of the café, with his gaze down all the time. She didn’t want to follow him now, and arouse suspicion from whoever might be keeping an eye on him. She knew where he worked at , and would trace him from there. All she had were the photographs she had taken and the single bar of dark chocolate. It did not bear the name of any brand or have any distinguishing packaging or logo. Just the words ‘Dark chocolate 3’ were written on the wrapper. She tore open an edge of the wrapping and took a bite. It didn’t taste very different, just had a slightly pleasant after taste. She would get it checked in one of her trusted labs.

She got up and ordered a coffee for herself, and then began to read whatever she had captured in the photographs.

******

I now hand over to Ayush Chauhan to take the story ahead.

Tribe whispers is an idea proposed by Ayush Chauhan in the Write Tribe Group. Members of the group are working together to create a story. Read more here: Tribe whispers at Hundred Works

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Santulan · 30 Comments

When the phone rings…

He was taking deep long breaths. Slowly as he gathered more strength, he crawled in her direction. He left a trail of blood in his wake, from having been shot in the gut. She was lying motionless a few feet away. Her body didn’t move except for the occasional heave her chest gave when she would take in a breath. She was hanging on like him, for a precious few moments before they would both give way to their injuries. It didn’t take him more than two minutes to crawl up to her, and place his hand over hers but it seemed like forever to her. He smiled, and with great effort opened his mouth to tell her that in the end it would be all right. He turned his face and opened his mouth to speak.

TTTTRIIING TTTTTRIING the phone rang.

“What the bloody hell?”

This is exactly what first comes to my mind when the phone of someone next to me rings in the cinema while I am all engrossed in the movie. I mean, it is only basic manners to keep your phone on silent or off while you’re in the cinema. Not only can some people not do that, they have to carry on extended loud conversations. I can understand if it is an emergency, or if you’re telling that ‘I am in a movie where I won’t be able to talk to you properly on account of the sound from the speakers ‘, but I cannot understand people telling their dinner plans on the phone. Take it outside and call them back. But let me listen to what is happening in the movie.

But loud chatty callers are not the only ones that get to me. It’s the people who come late, especially if they’re friends. I think there should be an entry time limit, if you’re later than this you can’t enter the cinema house. On the normal day, I can put up with the late comers as long as they don’t give too much of obstructions. But you will have some one or the other who cannot find his way, or will walk abnormally slow and keep coming in front of the screen. It is worse when it is a friend who is late. Because now I will have to wait for them outside with their ticket to get them in. This will primarily lead to two scenarios. In the first I wait for them and miss out on the starting scenes, or I go inside catch the starting and come out when they call me. Not only am I missing out on some scenes, but I end up disturbing other cinema patrons too.

I remember that I had taken a day off to catch the first show of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and had to cancel the plans as one of my team members had to apply leave for a family emergency. Since only one of us could go on leave, I cancelled mine on account of his reason being more crucial than mine. The next day I went in for the morning show to enjoy the movie in peace. I had already cancelled two calls, but someone from work kept calling. I went out to take the calls, and missed slightly more than five minutes of the movie in trying to explain something (after having the other person fail to understand that I was out to watch a movie). I couldn’t sit back, and left the cinema to catch a different show where I wouldn’t be disturbed. And this was only thirty minutes into the movie.

I have tried discussing this with some friends whenever I have made my first ever movie plans with them. A friend in particular says that movie watching is a leisurely activity, and it is ok for people to come late as they have bought the tickets. I agree that they have bought the tickets, just in the same way that I bought mine. That doesn’t mean that they should come in the way of the leisure of other audience due to having coming late and so on …

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

Posted on July 18, 2013January 20, 2014 by Santulan · 16 Comments

Schezwan Roti Ribbons – Recipe

Sindhis make a dish called ‘Sail Fulka’ to use left over rotis. It involves tossing torn bits of rotis in oil and vegetables with spices. I am adding a schezwan twist to this recipe.

Ingredients:

Rotis – 3 (preferably left over)

Tomato – 1, finely chopped

Green chilies – 1 tablespoon, finely chopped

Oil – 2 tablespoons

Red Chilly powder – 2 teaspoons

Salt – to taste (I used 2 teaspoons)

Schezwan sauce – 1 tablespoon

Process:

Take the rotis and stack them on each other as shown in the photo.

Make a roll out of these, and cut them across the length of the roll as you would cut a carrot or cucumber into discs.

Since you are using the rotis will now split into ribbons. This process is called a ribbon cut or a Chiffonade cut. It is normally used to cut green vegetables with big leaves such as spinach. These ribbons will now represent Fettuccini pasta or noodles depending how you space your cuts. I generally space my cuts about 3 mm apart. This is how your ribbons will stack up:

Now heat the oil in a vessel, and add the vegetables to it. After the tomatoes turn soft, add the roti ribbons, a handful ribbons at a time. Keep tossing to prevent the ribbons from sticking. Once the rotis are well coated with the oil and are getting crispy, add the spices and sauce. Toss well.

