…and thou shalt not engage in SEX???

Cooking Chronicles

Lots of things have happened in the last week. Major among them are my trip to Wayanad, IBM’s offer letter not reaching me, me learning how to cook (status: still rudimentary, but fast reaching expert levels) and me envying all the people in the world who don’t have an infected boil on their backs (IT SUCKS).

Last week, I was learning to cook. Because of my erratic waking and sleeping hours, I inevitably ended up missing breakfast everyday till Amma finally got sick and stopped making breakfast for me altogether. And so we came up with this idea of making breakfast, at night!

Now, before I entered the kitchen, I delivered a strict warning to Amma in which I asked her to stay in the kitchen but to touch NOTHING during the course of my cooking. Nothing at all. I would do everything. I almost ended up regretting this warning.

First day was Dosa day. Now, the batter was already prepared (thankfully, because making the batter is a really messy work). So all I had to do was pour a ladle full of batter onto the pan and then with the base of the ladle make it into a round shape. It then that I discovered that my unbelievably pathetic skill as an artist/painter had over the years, through my school days and college years, not changed one bit. It was still pathetic. In the pursuit of layering the batter in a round shape, I ended up making maps of India and Africa. One piece even looked like it had an ocean inside it (characterised by a huge area within the layer conspicuous by its absence of batter).

The next day was also Dosa. The same shape creating festival continued, but at the end of it, Amma announced that it was much better than the Dosa the day before. What!! That means the Dosa I had made the day before was BAD???

The next day was Chappati day. Chappatis and some curry made of tomatoes. As usual, Amma could not touch anything once I entered the kitchen. The curry preparation went off peacefully but the chappatis were a different story altogether. No mater what I tried, they just refused to take the round shape we all know chappatis should have. I ended up experimenting in geometry and managed to create lots of shapes except the round shape. I distinctly remember a triangular chappati, a rectangular and a trapezium shaped chappati. But in the end, with lots and lots of ghee and Amma’s impeccable instruction, even this turned out good.

Last day of my cooking before I left for the wedding was Appam-stew day.

Nothing much to report except that the combo tasted DELICIOUS.

Of course it should. I made it!!

Out of Station

Am currently on a tour of Wayanad.

Will reach home tomorrow evening (hopefully, if my cash does not run out).

Farewell, 374

My last blog entry from my college. Am leaving this place tomorrow.

As usual, packing is a bother and I haven’t started yet. Unlucky is the man who is allotted my room the coming semester. He will have to:-

• Remove all the waste papers/boxes/food wrappings/bottles from the floor.
• Clean up all the cobwebs which now come below the level of the window.
• Exterminate the room of its insect occupants and then clean up the dead insects below the bed.
• And do some misc cleaning.

And so, I dedicate this post to room number 374 which has been my residence for the past year and to lobby 5 in which my room is. The days we spent screaming at 2 in the morning about how the other guy plays worse DotA than anyone else (and in the process waking everyone in the lobby), the days we spent trying to cram in pages and pages of notes the day before the exams, the days we did insane things and had all the fun in the world will forever remain in my memory (till I forget them of course, I am only human).

Room number 374, I bid you farewell. May your new occupant take better care of you than I ever did.

Adios.

Train Pain

Flash News: Train no 3351 Dhanbad Alleppey express has been cancelled from the 22^nd of June to the 30^th.

Flashier News: We had booked out tickets for the 24^th.

Future course of action: Take the Swarna Jayanti Exp from Ranchi to New Delhi (24 hrs), stay overnight and then board the Mangala Lakshadweep Exp from Hazrat Nizamuddin which Will take me to Ernakulam in around 51 hours.

Just when I thought that leaving the college would end all my miseries…

Wild Night

Suchintya has an interesting article on inflation in his blog.

Found this here. Insanely funny.

