frust

the thing with life is - it is fucked .
Even before we are born our destinies are defined or so many say.
when we die our soul rises and gets stuck in the ceiling.
when we are alive and living we are trying to figure out why are we alive and living .
then again may be it is just the frustration of sitting in the office on a saturday evening .

Maggi Chopsee

I have decided to put up the recipes I invent in this bachelorhood phase of my life.Try it and leave a comment .
Suklam bharadaram...
Maggi chopsee:
Ingredients:-
1 or 2 topramen curry packets . (or anyother instant noodles of your choice)
Tomatoes (2 tomatoes for 1 noodles packet)
Onion (1 per packet but left to cook .More will do but less won't taste good)
Oil (little, to fry the onion)
Haldi(optional)
Cheese(optional)
Method:
For Sause:
Make a puree out of the tomato (now-a-days you are getting this also in the market, but I think it is costly and that it has harmful chemicals in it).
To make a puree one should put the tomatoes in water ,heat it until the peel comes off . Then take the tomatoes out (with a spoon ,else you will burn your fingers.These are little things that bachelors should note), but preserve the water for further use. Mash the tomatoes nicely .You can remove the seed by the process of sedimentation since tomato seeds can cause kidney stones.Keep this puree aside.
Take a kadai i.e pan and heat some oil in it .While it is getting hot you may dice the onion.Put some haldi and "tadka material" into the oil. Add the onions. Fry till it is brown or until you have patience.
Then put the puree in it . Add some water and let it simmer for a while ,then add the taste maker which is provided with the instant noodles.You can add little sugar also.Add some more water if required . Let is simmer until the mixture forms a thick paste sort of thing.
For noodles:
Boil the noodles in water if you want soft noodles.For this you can reuse the water used for boiling the tomatoes .Reusing is one thing a cook should always keep in mind.Nothing is waste.Grate cheese over it . Then we need to melt the cheese so that it spreads over the noodles . You can use the microwave oven for this. OR Put the noodles + cheese combo in a cooker along with some water. Cover the cooker and put the weight on . The steam will melt the cheese .

Now take the noodles + cheese combo and the sause . Pour the sause over the noodles+ cheese combo. That's all:-" Suvayana(tasty) maggi chopsee ready . Pasanga idha romba virumbi sapduvanga"

Little Tricks

Little children are to their respective parents what pets are to their masters.
As I sit on the stone seats in the DRDO canteen I see so many children, accompanied by their parents, playing and running around (both are the same to them I guess).
Every once in a while some uncle or aunty goes by who knows the parent. They say hello to each other and the uncle proceeds to meet the child. The mother says "hello bolo” ...the child says hello. After asking some dumb questions (like, what are you doing here? Where is appa or amma?) the uncle leaves and the mother says again "bye bolo" and the child lifts its arm and shakes its wrists .
Point is every parent teaches some tricks to his/her off springs. The dog doesn’t know what it is doing when it raises its leg and pushes it forward; we presume it is a hand-shake. Like wise the children have no clue what hello or bye or the waving action imply but they have been taught to do that by their parents. The more tricks the child is taught and is able to execute successfully (or as wished by parent) the more amusing or "cho chweet" the child is.
I saw one girl respond to the command "flying kiss do babu ko" also. Very nice. Ten points to amma for training the girl.
There is another side to this.

Two weeks back I was waiting for my friend near a KFC outlet near CMH road. The outlet happens to be right at the crossroads and so many people pass by it. There was female beggar sitting near the steps of this KFC outlet and along with her was a little girl. She would not be more than 5 year old. She wore a bright green dress and it had jari lining also I think (or it is good for the story) . The little girl stood beside the beggar and did nothing but watch the crowd and most probably was trying to come to some conclusion as to how people managed to drive so chaotically even at a signal post.
When ever she felt like, the beggar nudged the forward and I guess it was some sort of a signal because the girl went straight to the people closest to her and staring asking for alms. She simply put her palms together like a bowl and raised it sky wards. The palms would not even reach till the knees of the people (Pretty obvious but somehow I felt like mentioning that specifically). If some one was in a generous mood they gave her a coin which she deposited into hands of the beggar with out a second thought. After this she stood beside her until the next "signal" was given .It was amazing (in a sad way), she was like a trained pet!!
Some times she didn't get anything so she simply put her "bowl" down and went around roaming near the KFC steps. She kept hoping now and then and stopped to observe a small bug going on the pavement.
Point again is, she had no clue she was begging. She had no knowledge of things/feelings like self respect or self reliance which in a way is good ,for the awareness of such things will only make her detest her life (of being a beggar).
As this train of thoughts ran through my head a couple walked in with a Labrador retriever. Their first plan was to tie the dog to the pole which ran along the steps and go in to have a bite. The man ran into some technical issues as the chain had no hook or such so as to facilitate such things. So it was decided that he would sit there and that the lady would get the eatables parceled.
The lady went in leaving the man with the dog and he started stroking the dog's head and back.
All this the little girl stood and saw. I suppose what went on in her mind was:"There is no one to show me such love, at least half of that much love." But since she is a little girl I don't think she thought about such things and so she simply stood still and marveled at the big dog.
Ignorance is bliss they say. In the case of the little girl I am very happy this is true. I only hope that some day she will come out of that life without loosing her entire sense of self-respect.
I think I will name her Mala.
Group hug and pray for Mala okva?? One two three go.

Raghavan

P.S: Refer to this comic strip http://xkcd.com/531/ . Move the mouse over the strip and read the text that comes up.