Toss a little more, and serve.

If you don’t want to use Schezwan sauce, you can substitute that with tomato puree and adding garlics when you first heated the oil. If you want to make the ribbons a little mushy, then add a cup of water when you toss.

Posted on July 17, 2013July 17, 2013 by Santulan · 13 Comments

Love, unrequited

I was reading Privy Trifles’ blog tonight wherein I read some lines on love by Pablo Neruda.

One that particularly caught my attention was :

To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life.

It made me think about love. I believe that love is like a fire that burns inside you. A fire that gives you heat and power, a fire that radiates warmth towards the one that you love. When the fire of love burns in you, it keeps giving warmth. The fire grows more and burns longer when you feed it more, especially so if this comes from the person you love.

This also made me think about unrequited love. You keep radiating warmth, and the fire consumes all that was keeping it aflame before slowly dying down. It is still there, ready to be fed, ready to flare up again but reduced to embers. Embers. Embers that lie dormant, but one whiff of the person you loved, one thought or memory that triggers all that you once felt for them comes flooding right back in.

It’s all that is needed to flare it again. The fire is short lived, but this fire will either give warmth again but to yourself, and comfort you. Or burn you, bit by bit. Soon it is reduced to embers again, waiting for another whiff or blow to come its way. Love, unrequited.

I will leave you with another bit by Neruda:

In this part of the story I am the one who dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood.

Posted on July 11, 2013January 18, 2014 by Santulan · 16 Comments

Memories

He had been lying asleep on the floor for some time now. One would have thought that the house had been empty had it not been for the sounds from the fan as it continued whirring. He was in a rare session of a long uninterrupted sleep from which he hadn’t woken up for the last 8 hours. This would however not last long as he was soon rudely awoken by the constant ringing of the doorbell. The doorbell along with the banging on the door aggravated the headache he got from the being woken up so suddenly.

“YES! YES! I am coming” He yelled before getting up. He got up with the help of the sofa, and walked groggily towards the door. He fumbled a little with the door lock before opening it. The sudden burst of sunlight hit him hard in the eyes. He looked through the squinted eyes to see his domestic help standing at the door. He let her in the house, and closed the door. She didn’t need any specific instructions and went about her normal routine which began with making the rooms tidy after which she would wash the clothes in the laundry basket and vessels in the kitchen sink. The sunlight had ensured that he was wide awake by now, and he went to the bathroom to freshen up.

After brushing his teeth, and washing his face he took a long look in the mirror. His hair hand grown long and without the generous of a comb appeared wild. His stubble had grown into a full beard, and had now begun to itch below his chin. In spite of the lack of responsibility he felt towards it because of being on a ten day leave, he took up the can of shaving foam and began to shave it itchy growth of. He turned on the shower and stood under it for some time, motionless. Generally he would find such a long bath relaxing, however he didn’t feel the same today. He wondered if he had felt anything for a long time now.

After the prolonged shower, he put on a tee and shorts. He walked in to the kitchen to take out something to drink from the fridge. He picked up an unfinished carton of juice, and began to drink from it. He stared at the month’s calendar he had stuck on the fridge. It was the 12^th of this month. This meant that he still had four days left in his leave before he would have to resume the daily grind again. The very idea of it seemed to dull him even more.
The domestic help had finished her work and he nodded as she went out of the house shutting the door behind her. He went back to the hall where he had been lying asleep before. He checked his mobile after he plugged it in the charger. There were a couple of notifications from Facebook and Whatsapp. Nothing that couldn’t wait, he thought and sat down on the floor again. He rummaged through the brown bag that was kept on the sofa. He took out the many envelopes that were kept in them, with names of the different cities that he had been in.

He opened the envelope with the name SFO on it. He had very fond and personal memories associated with the place. He emptied the contents of it on the floor. There was a bill for the first breakfast he had there, couple of dollar coins which were returned as change, and a photo postcard he had purchased that he had forgotten to post. He stared at them for a couple of minutes more, lost in the memories that were rushing back. He then moved on the others.

Written for Words: Write Tribe Contest # 1

Posted on July 10, 2013July 10, 2013 by Santulan · 20 Comments

Black Hole

I thoroughly enjoy my dreams, at least the ones I can remember after I wake up. Some of my dreams tend to be lucid, where in I have a level of control on what I am doing or at least a sense of awareness of it being a dream and not the real world. How, do you ask? I don’t know. If I notice something out of place in a dream or something that jolts me I realize that I am dreaming. This either causes me to wake up, or the dream to become lucid. While I have had a fair share of such wonderful dreams (happy, interesting and scary nightmares) which I would like to write about, this particular one is about one I had today.

Now what has a black hole, got to do with my dream? A black hole is region in space which has inescapable gravity. So strong that even light cannot escape its pull, leading it to appear black. Since it is a black body that pulls everything in, it is called black hole. But what has that got to do with my dream? I dreamt of a black hole.

