I’m a sucker for motivational posters. I have a whole folder of them on my phone, my Facebook feed is filled with inspirational messages, and I follow a bunch of inspirational tweeps on Twitter. Needless to say, I’ve found tons and tons of inspirational and fun posters over the year, and made a few myself. Here are my 20 absolute favorites.
Enjoy!Continue reading
Image courtesy: Jamie Oliver
1. I enjoy cooking! Not everyday cooking, but trying out new, interesting recipes that make people’s jaw drop in awe. 😉 This was a year when I tried some great new dishes, and all of them turned out really well. So well, in fact, that it can serve as an alternate career! From yummy pastas to baked fish and roast chicken, I served it all on the table with elan.
2. I’ve got no head for finances, or rather, for tracking investments. I’ve let things slide too long, though. Next year, I’m going to work on changing that for sure.Continue reading
2012 was a stellar year for me in terms of reading and all things book-related. I read over 60 books this year, across a variety of genres. I came across some brilliant writers, and some not so brilliant ones. I was approached by Random House India to participate in their book bloggers program, under which they send me books to read and review. And I joined a cool Twitter book-chat – TSBC.
So, what better way to kick-off this year-end wrap-up than by sharing with you my 10 favorite reads from the year? Without further ado, here they are!Continue reading
Yes, as usual, I am late to the party that is Olive. But, as they say, better late than never!
When mom decided to come to Delhi, I was all in a tizzy planning fun things to do with her over the weekend, on the days I could manage to take off from work, and in the evenings after office. One place that was at the top of my list was Olive.
So on a Friday afternoon, dressed to the nines, we hit the road and made our way there. And boy, were we in for a treat!
Olive is an Italian restaurant, part open part indoors. We chose to sit outside, under the shade of an ancient banyan tree on a cool winter afternoon. The seating is spread apart, so you have a bit of privacy at your table and room to let your eyes wander. From the huge banyan tree to the open kitchen to catching glimpses of the interior of the restaurant, from where a blue shelf was winking out at us.
British versions of the Harry Potter series (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’ve developed a love for fantasy fiction. It started with JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, which I read through college and into adulthood. After a long break from this genre, I returned to it with Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, which was recommended to me by a colleague in the US. (I don’t understand the hysteria around these novels – after reading the first book I wanted to gag, but they did seem to get better. Or maybe I knew what to expect.) Then came Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy (Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass), the brilliant and complex Fire & Ice series by George RR Martin and Joanne Harris’ novels based on Norse mythology (Runemarks and Ruinlight), and I was firmly hooked onto the genre.
A feat that Bartimaeus accomplishes within the first few chapters of the novel. And that earns him the retribution of Solomon, who orders the magician Khaba to summon and enslave him. At the same time, he tasks Khaba with constructing a marvellous temple with a workforce comprising of a bunch of demons, including Bartimaeus. But true to form, Bartimaeus manages to irk King Solomon yet again, getting Khaba kicked off the temple project and sent to the desert to hunt bandits.Jonathan Stroud’s version of Jerusalem is peopled with monstrous djinnis, marids and afrits, all of whom are enslaved to a magician and must carry out their every command. He’s taken stories about King Solomon from the Old Testament and given them a magical spin, with Bartimaeus cooking up trouble, cracking humorous wisecracks and causing mayhem wherever he goes. The story has some interesting twists and turns, with evil getting its due reward (or rather, punishment) in the end.
The principal character of the novel is Bartimaeus, and he is absolutely delightful! He’s got this wicked sense of humour
It’s Sunday afternoon. Armed with a cup of coffee, a pen and small notepad, and my iPad, I make my way to the sofa. It’s my favorite spot in the drawing room – perfectly positioned to allow me to soak up the sun in winters and directly in the path of a cross-breeze when I open the doors of the balconies in summers.
