My Soup

I had a week long bachelorhood recently(wifey at native basically :)) and the cook in me woke up one fine day. The result is a simple and yummy hot and sour soup.
After I prepared it, I felt soo happy .. primarily because of the appearance .. it came very identical to what you would see in a hotel. Though the pics didn't come that well, it was really good. The fault was due to lack of charged batteries because of which I had to turn off flash and hurriedly click some pics randomly.
And this is how I prepared it:
Ingredients:
1 600ml Pepsi .. yeah .. read it till the end
1 Spoon Pepper
and last but not the least, 1 Maggi Hot and Sour ready to mix packet :D
Ok .. now that the suspense is revealed, don't stop reading. There's a little more.
Empty the pepsi bottle and fill water in it(that's what is written on the Instructions behind the packet .. 600ml water). Heat it in a bowl for a minute. Now empty the maggi packet and pour it in the boiling water. You have to keep stirring while you pour it so as to avoid any ball formations. Boil this for another four more minutes. Don't forget to stir okay. Finally add pepper.
And the soup is ready :)
If you are proud like me of the outcome, good. But **do not** have all of it in one go. Else, you may end up with a slight stomach upset(like me :( ).

Bumika's Interview

This was a pretty old(a couple of months old) interview with Bhumika Chawla that came on TV. She's one of my favorite heroine's. I liked the interview a lot the very first time itself and then I forgot about it. Thanks to my colleague who shared with me an incident of hers which reminded me of this interview again.
I desperately wanted her to see this and searched with a very less hope of finding it on the Internet. Thanks to Youtube and whoever posted it, to my surprise, I found it instantly. I shared it with her, saw this again myself and thought of Buzz-ing it. However, I felt that this video deserves a post in my blog than just a buzz.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VY0JsKWhME
Enjoy till the end.
Most of it is in English ... so all non-Telugu's, don't miss it.

Tagore

At times, many a things that happen around me frustrate me a lot. Some can be changed and I try a lot for that. Some cannot be changed because I don't have the power to do them or they have gone so worse that they cannot be changed at all. In these instances, I only think of the following lines written by Rabindranath Tagore:

Where the mind is without fear and the head held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Give

Just thought of sharing some useful information that I've found recently:

www.goonj.org/
Goonj collects your old clothes and distributes it to the needy. So, any old, unused and usable clothes piled up at your home?? this is the place.

team-samvedana.org/
Have a social corner and not knowing what to do? This team acts as a bridge between the needy and the willing.

Do share it with your friends.

Is this real development?

During the last month, I had 2 very different experiences which throw light on how ineffective the Government policies are. The subject may not be new to you, but my experiences definitely are. Read on to know more :)
I visited State Bank Of India, Moti Nagar, to open a new savings account. I had to spend almost 4 hours to do the same. I don't blame any inefficiency of the bank here .. it was just that there are a lot of customers in queue and little staff :)
The rule was this: one should maintain 1200/- minimum balance in the account at all times; initial payment while opening the account would be 5000/- and you will get a cheque book, atm card etc in an add-on kit. The 5000 that is paid will be deposited as it is in your account and later u can choose to withdraw that, subject to the minimum balance requirement.
One person in queue started arguing with the bank executive that he is not interested in having all the add-ons and would want his account to be opened with just the 1200. I was surprised initially. He could have paid 5000Rs, taken all the add-ons and the very next day, he could have withdrawn 3800. Out of gr8 curiosity I've asked him why couldn't he do that. To which he replied, "Sir, I am an assistant at the church situated down the street. I work hard each day to make my bread. If I really had 5000/- with me I would have certainly done that." I felt very stupid for having asked him that question. In no corner of my mind, I had this thought that he wouldn't be having this required amount. I felt very sorry for him.
Coming to the second experience. A month back Zana and I had visited her uncle's house. After chatting for a while we got to know that next day they are supposed to visit their maid's son's wedding. The maid politely came and asked if Zana and I can also make it for the wedding. I was later shocked when I heard the maid asking uncle "ayya, i am planning to purchase your ac if you wish to sell it for a lesser price." Yes .. u read it perfectly. The maid wants to have an ac for her home. Well, nothing wrong in it. A little more digging about the maid revealed that she owns 3 houses and a shopping complex as on date .. thanks to the YSR's popular Indiramma's housing scheme in which houses are given all for free to the poor.
On a closer relook at both the incidents, I thought why is she still working as a maid even after acquiring so much of property? Why the hard working person at the church couldn't maintain more than 5K balance. There is a Government actively working on upliftment of the poor. So why this difference?
As far as the maid is concerned on why she is still a maid, the optimist in me answered -- dignity of labor :) .. however that's not ture .. the reason is she chose to be a maid for her life. You give her another 3 more houses, she continues to be a maid. There will be no upliftment in her style of living. Announcing a huge list of freebies by any political party is just going to get them a few more votes and probably power, but it will not change any single life. Similarly free reservations, free power, free color tv's etc. etc. will never improve anything. Provide reservations for those worthy candidates who can make a difference. Provide free power to that farmer who did some innovative stuff to save crops. Provide a free color tv for that active women in a dwacra group. A BRAVO is meant to award and encourage an outstanding performer. But if a BRAVO is announced for each and every one, what significance does it have? What difference does it make? What is going to change?