Wild Night

<Domsey> Woah, I got the weirdest moment of my entire life this morning
<bender> what happened?
<Domsey> you know, there was a party at my neighbours’ last night
<bender> yeah, you’ve been fucking drunk..
<Domsey> you’ve been there, too?
<bender> sure…
<Domsey> well, you see i can’t remember anything
<Domsey> but this morning I woke up in my bed, and there was my mom lying next to me.
<bender> wtf…?
<Domsey> That’s exactly what i thought
<Domsey> So, my mom got up instantly when i woke up, smiled at me and said “U’re so much better than your dad is.” then she left the room
<bender> OMFG!!!
<bender> you didnt do that! TELL ME IT WASNT LIKE THAT!!! TELL ME YOU’RE A DUMBASS LIAR!!!
<Domsey> no, i’m not lying
<bender> OMG!!!
<Domsey> but it turned out she was playing a trick on me. Paycheck for coming home late, all drunk.
<bender> …
<bender> your mom’s such a freak. o.O

Society

I think it was Indira Gandhi who said that she has no faith in society. Or some other words to that effect. Pathetic an administrator and ruler as she was, this is one of the only two things she said or did that I approve of. The other was the Bangladesh War.

I have lost faith in society and it is going to take a long time for it to be repaired I think. The ideas and concepts that get embedded into a kid’s mind during the formative years end up staying there for the rest of his life. That is probably why parents love listening to those unbelievably shitty songs that they heard when they were teenagers. During my formative years, I saw some interesting things around me. And these have remained in my mind ever since.

Mrs Bindu was our biology teacher. A brilliant teacher, we all loved her (even the ‘rowdy’ gangs loved her). So we were shocked when we learnt that she had been in an accident. So the next day, all of us kids went to see her at her home where she was on bed rest. And was she happy to see us! And then she explained what had happened to her. The annual school fest was coming in a week and as one of the teachers who had learnt dance, she was in charge of the dances. Now, a sari being difficult to dance in, she had gone home during the break to change into a suit. On the way back, something happened and the shawl she was wearing got stuck in the wheel of her moped. Because it was made of some synthetic material, it didn’t rip apart. She didn’t realise it and pretty soon the whole thing got totally stuck and she was being strangled. She lost control of the moped and both fell into the middle of the street. Thankfully by that time the moped had switched off and she was not strangled to death.

And now here is the interesting part.

She was on the road, half strangled and with bruises all over. Soon a crowd of onlookers gathered (as usual) and what did they do? NOTHING! They just looked at the injured woman in front of her and started the usual babbling, “These women nowadays, why cant they wear normal saris instead of these new outlandish dresses.”, “Why cant these women walk to work” and shit like that.

Then thankfully a neighbour saw her and took her to the hospital.

I have seen society ruin reputations with nothing but some choice rumours. I have heard plenty of incidents about society’s indifference to accident victims bleeding to death right in front of them.

And now I am sick of it. I decided long back to not give a damn about the society that does not care for its own. Not that I wont help people who need them and all. But that I don’t care now what the society says or thinks. If they think my actions are weird and stupid, let them. Let them go on and comment about my tastes and ideas. Let them gossip.

Thats all they are good for.

Road Rash

When I drive on the road:

• I am always right.

• I can overtake anyone I want.

• No one can or should even think or consider thinking of attempting to overtake me.

• Every driver on the road (except yours truly) is an idiot, asshole and has his head stuck up his ass.

• They are dunces, drunkards, illiterates and probably haven't yet hit puberty.

• And they probably still confuse between the brake and the accelerator.

Look, I AM STUPID!!!

Recently, an editorial that appeared in the Marathi daily 'Loksatta' on the Maharashtra government’s decision to install a massive statue of Shivaji off the coast of Mumbai. Some people (read:the rulind party) did not quite like the tone of the editorial and assauled the house of the editor.

Read the article here.

Brilliant satirical editorial. Must read.

Instead of sitting quietly and disregarding the article, the ruling party have proved themselves incompetent by doing what they did. Maharashtra really is a politically screwed up state. On one hand, there is the Congress-NCP coalition and on the other hand, there is the Shiv Sena (our very Indian version of Al Qaida). Oops, considering the political situation in my own Gods own Country, I guess I should shut up.

How?

Just read the post titled ‘Farewells’ and it SUCKS.

How is it that I can write such crappy posts?