Friday, January 8, 2010
I finally did get around to making that honey-mustard chicken. I must confess though that the first attempt wasn't wholly successful. The paste of honey-mustard and other assorted spices didn't permeate inside the chicken breasts. So when I fried them (shallow-fry), the end result turned out to be dry and a little short of taste - despite marinating the chicken for a good 4-5 hours.
So I improvised. I cut each chicken breast in 3-4 pieces and cut slits across each piece with a knife. Then I applied the honey-mustard spice paste and left it for about 7-8 hours.
And it worked this time :-)
So I improvised. I cut each chicken breast in 3-4 pieces and cut slits across each piece with a knife. Then I applied the honey-mustard spice paste and left it for about 7-8 hours.
And it worked this time :-)
I am so glad the new season for "Boston Legal" has started. (Star World, Mon-Thurs, 10pm). If you can tolerate some of the bizarre characters and weird cases, the episodes are pure fun to watch. What sets them apart is that they also give you food for thought.
Take for example yesterday's case of a teenager's right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. And the question it left me with: am I pro-life or not? I have written about this in the past. I am not pro-life when it comes to terminating pregnancies that arise out of rape, when the life of a mother is in jeopardy or when the unborn child is diagnosed with physical and/or mental problems. Better to kill the child in the womb than leave him/her in an orphanage or on a garbage dump. In a country like India, I don't know which is worse. :-(
Of course, preference for a male child seems to be a national obsession in India. And that gives a sinister angle to the whole issue of termination of unwanted pregnancies.
It was just last week that I was out for my evening walk and saw a family of 6 - parents with 4 daughters in tow. Needless to say, the mother was carrying their 5th child in her arms. For her sake, I hoped it was a boy :-(
Take for example yesterday's case of a teenager's right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. And the question it left me with: am I pro-life or not? I have written about this in the past. I am not pro-life when it comes to terminating pregnancies that arise out of rape, when the life of a mother is in jeopardy or when the unborn child is diagnosed with physical and/or mental problems. Better to kill the child in the womb than leave him/her in an orphanage or on a garbage dump. In a country like India, I don't know which is worse. :-(
Of course, preference for a male child seems to be a national obsession in India. And that gives a sinister angle to the whole issue of termination of unwanted pregnancies.
It was just last week that I was out for my evening walk and saw a family of 6 - parents with 4 daughters in tow. Needless to say, the mother was carrying their 5th child in her arms. For her sake, I hoped it was a boy :-(
If you think Bollywood has movies with impossible plots, think again. Real life sometimes can be stranger than reel life. Here's your proof.
This love story has such an unbelievable beginning that for a moment I wondered if it is a marketing gimmick for a new Bollywood potboiler. And the end is so tragic, it will surely break your heart :-(
This love story has such an unbelievable beginning that for a moment I wondered if it is a marketing gimmick for a new Bollywood potboiler. And the end is so tragic, it will surely break your heart :-(
Thursday, January 7, 2010
God! Am I seeing things? Or have Bangladesh really set up a target of 297 for India? I think now is the good time for God to come to Earth. And he needs to bat from both ends of the wicket. Because going by India's record of chasing a big target, He could be the only one standing at the crease on one side. :-)
The hotshot lawyer in Robin Sharma's "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" had said that it takes about 3 weeks to install any habit. I am getting a first-hand experience of how difficult it is to stick around for even 3 days. :-(
For the past few days, I have been trying to make it a habit to say a silent prayer for all those who are directly/indirectly responsible for putting food on my plate. But I have not been able to be consistent. I might remember it during Dinner but more often than not forget it at lunch. Oh, and if you are wondering what happened to the most-important-meal-of-the-day, The Breakfast, then let me remind you that Mumbaikars (those staying in Mumbai) haven't been granted this luxury by life :-(
So, if you are reading this blog, please wish me luck :-)
For the past few days, I have been trying to make it a habit to say a silent prayer for all those who are directly/indirectly responsible for putting food on my plate. But I have not been able to be consistent. I might remember it during Dinner but more often than not forget it at lunch. Oh, and if you are wondering what happened to the most-important-meal-of-the-day, The Breakfast, then let me remind you that Mumbaikars (those staying in Mumbai) haven't been granted this luxury by life :-(
So, if you are reading this blog, please wish me luck :-)
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Read the following and tell me how you interpreted it:
French and British embassies reopen in Yemen after al-Qaida threats (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/default1.cms)
As for me, I did a double take because I thought threats by al-Qaida forced these embassies to get back to business :-)
French and British embassies reopen in Yemen after al-Qaida threats (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/default1.cms)
As for me, I did a double take because I thought threats by al-Qaida forced these embassies to get back to business :-)
Let those who claim to be able to interpret any dream figure this one out. Last night I argued with Vivaik Oberoi in my dreams :-) Now I neither read anything about him nor watched any of his movies before going to bed. For that matter, he is not even my favorite Bollywood actor.
