Some easy reciess..

My Brother wanted some recipes he wanted to try at home. After years of eating the lard filled food from the various resturants and road side vendors, he finally wants to try cooking. :) So here are a few I do use. The amounts are all approximate and the results are not repeatable. I have not been able to create the same dish twice :) But yeah most of them are eatable, and many even without the extra spice and pickles to mask the tatse ..

So after I have given my disclaimer.. I will start..

Rice:

Now rice is something which is easy as well as the most difficult. The ingredients are really very simple. but timing is the most important element. Still trying to perfect this still a but long way to go. Cook it less and the rice will be hard.. Cook it a bit more and you will get porridge instead of rice. If you dont mind a bit of under or over cooked rice. the below mentioned way should give you something eatable.

• For one person take 1/2 cup of Rice (standard luch type hunger) For thoroughbred Rice eater take 2/3 to 3/4 cups of rice.
• Wash it twice with water
• Drain the washing water and add twice the amount of water for cooking. e.g: for 1/2 cup of rice add 1 cup of water. Add a little more (may be 1/4 of the cup)

For Gas:

• Put on Medium flame for 12 mins approx. Cover the vessel but leave a small opening for the steam to go out.
• Keep checking every 4 mins. When the water rice does not look wet, check a few grains to see if they are hard. If you can crush the grain with a little pressure, your rice is done. Take it off the flame, remove the lid and keep searve after a few mins.
• If a little hard, Just switch off gas, but dont remove the lid. The rice will cook in it's own steam.
  
• If hard, just add 1/4 water and put for 3 more mins and follow above procedure.
• Note: You will need to check this again and again for getting the rice well cooked but the grains still different.

Microwave:

• Put the washed rice in a Microwave safe vessel and add a little more than twice the water. Same ratio as above. Put on high power for 12 mins. For more rice put a few mins extra.
  
• Note: Microwaves come in differenet powers. Mine has the power of 900 watts. 12 mins on 900 is enuf to cook 1 cup rice in 12 mins.
• For 700 Watts use 15/16 mins
• For 2 cups for 900 I use 17 mins. A safe will be to use 12 mins and then check. If needed just microve for 3 more mins.
  
• If the rice is not yet cooked but the water has dried up, just add a little water, this is fine.

Just try this and give your feedback.

The Story of Othello

Saw Omkara yesterday and wanted to compare the original plot with the ones in the movie.. So here it is for those who wander into this nook in the cyberworld...

The original plot for Othello..

Othello, a Moorish General employed by the Venetian state, has secretly married Desdemona, the daughter of a Venetian senator called Brabantio. Iago, an ensign (second Lieutenant) in Othello's army, nurses a private grudge against Othello (Cassio was promoted over Iago) and decides to destroy him.

Iago and Roderigo (a disappointed suitor of Desdemona) bring Brabantio to the Senate where, learning that his daughter has secretly married the Moor, Brabantio disowns his daughter. Othello is immediately ordered to the Venetian colony of Cyprus to repel a threatened Turkish invasion. Desdemona follows him, accompanied by Emilia (Iago's wife, now Desdemona's newly-appointed companion) and Othello's lieutenant Michael Cassio, who has recently been promoted over Iago.

Once in Cyprus, Iago plants the suspicion in Othello's mind that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him with Cassio. He engineers a drunken brawl for which Cassio is blamed. Othello dismisses Cassio from service. Desdemona intercedes on Cassio's behalf but her constant pleas to Othello for his reinstatement only serve to convince Othello that Cassio is her lover. Iago acquires a treasured handkerchief from Desdemona and uses it as 'proof' of the affair.

Increasingly maddened by jealousy, Othello orders Iago to kill Cassio and strangles Desdemona himself. Emilia discloses her husband's plot and Othello, tormented by grief and remorse, kills himself. Iago, after murdering his own wife, is left to the justice of the Venetian state.