Image via CrunchBase
As I flop down on the couch, I fire up the Twitter app on my iPad and search for #TSBC. It is 3:00 pm. For the next one hour, I will be busy tweeting – replying to questions and people; retweeting and favourite-ing tweets that I like; laughing out loud at times; at others, making furious notes in a small notebook. At the end of that hour of Twitter interaction, I will come away with new thoughts and perspectives, as well as a list of interesting books or authors I knew nothing about.
Isn’t this book cover a beauty? Shared on the #TSBC chat on book covers by Random House India
See, #TSBC is the Sunday Book Club, a weekly chat that takes place on Twitter every Sunday at 3:00 pm IST where we talk all things, well, books. Topics have ranged from discussing movie adaptations of books, autobiographies, the works of Oscar Wilde, book covers, the Ramayana, banned books, and a fun discussion on what book…And, at the end of every chat, one lucky person stands to win a book*! I won First Day First Show by Anupama Chopra during one of the initial few chats on books and films. The question was “If your memoir were to be made into a film, what would you name it and who would you cast in it?” And my rather flippant answer was “The girl who tried to climb a mountain and walked down a hill. Starring Julia Roberts as me. :-P” Pretty cool, huh?
Started by three friends and book lovers Raghav, Neo and Sudha, the club is 11 weeks old. And participation (both from India and abroad) has grown by leaps and bounds. This really doesn’t come as a surprise because they have some well-thought-out questions on each topic, leading to healthy discussions among book lovers.
If you love books, this is one chat you wouldn’t want to miss! There are, however, a few Do’s and Don’ts.
Also, do follow The Sunday Book Club and the three founders and hosts Raghav, Meetneo and Sudha. You can also like their Facebook page.
And you’re set! Simple, ain’t it?
So what are you waiting for? Jump into the discussion every Sunday at 3:00 pm IST. See you then for a scintillating book chat!
Midnight’s Children (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Midnight’s Children tells the story of “Saleem Sinai, later variously called Snotnose, Stainface, Baldy, Buddha and even Piece-of-the-Moon,” who was born on 15 August 1947 at the stroke of midnight – at the same hour that India won her independence. It is a story that first chronicles 32 years of his grandparents’ and parents’ lives, before focusing on Saleem’s life in Bombay, Pakistan and Bengal. It is also a novel about India; tracing her journey from the heights of independence (infancy) to her ordinary adulthood, culminating with Indira Gandhi’s Emergency rule.
But this bland description doesn’t do justice to Rushdie’s sweeping novel. It says nothing about his magical prose, about the explosion of colors and smells and sights and sounds. So let me tell you a little more about Snotnose.
Born at midnight, at the precise moment of India’s independence, Saleem was “mysteriously handcuffed to history…thanks to the occult tyrannies of those blandly saluting clocks.” His birth was celebrated with fireworks. His picture was printed in the newspaper. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru sent him a letter saying “We shall be watching over your life with the closest attention; it will be, in a sense, the mirror of our own.” He grew up with a sense of his own importance. He grew up wondering about his purpose. And in his quest for a quiet place in which to think, he found himself retreating to his mother’s laundry hamper. Where one day he discovered his gift for telepathy. From the age of nine, he could enter into other lives at will. And finally, he found all the other magically gifted midnight children scattered across India. At the age of 10 he set up a Midnight’s Children Conference, where he hoped the children could come together to discuss the fate of the nation. But like all 10-year olds, they were overtaken by petty squabbles and dissonance.
As you read Saleem’s story, the “chutnification of history” and “the pickling of time”, you can see parallels with India. Allegorical though they may be, some of them are only hinted at, but they are there. The signs of the potential that India could achieve at birth, the quest for purpose, the slow, inevitable decline to mediocrity. Of course, a lot of events take place because of Saleem. After all, the reason for the Indo-Pakistan war was the annihilation of the Sinnai family!