Now, if it were only John Abraham that I had seen in my dream, I wouldn't have needed any help from these dream-interpreters ;-)
Now, if it were only John Abraham that I had seen in my dream, I wouldn't have needed any help from these dream-interpreters ;-)
It fairly churned my stomach to read about the suicide of 3 kids in a single day in Mumbai - the youngest of them merely 12 years old. :-( Who is to be blamed?
Our education system that is skewed heavily towards learning by rote rather than focus on a holistic development of a child?
Our schools for not providing good counseling?
Or parents who often have unrealistic expectations from their kids but are not around to lend a sympathetic ear?
Our education system that is skewed heavily towards learning by rote rather than focus on a holistic development of a child?
Our schools for not providing good counseling?
Or parents who often have unrealistic expectations from their kids but are not around to lend a sympathetic ear?
Looks like the scientists have now stumbled across something which we women have known all along :-) Check out http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life/health-fitness/health/Hubby-baby-Weight-gain-for-women/articleshow/5415885.cms
Monday, January 4, 2010
Few days ago, I referred to one of the projects I am handling as 'our company's Vietnam'. I, however, didn't know about the culinary delights that the country has to offer to the visitors. I guess I should thank Anthony Bourdain for it. It was fun to watch the Vietnam episode of his show "Anthony Bourdain - No Reservations" on the Discovery Travel and Living channel over the weekend. The food looked mouth-watering though I found some bits - like a dish cooked in pig's blood - unsavory. :-(
If you are a foodie and want to know more about what's on plate in countries around the world , then this channel is for you. I have been an addict since a long time :-)
If you are a foodie and want to know more about what's on plate in countries around the world , then this channel is for you. I have been an addict since a long time :-)
It was tough getting back to work after a long weekend :-( And the load does seem heavier on a Monday morning, isn't it? :-) But I am trying to cope. Just today morning I caught myself complaining "Boy! The week hasn't even begun and I already feel drained" and then quickly changed it to "I am not tired and I will get through the day". Surprised? Well, I am reading Robin Sharma's "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" these days. :-) More on it when I finish it.
Dreams From My Father – Barack Obama
I finished reading this book on 1st January. As I progressed through it I had posted my thoughts and opinions on this blog. But I will try to summarize them here anyways.
I had picked up this book with some skepticism as I distrust politicians as a rule. True, Mr. Obama had penned it down before he became the resident of the White house. That kind of precludes the possibility that it could have been written by a ghost writer. So either he is a very sincere guy as can be seen from these pages or is very skilled at portraying a favorable image. As a jury, I am still out on this one.
Whatever the case, this is an interesting book about the origins of someone who went on to become the first colored US president. Let’s leave aside the “colored” and “president” part of it aside for a while. Even then it is an interesting journey of one man’s search for his roots. I must admit that coming from a country where husband and wife stay together almost “till death do us part”, I found it a bit difficult to digest that the author doesn’t have a single sibling who shares the same biological parents as him. After a while, I couldn’t keep track of which parent a particular sibling came from. If I place myself in the author’s shoes, I would have been completely bewildered and would have promptly dropped the whole idea of finding out who my extended family was.
Come to think of it, neither I nor my brother has taken particular pains to know our ancestors – either on maternal or paternal sides. We of course know our grandparents and have heard tidbits about great-grandparents from our parents. But our knowledge doesn’t go beyond that and we have never tried to find out more. We kind of took it for granted that we carry some good things and some bad things from these ancestors gone long before we came to this world. And as long as we knew that we were okay. But as I was reading this book, I wondered if it would have been a good idea for us to find out if anyone knew about the family tree beyond these branches. Now with 3 out of 4 grandparents gone, I don’t see much of a chance of doing that.
I have stayed in the US for a while. Most of the times I have seen ordinary Americans – what we call the Middle Class in India – and sometimes the more affluent side of them. But I have never truly seen what the author refers to as the South Side. Though I wasn’t particularly ignorant of their status, the sorry state of affairs of a few years ago that the author describes did come as a shock. I don’t know how much things have improved since then. In a way, I could relate their neglect to that of a major chunk of population that still resides in the Indian villages. That’s the reason someone referred to the people in Indian metros as “India” and the rural population as “Bharat”.