A Movie n some thoughts

Yesterday was watching a movie.. some typical bolywood melodrama but with a twist. Two friends, one boy n one girl.. very good friends too. Boy loves some other girl.. and Girl loves some other boy ... hehehe... its confusing.. :( well to cut a long story short the Girl from the friends duo has the engagement to her love.. Friend (boy) is very happy. The Groom to be goes to the land of opportunities to .. hmm may be get some opportunities.. and then disaster.. the girl gets raped.. Friend boy is a little late to arrive on scene .. but sees the rapist running away.. so follows.. but then accident.. and the rapist meets with an accident and goes up in flames..

The friends decide to keep the rape a secret. neways the rapist is dead.. an then like all Hindi movies disaster strikes again.. Girl is pregnant and everyone believes that the 2 friends have done it.. no one buys the rape story.. not even the Loves of both of their lives.. The friends stand by each other and decide to marry to support the other.. well with a few twists and turns.. by the end of the movie they realize they do love each other now.. and its happily ever after.. hey forgot.. Girl has an Medical complicacy n cant abort (that's the reason why everyone gets to know in the first place neways...).. so they keep the child and now they have a family.. :)

But now the burning question !!!

In reality.. i.e. in practical life.. Will some one be able to accept the fruit of the rape.. Will the child not bring in the memories of the crime.. Can the husband .. or the victim.. accept the child..
Well.. Rape is the most heinous of crimes.. You are not injuring a body.. you are maiming the mind.. being a Man and not one of the loyal kinds.. may be I will never understand the pain of the violation my body.. or the effect it has on my psyche.. but will the new life bring something to look forward to.. may be its just a personal opinion.. well to make myself clear I don't say no to abortion.. Its a matter of choice really if the child is unwanted.. if the future is not assured and the parents confident about the decision then it better be terminated. Coming back the to the case we are discussing I think any negative in life can be negated by a strong positive. A loss can only be balance with a gain. So will it not be possible for the victim to accept the child as the compensation for the wrong done to her and accept the child. Its neway her part only and its no fault of the child to be a part of a Crime. If you accept adoption as a acceptable option to have a child then why not this.

The movie really touched me .. not that the movie was that well made or can it boast of good dialogue and superb acting.. but just that the issue touched a nerve somewhere.. I was really touched by the tenacity of the guy in bring his friend back to life. The devotion, the sacrifice.. Well you could predict the movie including the dialogues easily.. usual Hindi movie stuff u know.. you have seen one.. you have seen most of them.. but the thought was good. Hey digressing from my topic now.. I really get enamored with the concept of Love Vs. Friendship.

Cant say I am clear about where each stands or what exactly defines love or what defines friendship.. but would love to argue ne day.. chalo may be someday will post my arguments on that..

Lost

Things have changed. For the better or the worse, may be only the one above can tell. But may be he does not bother to tell us, what his opinions are. So now its all a matter of speculations. The different schools of thought promoting their theories about Life, God and everything.

What role do we really play in this change. Is this a state of Flux or just a mirage. May be its just the background which is changing and we are just stranded. A constant in the matrix of space-time continuum. But whatever it is we are simply lost. Lost for long time now and will remain so for a much longer period.

Reservation

After all the happenings in the different parts of the country thought I will add my two bits to the raging debate. Reservations.. Read a couple of articles for and a couple against.. Well just to make things clear I don't like the concept of reservations in Work as well as Higher education.

Well subsidizing the fees. Free Primary Education and may be Free Education till graduation is fine with me but reserving seats just so that the so called backward people can get the advantage .. sorry negate the social disadvantage seems like a mistake to correct an earlier one. There are 2 main problems with the whole idea.

1) The classification of the backward
2) The implementation of the whole idea

Classification: Lets look at the people whom we call the backward population. Are they really so. I think more than half are the landed gentry who have good social standing, have enough money to send their kids to good private schools. Do they really have the need for this reservation. Now if they are poor they may need that boost to compete, to decrease the gap between the rich and the poor. But segregating by caste alone is certainly wrong.