What more can I say about Stainface? He’s pompous, arrogant, self-centered, grandiose, and somehow loveable. As the narrator of this audacious novel he is absolutely brilliant. He jumps around from one time period to another. When he makes his tall claims, his companion Padma tries to ground him to reality, but of course, he refuses to be so grounded.
In this sweeping canvas of a story, Rushdie brings in the details of a miniaturist. The places and times are captured down to the last detail. Like the Pioneer Café, where Saleem’s mother meets her first husband Nadir Khan.
“…with filmi playback music blaring out from the cheap radio by the cash till, a long narrow greeny room lit by flickering neon, a forbidding world in which broken-toothed men sat at reccine-covered tables with crumpled cards and expressionless eyes.”
The characters, even the minor bit players, are finely detailed. No player, or event, has been tacked on as an afterthought just because an “India novel” would be incomplete without it. There is a lot of history, even though the timelines may not always be right, because Saleem admits that “Memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events…”
In the hands of an inept writer, it would have been an impossible book to read. But Rushdie’s fine art of storytelling turns it into a rich and magical tapestry. Saleem (and through him, since this is magic realism, India) “have begun to crack all over like an old jug–that my poor body, singular, unlovely, buffeted by too much history, subjected to drainage above and drainage below, mutilated by doors, brained by spittoons, has started coming apart at the seams. In short, I am literally disintegrating, slowly for the moment, although there are signs of an acceleration.”
But it does end on a note of hope. Although Saleem, who holds the dream of India within himself, believes he will “eventually crumble into (approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily, oblivious dust” as national unity seems like an unachievable dream, he does leave the reader with a sliver of hope. His son Adam, gifted with “elephant ears”, is also inexorably tied to India. In him lies the future of the nation. And who knows what feats he might achieve.
Having read the book, I am now all the more eager to watch the movie, which is slated to release in December 2012. Since Rushdie has been closely involved in the movie making process, I have high hopes from it! Overall, I think this is an excellent book, and I highly, highly recommend it.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of cooking these days, shocking, I know! I guess it’s a sign of growing old or something, but I’m enjoying it. I still refuse to cook regular Indian meals – the thought of that continues to make me want to cry. There’s too many different things to be made, and it’s all just too boring. Besides, I’m not terribly fond of Indian food despite having grown up on it. I’d rather try new flavors and new cuisines – sailing onwards on uncharted territories!
Now that the dramatics are out of the way – let me tell you what’s been bubbling away in the kitchen. A lot of interesting pastas (none with white sauce though, I never did like those much), a couple of chicken dishes (including a chicken curry, which for me is exotic since it’s a traditional Muslim recipe and yummy), a few rice-based delicacies and some baking (which for a change has been turning out right!).
I used to bake as a kid, back when mommy was around to supervise and check that the temperature was right and the timing perfect. Left to my own devices,, my cakes have typically burnt on the top, sunk in the middle and crumbled to the touch, leaving me in a flood of tears! But I’ve had two wins now, and since I’m still a little surprised about just how well they have turned out, I will share with you a super simple 3 ingredient Nutella cupcake recipe. If I can do this to perfection, anyone can!
So, without further ado, here we go:
Simple, 3 ingredient Nutella cupcake recipe
Ingredients:
1 small bottle of Nutella
1 large egg
5 tbsp maida (all-purpose flour)
Method:
1) Heat the oven to 150 degrees C. Line a 12-cup mini muffin pan with paper or foil liners.
2) Whisk Nutella and egg in a bowl until smooth and well blended. Add flour and continue to whisk until blended.
3) Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins (about 3/4 full).
4) Bake until a pick comes out with wet, gooey crumbs, about 16 minutes. Set on a rack to cool completely.
They’ll keep for up to 3 days at room temperature – if they last that long!
Notes:
1) Microwave the Nutella for a minute; it will make it flowy and easier to mix.
2) I baked mine in a star shaped silicone muffin pan; no need to grease.