I hadn’t gone to the US with any particular bias against the colored people. But I remember one incident very clearly. Barely 3 months after I went there, I had been to the Atlantic City with my friends. None of us much cared for casinos so all of us were sitting somewhere on the boardwalk. Out of nowhere, came a group of teenage colored people and started dancing in front of us. I am still not sure whether they were making fun of us or were having fun themselves. I do remember, however, that I was shocked out of my skin at this – the word “Mugging” uppermost in my mind. :-(
It is so good to see that the author didn’t suffer much inferiority complex at the color of his skin - beyond the 1st incident in the library where he read about some colored people who went to great pains to change theirs. Growing up with a dusky skin in a country where “Fairness” is a natural obsession, it hadn’t been easy for me in the childhood. I haven’t still forgiven those girls in my school who acted superior because they were all fair-skinned. :-(
Two things struck me as he wrote about his ancestors after visiting his native place. One, that the names of the ladies who bore children that made up the clan were long since forgotten. The patriarchal society of India has achieved exactly that over the years. And second, the plight of the African women on the matrimonial front is only a shade worse than the lot of most of the women in India. :-(
So all said and done, I am glad that I read this book – if only to get a glimpse into the earlier life of the man who now runs the US of A. But I wonder if he will be able to bring about the same kind of change that he did by working tirelessly at the grassroots level all those years back. And I sure hope that what they say about “absolute power corrupting absolutely” doesn’t apply to Barack Obama.
I had picked up this book with some skepticism as I distrust politicians as a rule. True, Mr. Obama had penned it down before he became the resident of the White house. That kind of precludes the possibility that it could have been written by a ghost writer. So either he is a very sincere guy as can be seen from these pages or is very skilled at portraying a favorable image. As a jury, I am still out on this one.
Whatever the case, this is an interesting book about the origins of someone who went on to become the first colored US president. Let’s leave aside the “colored” and “president” part of it aside for a while. Even then it is an interesting journey of one man’s search for his roots. I must admit that coming from a country where husband and wife stay together almost “till death do us part”, I found it a bit difficult to digest that the author doesn’t have a single sibling who shares the same biological parents as him. After a while, I couldn’t keep track of which parent a particular sibling came from. If I place myself in the author’s shoes, I would have been completely bewildered and would have promptly dropped the whole idea of finding out who my extended family was.
Come to think of it, neither I nor my brother has taken particular pains to know our ancestors – either on maternal or paternal sides. We of course know our grandparents and have heard tidbits about great-grandparents from our parents. But our knowledge doesn’t go beyond that and we have never tried to find out more. We kind of took it for granted that we carry some good things and some bad things from these ancestors gone long before we came to this world. And as long as we knew that we were okay. But as I was reading this book, I wondered if it would have been a good idea for us to find out if anyone knew about the family tree beyond these branches. Now with 3 out of 4 grandparents gone, I don’t see much of a chance of doing that.
I have stayed in the US for a while. Most of the times I have seen ordinary Americans – what we call the Middle Class in India – and sometimes the more affluent side of them. But I have never truly seen what the author refers to as the South Side. Though I wasn’t particularly ignorant of their status, the sorry state of affairs of a few years ago that the author describes did come as a shock. I don’t know how much things have improved since then. In a way, I could relate their neglect to that of a major chunk of population that still resides in the Indian villages. That’s the reason someone referred to the people in Indian metros as “India” and the rural population as “Bharat”.
I hadn’t gone to the US with any particular bias against the colored people. But I remember one incident very clearly. Barely 3 months after I went there, I had been to the Atlantic City with my friends. None of us much cared for casinos so all of us were sitting somewhere on the boardwalk. Out of nowhere, came a group of teenage colored people and started dancing in front of us. I am still not sure whether they were making fun of us or were having fun themselves. I do remember, however, that I was shocked out of my skin at this – the word “Mugging” uppermost in my mind. :-(
It is so good to see that the author didn’t suffer much inferiority complex at the color of his skin - beyond the 1st incident in the library where he read about some colored people who went to great pains to change theirs. Growing up with a dusky skin in a country where “Fairness” is a natural obsession, it hadn’t been easy for me in the childhood. I haven’t still forgiven those girls in my school who acted superior because they were all fair-skinned. :-(
Two things struck me as he wrote about his ancestors after visiting his native place. One, that the names of the ladies who bore children that made up the clan were long since forgotten. The patriarchal society of India has achieved exactly that over the years. And second, the plight of the African women on the matrimonial front is only a shade worse than the lot of most of the women in India. :-(
So all said and done, I am glad that I read this book – if only to get a glimpse into the earlier life of the man who now runs the US of A. But I wonder if he will be able to bring about the same kind of change that he did by working tirelessly at the grassroots level all those years back. And I sure hope that what they say about “absolute power corrupting absolutely” doesn’t apply to Barack Obama.
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