A comment made by someone really amused me. One of my close acquaintances was talking about getting their caste added to the list of the backwards. The logic being obvious. But then if you look at it the CASTE he was talking about is mainly into business and on an average fairly rich. So why are we giving this incentive to people to call themselves backward. Civilization (evolution) is the process of going ahead, to improve, to change.. now we are seeing this reverse trend where people don't want to potray themselves as developed but the opposite. Is it really good for the society as a whole ?

Implementation: In this country of a billion people where your age is what is mentioned in the file of a babu in some office and not necessarily dependent on your date of birth how we are going to decide who should get this benefit and how much. How are we planning to do this. Believe that the Government which just for a handful of votes will proclaim a Criminal to be God to use this scheme for betterment of people. Who decides on what basis what type of reservation should be given and when?

Many such questions have been asked but we still don't have any answers. The people who actually are implementing the scheme, promoting it all over the country don't have a clue. I am really sorry. I am a part of the system, never did anything to change it so now I should own up my mistake too.

When I didn't stop a bunch of fools.. monkeys to ahead and try govern me, I am not allowed to crib.

Change, the one word that is the true constant. So hope this too will change. Wishful thinking :)

Happiness

Happy is when you are with your friends and just split ur stomach out for some ghuguni and Duhhhh....

People

Yesterday was having lunch at canteen with my friend. The same old routine. Buy the coupons, get food and have it at this huge place teeming with people. All crammed up, people even waiting for the tables to be free so that they can sit an finish their lunch..

There is this constant hum of the thousands of voices chatting away over lunch. And yet you can hear yourself and have a conversation there. It just hit me then..

The ppl around, each one has a story attached. The group of youngsters who were having food together laughing and discussing some funny incident, sharing the experience.. though they looked so alike.. were so different after all. They had their parents, siblings, friends, loves.. stories from different parts of their life.

As my friend suggested "a hall filled with overlapping stories".

What a way to describe ppl. The way I look at a person changed for a few moments. Instead of a human there was this whole collection of stories. Kind of an aura.. You look at the girl sitting next to you silently having her lunch. What story she has. What about the boy who was standing in the line.. what about the fellow before. Suddenly it was this flood .. instead of the people milling around u could see this halo and a image of the person they represented as the kernel.. Wanted to peek into those lifes.. the pain, the happiness, the incidents that made the person what he or she is today..

*smiles* Someday may be someone will have the power to do so..

Confusions

Life is a confusion. From the starting to the very end.. and may be I am the standing example of the word. Well may be its true for others too, but cant comment. So let me write about me and if others too feel the same way then can just nod their heads and say.. hmm this seems true.. well I will leave you to do that and continue to write what I feel..

Before life there is the confusion to be a Girl or a boy. someone would say "Do you have a choice"" well who knows may be I had a choice. May be the stork who delivered me gave me the choice... to be the master or the slave.. Who is the master and who the slave is an Open Question and will leave for some other time.. But the choice was huge.. In this world when the sexes are all equal, does it matter?.. but think of it.. The Power to make it all happen with a turn of ur head.. a single tear or a half smile.. and on the other hand.. hmmm well to pee where I want to... in full view of the whole world.. (well exceptions are there the other side too..) hmm and may be getting a guaranteed Orgasm everytime u manage to have sex.. :) well thats something to even out all the beauty and power of the fairer sex..

But I can certainly say it would have been a tough choice to make.. and I finally became the battered half..

After that it would be a fairly easy period of relaxing in my mother's womb.. njoying the flavours of the outside world through her fluids. Listening to the rythm of her heartbeat.. growing in the comfort and warmth of her heart.. hmm the beautiful days... but THEN

The choice of coming out.. and then the choice of How.. and then When.. huh.. confusions again. questions I would not have touched with a long pole.. Why not just leave me there in my cocoon of happiness. Why have so many choices.. If something has to happen then let it happen. Why cant life be just an mathematic equation. Well hopefully a simple one (I really suck at maths). But no there are choices and decisions to be made.