Be happy

You might have heard many a times from all sorts of Swami's and Guru's about speeches on how to be happy etc. etc. Yet, I would like to go ahead and present my own cents on the same.

To begin with, what prompted me to write this post is the movie that I've recently watched "The Hurt Locker." In the closing scene, the hero speaks to his toddler who's playing with his toy:
You love playing with that. You love playing with all your stuffed animals. You love your Mommy, your Daddy. You love your pajamas. You love everything, don't ya? Yea. But you know what, buddy? As you get older... some of the things you love might not seem so special anymore. Like your Jack-in-the-Box. Maybe you'll realize it's just a piece of tin and a stuffed animal. And then you forget the few things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it's only one or two things. With me, I think it's one.
I personally feel this is the cause of most of the worries in life. We hate more than we love. We keep thinking of what we lack than realize what we have. We stop loving things... those small things which caused immense pleasure previously. That's nothing for us now.
Like someone said, life is comprised of a) what happens to us and this is just 10% and b) how we react to it and that's the rest 90%. So, most of it is in our hands. Only a very small % isn't in our control. So, leave it. Concentrate on the major chunk which is in our control. Let go of your Manager's/Peer's ego on you. Let go of the tiniest of the hike that you've got. Let go of the missed promotion. Let go of the silly fights between friends. Let go of any unnecessary criticism that you've faced. Let go of anything that hasn't worked properly in your day. Just FORGET. Think of what's better that has happened. Enjoy it. Enjoy and savor even the simplest of the simple things. If something hasn't gone well and it's your fault, accept it and try to rectify it. If it's not, just forget. You know what you are.
At the end, I would like to say that whether a day has worked for you or not, whether you've cried or you've laughed, whether you are happy or not is truly under your control. There is none to be blamed except you. Remember .. 90% is in your control. :-)

If I were Sonia Gandhi

As described in one of my previous post, I like Sonia's style of leadership(I am striking this out after looking at all that's going on with Congress Govt.). Recently, I saw an interview of hers on NDTV with Barkha Dutt. The usually media-shy Maa of Congress has after a long time spared a few minutes and it has been aired for like 5 times in a span of 1 hour. Getting this interview is an achievement, i should say. I can also recall that even Karan Thapar strived hard for an interview from her, but she always denied. Being a fan of hers, I would obviously say that the interview was awesome .. to the point and straightforward(it actually was :) )

While watching the interview, i started thinking ... if I were Sonia Gandhi, what would be my top agenda for the country. I thought of the following stuff and please note that this is only a personal opinion and not intended to hurt anyone:
1. Strengthen the judicial system of the country ... the courts and the police. With so many pending cases and delayed justice, things have gone so bad that one may feel -- committing a crime is not a big crime at all.
2. Ban all the reservations ... entry into anything and everything should only be based on merit and not based on caste/creed/gender. However, in order to encourage the deprived, which is very essential, there are other means such as giving incentives in the form of scholarships etc.
3. Tackle the biggest demon of the country .. corruption with even greater force. Getting information from Swiss banks would never happen. Neither would the UID project yield better results. All the babus have to be thoroughly interrogated and brought to justice .. of course the government would collapse immediately, but however, it would win the people's hearts and can come to power again(inspired by a telugu movie "leader").
As always, I wait to listen to your views :)