I dreamt that I was floating in space, and enjoying the vast cosmos. I could see planets, stars and entire galaxies as I lay floating in the infinite of space. It was like floating in a dark sea that was scattered with billions of lights of all sizes and clusters. It would look something like this:

I was floating in one particular direction towards a point. It was a black hole which was slowly but surely pulling me towards it. While I was not aware that it was a dream, I do remember feel fascinated by the idea of being pulled in a black hole. Slowly the pull started getting stronger and I was being pulled in faster. I felt that I was floating faster, but the stars seemed to be floating by slower. It was on this observation that I realized that I was not in the real world, and actually dreaming. On thinking about why the stars seemed to travel slower than my floating I realized that I was dreaming about the event horizon.

Now some of you may be wondering what an event horizon is (especially since I put an emphasis on it). An event horizon is a point of no return from the pull of a black hole. After crossing the event horizon the pull exerted on the body is so strong that it becomes impossible to escape it. In fact the pull is so strong that time itself slows down. To a person outside the event horizon, I might be still floating in the same speed, but to the object inside the event horizon time slows down due to the powerful pull of the black hole and it seems that everything beyond the point has stopped or become realllly slow.

As my fascination grew about getting to witness the event horizon, I began to feel afraid. Since I was beyond the point of no return, I felt that I may get stuck over there forever. STUCK IN TIME AND IN A BLACK HOLE, FOREVER. This sting of fear is what woke me up from my dream.

May be some time later I will write about more of the dreams I remember of. Have you had such dreams?

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Santulan · 16 Comments

Chocolate Milk

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend of mine, and this is an excerpt of the conversation we had:

…

Me: Did you have your breakfast?

Her: No, I am waiting for *** (her husband) to give me my mug of Chocolate milk.

Me: He brings you Chocolate milk?

Her: Yes, every day.

Me: In the next life, will he marry me?

Her: HAHAHAHA

Me: As long as he brings me Chocolate milk everyday.

Her: I will ask him.

Her: He said sure! He is game as long as it’s not me again.

…

See, I have such awesome friends. 😀

Also, in a hypothetical next life, a daily supply of Chocolate milk 😀

Posted on June 11, 2013January 20, 2014 by Santulan · 16 Comments

Mango mini tarts

I was reading the recipe of Chocolate Mini Tarts at Hungry and Excited, and it looked so delicious that I wanted to make them myself. Since mom has a certain dislike for all things chocolatey (rolls eyes), and the oven was tucked away below a pile of other things, I modified her recipe a little to make a no-bake recipe and utilize the fresh batch of Kesar Mangoes that had just arrived.

Here is mine

Ingredients:

Mango – 1 medium size
Digestive biscuits – 100 gms
Unsalted Butter / Ghee – 3 Table spoons
Fresh Cream – 100 ml

Process:

Take the digestive biscuits and run them in a food processor or chopper. Alternatively, If you don’t have a processor then wrap the biscuits in a bag and use a rolling pin or another tool to whack them into tiny crumbs. This is what they looked like once I had a go with them in my chopper.

Take the butter (or ghee if you don’t have un-salted butter). Melt the butter, and pour it in the biscuit mixture. Run the processor / chopper once again to ensure that they’re mixed well. If you have used the rolling pin method, then mix the butter and biscuit crumbs well with your hand. This is what they looked like when I made them.

Take moulds and grease them lightly. I did this by wetting a small piece of cloth with the melted butter and dabbing it around the inner surface of the moulds. Place the biscuit crumbs on the mould and press them hard with your fingers or the back of a spoon. Place them in the freezer for 15 minutes. I don’t have any tart/cupcake moulds with me and use small katoris as moulds instead. This is how they looked just before I put them in the freezer.

Blend the cream and mango together till you get a uniform thick consistency. Pour this mixture on the moulds with the help of a spoon. Try and cover the entirety of them with the mango-cream blend. Place them in the freezer for 2 hours. I was able to scavenge for 1 heart shaped mould from mom’s supplies. This is how mine looked before freezing.

After removing them from the freezer, just a small pinch on the outside of the moulds will release the tarts. Keep them in the fridge for another hour. You can now happily enjoy them as they are.

Alternatively you can garnish them with what you like. Typically, you can use cut up fresh fruits and dry fruits. Since I had prunes with me, I used them. This is the final result.

If you do give them a try, please let me know how they turn out to be. Enjoy 😀

Posted on June 9, 2013January 18, 2014 by Santulan · 19 Comments

Beautiful Eyes – 100 words on Saturday # 12

He saw her talking with her friends seated outside the café. She was laughing at something in a manner that made her throw her head back and eyes sparkle. He was in love with her beautiful eyes. It was her eyes that drew him closer. After a long wait he had finally mustered the courage to ask her to be his girlfriend. She said that she already had a boyfriend, but they could be friends. He walked towards her, and in a sudden motion splashed a bottle of acid in her face. Nobody else would now see her beautiful eyes.

Spread the words

Spread the words

Spread the words

Spread the words

Spread the words

Spread the words

Spread the words

Spread the words

Spread the words

Spread the words