Hey did I tell you about the other choice.. To have Hair or None when I take birth. Many of you will be amused, but serious, think of it? May be my mom will like the bald look (an Umresh Puri Fan perhaps) or the long curly locks of Ronaldino .. and may be the unruly hair of Einstein.. The Son will be genius u know :)

Whew.. finally Its all over.. the choices are made. I see light... was not an pretty sight I can certainly say that.. but will not go into the details now. (May be some other day)

So the choices continue.. with Life's every step and the poor me struggling through all of it - A thoroughly confused soul.

Some thoughts

Katrina.. And now Rita.. beautiful names that stand for destruction .. in a colossal scale. Was following the news. so many dead.. so many homeless.. uprooted from their homes.. struggling for the basic necessities of life..

Then you wonder. what used to happen in my country.. back in India.. every year there is a flood or a drought.. thousands die.. Millions become homeless.. and in some cases you don't even need that. the mere existence is a struggle .. a struggle much harder, much more cruel than ppl can ever imagine..

Imagine selling your newborn baby for a morsel of food. Dying of eating the dust from the grounds because you have to eat something to satiate this hunger. Drinking the same water where a pig is walloping happily.. and feeling lucky that atleast there is water.. If this is life then who needs a Rita..

Who writes about these people.. people whose lives are about existence. to survive the day and hope that you survive atleast half of the next.. become happy that you have a drop of water and a dried piece of bread.. even if its the only thing you had after 5 days and the next meal is again 5 days away..

Katrina was really destructive..$300 billion .. thats a lot of money.. but just think how much it takes to feed a thousand mouths in any 3rd world country.. may be a 1000 dollars.. may be less.. and be assured that you are actually saving a thousand lives there.

I am not saying that the hurricane was not a tragedy or that New Orleans was not devastated.. Media.. look at the outside world too.. there is life out there .. they too are of the same species.. Humans .. who acknowledge your existance.. The least you can do is retun the favour..

Having said all this if you ask me.. personally what have you done for the poor.. I have to admit.. nothing.. I am one of those hypocrites.. who just want to talk about things and leave the doing to the others.. Talk because there is something to talk about.. or may just that you feel like talking..
sometimes I do feel something.. and then .. it just goes.. I feel every man suffers from MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder). You have a kind man, wise man, Sad man, bad man, jester, a solder, and may be a couple of women too.. but thats just me.. who is unafraid of admitting the truth.. unlike the crowd out there trying hard to mask their disease....

I am content.. cant say happy or sad about it.. just that I dont mind having the disease.. dont mind being a Human..

Sharmistha & Devyani II

Sharmitha & Devyani II

We enter the lives of these 2 beautiful damsels again after a few years. Much water has passed below the bridge since the huge spat between the friends. The 2 girls have matured into 2 beautiful women. Well endowed with the beauty of body and mind they ruled in their own realms. Devyani, the daughter of Shukracharya and Sharmistha the princess. You could say they were happy.

But Devyani could never forget the humiliation of that unfortunate day. He also could not forget the soft touch of Jajati. She could still feel the caring hands caressing her hair. The deeply husky musculine smell coming from a sweaty body after long day in the forest. The strong arms holding her close protecting from the unseen.

Sharmistha and Devyani - I

So finally the story of Devyani and Sarmistha..

Devyani was the daughter of Shukracharya.. the head priest for the Asuras. She was cursed by Kacha, son of Vashishtha that she will not marry a brahmin. Sharmistha on the other hand was the daughter of the king of ashuras. By nature both were the complete opposite. Inspite of being from the royal family Sharmishta was kind and polite. A gem of a lady.. Devyani was fiery, beautiful with a huge ego and was a really HOTIE. may be with real big tits too. Shamistha though had good bums. the round tight ones that you just feel like holding and never let them go. ummmmm .. well that was just a personal touch.. so coming back to the story.. The 2 girls were freinds.. and used to go skinny dipping in the pool.. how i would love to be there.. well someone was.. King Jajati

The dashing young king was out hunting and suddenly he hears the sweet sound of water splashing and the laughter of girls.. that meant only one thing. naked girls.. and by the sound of it.. more than one.. Jajati rushed towards the sound and finally saw them.. angels cooling off in the clear waters of the stream..