3) Push out the cupcakes after about 30 mins, else they’ll come out 3-4 tiny pieces – not good!
Enjoy!
Got any Nutella recipes of your own? Do share in the comments!
The festival of lights is here! It’s my favorite – a day when the house is adorned with flowers, colorful rangolis decorate the entrance, diyas are lit all over. A day for family and loved ones. A night of twinkling lights, of visiting friends and neighbors and relatives, and yes, of those infuriating fireworks that go on until all hours of the night!
I typically spend the first half of the day making a rangoli outside the door with flower petals, while the husband hangs garlands of marigold and Ashoka leaves at the entrance, in the balcony and on some of the doors. After relaxing in the afternoon, it’s time for pooja (prayers) in the evening, then we spend a quiet evening listening to music, drinking wine, talking. Bliss!
This year, my mother will be in town for Diwali, so we’ll go over to a cousin’s house after the pooja. That should be fun!
The window display at The Wishing Chair, Shahpur Jat, New Delhi
Here’s wishing all of you a very, very happy and prosperous Diwali. Be safe. Be happy!
If you’d like some more information on the festival of Diwali, take a look at these articles:
It’s the festival of lights! (An older post that gives some details on Diwali)
Light that lamp (A brief look at how and why Diwali is celebrated by different religions, from thehindu.com)
From the back cover: Moving from the elegant living rooms of Lahore to the mud villages of rural Multan, a powerful collection of short stories about feudal Pakistan.
This 247 page volume has eight loosely connected short stories, all related to the family and household staff of the aging landowner KK Harouni. There’s Nawabdin electrician, whose most prized possession is his bike, which he fights to protect from a bandit; and Jaglani, Harouni’s estate manager, who fleeces him while selling his land and gains power and prestige in the village of Multan. There’s Saleema, a servant girl who uses sex as a tool to advance herself through life and Hassan, Harouni’s cook, who has stashed away a significant amount of money by padding the kitchen bills, whose son is now in jail on the charge of having murdered his sister-in-law, a crime that he has not committed. Through the stories of these four characters Daniyal paints a picture of the servants of rich feudal landowners.
For a glimpse into the lives of the landowner and the high society of Pakistan we have Husna, one of Harouni’s poor relatives, who in her mad desire to lift her station in life becomes his mistress in his old age, only to be discarded like garbage by his children after his death. Then there’s Sohail, Harouni’s son, who is in love with an American girl. The relationship goes sour after his parents meet them in Paris, and his mother convinces Helen that by marrying Sohail, she would be setting them both up for sorrow. The depravity of high-society is portrayed through Lily, a bored, rich Pakistani girl, who flits from party to party, drinking, doing drugs and having casual sex, wanting to transform her life, become pure. A chance that she gets with Murad, who runs a farm growing exotic vegetables. They marry, but she can’t take life on the farm, and painfully, within a few months, realizes that she can perhaps never change. And through Razak, who has been hired by Sohail and his American wife Sonya to tend the orchards, we learn of the absolute power of the rich and the abject helplessness of the weak and poor.
The book creates quite a vivid picture of Pakistan. Despite the relatively short length of the stories, the various characters are quite detailed, and you get a good feel for feudal Pakistan. The writing is fluid, and I love the way the book ends – I’m not going to type out the entire paragraph here, just a few lines from various places in that paragraph to give you a sense of what I mean.
“At first the cabin sat inviolate below the swimming pool, locked….Gradually, like falling leaves, the locks were broken off, one person taking the thermos, another the wood table…The door of the little cabin hung open, the wind and blown rain scouring it clean.”
This was a fitting end for that particular short story, but if you think about it, it’s a fitting end for the entire tableau that Daniyal created; indeed, even for life. After all, at the end, all our prized possessions are slowly carted away or discarded, our homes stripped of the character that it once imbibed.
As an Indian, this was a fascinating read about a neighboring country that I don’t know all that much about and probably never will.