Paa -- Haha

Last night, this movie is telecasted on Star Plus and then I remembered that I wanted to write a post when I had first seen it in the theater. But since I was busy then, it skipped my mind. Better late than never .. I'm finishing it now :)
Weeks before the release, I saw the ads and got very impressed on the thought of making such a film and waited to see it along with my Paa. Finally I did, and on the first day of the release itself. There I was at Big cinemas holding my Paa's hand like a kid and going into the theater.
The very first scene where Auro wins an award for the white globe and Abhi explaining what the white globe intended .. it was just ammaazing. I really felt after that, why should we be having these boundaries which separate ppl.. separate continent, country, state and now separate Telangana :)
A part of the movie revolves around a young and dynamic politician trying to change the fate of this country -- my fav subject. And Vidya Balan, my fav actress(after Kajol though) did perform very well.
After an hour or so, I saw that the exit doors being opened. I liked the movie soo much that I felt, "has the movie come to an end already?" Thanks to the frame showing the interval notice, i felt relaxed and thought .. "ah .. i can enjoy this for an hour more" Sounds extremely funny .. but yes, i really liked the movie to the core.
The only thing that I really wondered was why the name Paa? Is it done for publicity as the real roles of the B's have got exchanged with this movie? The story is actually about Auro more than Abhishek. So, I felt it would have been named better :)
I would go with a 4.5 out of 5 for this masterpiece (Masand's shtyle :) )

The mismatch'd guy

This time while going home for pongal, I came across a person who is very weird. I would name him a TERRIBLE MISMATCH. This person was(unfortunately) sitting close to me in the train making my journey miserable.
At the very first look, I've almost identified that he is a krackjack with his very unusual combination of a puma track, one junglee t-shirt(i'm hundred percent sure, he would have bought it in some local market in koti) and a reebok shoe.
This hero has just returned from the US and wanted to show his US-ish style to all the unfortunate folks in the train.
An angry "Khooollll dyoooode.. chillaax"(as if he was cool by himself) was the first expression that I've heard of his. This is another mismatch, angry and chillax :) . This was when he filled up almost 3/4ths of the empty space with his 3 big suitcases and another guy was trying to pull out one of his big bags to fit his in.
After the luggage issue is settled, he bored his fellow passengers to death by uttering his supposedly unique(he feels so) US stories. :) From the day 1 of his jet lag to the last day(that's when he boarded a flight in business class), he kept on telling his stuff to everyone.
A young girl(to her bad fate) showed him her iTouch and said, "uncle see this, you can scroll, zoom soo smoothly on this." That's the end of her life. He immediately took out his iPhone and shows her that this is a much superior device than iTouch. The girl wondered why was it switched off. The kanjoos s**la replies "i've actually have roaming enabled on this. so, if I power it up and I get some calls, i would be charged." But he didnt stop there. He turned on his flight mode to avoid any incoming calls and kept on showing the unlimited number of games downloaded on his iPhone. The girl with a bitter face asked him politely "can i also download these on my device?", to which I thought "Oh dear.. you made a big blunder by asking him this."
"See actually these are all downloaded for 2-5$ each, that is 100-250Rs. per game. These are the ones which are better than the freely available ones. To download you should also pay the money and install them on your device" is what he said. Actually I've missed out his lengthy installation instructions to not bore you'll :))
Suddenly, he gets a call(not in his iPhone. hero maintained 2 phones) from his father who is supposed to receive him at vizag. The mismatch wanted to tell that he is in coach B1. But since his father couldn't get that "B" properly, he repeated "Dad it's B .. B .. B for ahhhh" he started thinking. I thought in my mind "abbe, if you dont tell B for Bombay, you will be murdered." To my disappointment he said "ahh yeah.. it's B for Boston." No, B for your blood... i thought.
All his night was with his laptop watching some English(obviously) movie. I wish he could have his headphones on.
Though I had a miserable journey through out the night, I was lucky enough to not see him again in the station the next morning when I left. That was a happy start for my Pongal, i felt :) and as expected, this time I had a very happy pongal :)