the girls were frightened.. but then realizing that the intruder was a handsome young man, coyly went on to cover themselves though a bit unwillingly. But then the great error happened. Sharmistha in a hurry wore Devyani's garments.. THAT WAS SACRILAGE.. Devyani was furious even forgetting that she was buck naked.. started shouting at Sharmishta, how dare she wear the clothes of a brahmin girl.. and that too the daugther of Guru Shukracharya.. Devyani was livid with rage.. and didnt hear the thousand apologies from Sharmistha.. she was just blind with rage.. Jajati just went his own way. Hot girls she could handle.. angry naked girls were a complete different ball game.

Sharmishta and her maids also went their own way. Devyani just stood there.. naked and cold.. the breeze was not helping either.. humiliated infront of a young man.. and that too by the daugther of one who worked with her father's permission. Then it happened.. all the pain, the anguish just broke through and she started to cry.. cry her heart out. it was so good till now and suddenly she had lost everything..

Jajati, who had a bad day at hunting was just returning back and suddenly he could hear a girl cry.. he was after all a King and had a duty to protect the weak. He immediately went towards the sound and found Devyani sitting behind a rock, spent from crying. Her chest heaving with every breath. His eyes could not leave the heaving chest. But then he was a man of respect. He took off his own tunic or whatever extra cloth they used to wear those days and covered poor Devyani with it. With sweet words of comfort he picked her up in his arms and brought her back home.

more to come in next post.. Will Devyani marry her prince charming. Will Devyani take revenge.. All of this and much more in Devyani and Sharmishta - II

Happy New Year

I wrote this last year.. will not just repeat myself.. so here it is..

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Many things have been said about the new year and many more will be said in the days ahead .. Just want to add a few words of mine..

The question is, Is this worth it. The great hula about the new year the celebrations.. The wishing.. A prosperous new year I believe... Great fun masti.. Etc .. Etc..

What has happened in the past that justifies this.. Has any of these wishes really worked ? Will they ever work.. If we really believe in fate then fate is just their.. Our wishes.. (may be a million in number) will never change that.. And if you are one of the lucky ones (or unlucky it’s a matter of perception) who don’t believe in fate then anyways the wishes don’t matter.

If you just take this as an occasion to enjoy then I understand the gr8 enthusiasm about the New Year. But then why not njoy every day.. If you cannot then why not enjoy feb 28th sept or 3rd to that matter any day.. Why just a new year. And by the way.. Is the year really new..
In the grid of space time equilibrium.. Future co-exists with the present and the past.. They are just there and everything just travels from one point to the other. So with the right amount and kind of energy it may be possible to be in the future NOW or just directly go from the past to the future without even going into the present.

My fellow human beings, if this is a possibility then does the definition of the Present hold good ??
If we don’t want to talk about quantum physics then lets not do so.. What about the fact that earth is round and is again in revolving around the sun in a sort of circular orbit so nothing new exactly happens in a new year.. Infact every new year you are not even at the same spot in space.. The sun has moved the earth has moved.. Infact nothing is the same and this change is not limited to the midnight of dec 31st every year.. It just happens.. Even as I am writing this this cosmic activity goes on.. So what is new ??

Can my learned friends please explain me that ?

Sorry to intrude in all your mail boxes. But just wanted to talk to all those revelers out there ?? Is there any real reason to rejoice ? Do you really think that the year ahead will be better than the one gone by. :-/ just wondering..

Hope.. Hope they say is something which is the greatest gift to us beings.. The spirit inside us .. just hope.. So carry on fellows in this false show of puerile bickering.

All the best for the perils ahead ..

And hope you maintain this spirit and HOPE in the life ahead.

My First Blog

Late at night I am just sitting here creating a blog for myself. I have seen the blogs of my freinds and felt kinda pulled to this. such a simple way to just write whatever crap that comes to your mind. may be no one will read this. but do i care.. hope i dont loose sight of this.. hope this blogs remains just for me... today is a big day.. atleast for this blog here.. it is the first.. so let us all gather a give a BIG hand ....

cheers...