Wordless....Our Trip to Bheemeshwari

Eat, Pray, Discover Yourself

Women's lib dons a new look with the book and movie "Eat, Pray, Love".

The movie (and the book) tries to be set in a tone that is very different from other women-centric movies (ok ok, chick flicks if you insist). The protagonist, Elizabeth Gilbert, in her journey of breaking free from being molded as a typical New York wife with a house in the suburbs and an apartment in the city, discovers the simple joys of eating good food and wine in Italy, makes an attempt (and fails) at finding peace through meditation in an ashram in India, and finally comes to Bali to make true a prediction made by a 9th generation medicine man.

But just as you think the book tries to achieve something different, she goes ahead and (yaaaaaawn) .... falls in love with nothing less than a Brazilian man who is conveniently one of those "all-male exterior with the tenderness of a lamb and love-making skills of an Adonis" stereotypes.

Don't get me wrong, I love the notion of a movie that ends with the happy couple falling in love. In fact I, along with all the 100 odd women in the theater (exception the two rather shame-faced men who were probably darting their heads from side to side as their wives would have held their hands) sobbed in unison as Elizabeth relived moments of her wedding dance, and we all laughed in unison as Ketut Liyer, the medicine man advised her to "smile from the liver".

This silent resonance of women in a movie hall continued through the movie, with all of us empathizing with the main character's breakdown moments and not quite understanding why she divorces her husband, but being happy for her at the same time.

Yet in the end, it reinforced the idea that all happy endings should involve fading into the sunset with the right guy. So in that sense, how different was it from Sex and The City or Pretty Woman, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, or even Hes Just Not That Into You (yes yes ... I am guilty of having watched and wait for it ... ENJOYED these movies).

Maybe I should just sit with my husband and hold his hand as he watches Die Hard and imagine us fading into the sunset.

Moving on...

I'v moved five houses in a little more than four years, and am currently onto my sixth. No, no, no one's stalking me and I dont have the cops on my heels, thank you. But the nomadic house hunting has been an annual fixture for a variety of reasons, ranging from ex roomie getting married to ex roomie moving on shore to self getting married to new job location.

But its the current move that really breaks my heart .... take a dekko at below pics and see why...






Its time to say goodbye, I've lived here for seven months and have loved every moment of it....Sigh!!

The Weekend Strikes ... and the hunger too

Oh Bangalore... how you pamper me.

You left me spoiled for choice with the myriad of options for a food lover like me. You made sure I didn't miss home when you showed me Little Home around the corner of the house where I first lived. You also showed me the secrets of cuisines I had never sampled before, the delights of Thukpa and Momos at the Tibet restaurant at Dubai Plaza, the hit combination of Dosa Chicken at Empire, the brilliance of Thai food at Shiok, the Korean pickles and relishes and spicy pork at Soo Ra Sang. And cosy little hideaways like Sue's Kitchen where I was tempted with Jamaican jerk Chicken and Crab Curry.






For those let-your-hair-down-nights, you provided me Legends of Rock and Purple Haze, and for those extra special nights you gave me Thirteenth Floor to go with my high heels. And for those days when I just missed the beach and needed some breathing space, you gave me... well nothing can really replace the beach, but then when Pondicherry is just a drive away, then why be so picky?



But there are times you have disappointed. You have yet to show me one good place that can serve up a semi-decent chicken cafreal, or a vindaloo that leaves me with streaming eyes. Koshy's, did you say? tut-tut dear Bangalore, allow me to introduce you to messieurs Martins and Lobo of Margao and Calangute. But then you redeemed yourself with kick-ass coastal fare at Mangalore Pearl and Kubay. And provided me my sustenance, prawns and fish, without which oh Bangalore, I would have suffered withdrawal pangs.

Cometh the weekend and you shower me with choice, oh bangalore how you pamper me :-)

(pics taken from www.mybangalore.com, www.bangalore.burrp.com)

On 4 Wheels And A Prayer

I know I signed up for this voluntarily. When I decided to shift jobs, I accepted the fact that my daily travel routine would be, on an average, 1.5 hours one way daily. The company-provided transport being the BMTC dabba-like-contraption that it is limps and crawls its way through Bangalore’s outer ring road, through traffic, the likes of which I have never seen in my 4 years here. The first one week, I ranted and cried so much to the hubby about my commute that he decided to shut me up by buying me a car. And has meekly agreed to teach me city driving. It was either that or hearing the good name of BMTC being mutilated daily. He’s a wise man.

But I have an inherent fear of driving that I doubt I will ever be able to shake off. It doesn’t help that when one drives, the mind recalls images of the day one almost drove one’s parents’ car into a nallah (after backing the car into a wall, then panicking and getting out of it and leaving the hand brake down on an incline, leaving the car rolling to said nallah). It took me a month to gather the courage to put hand to wheel and foot to pedal after that.

But for the sake of the hubby’s sanity and my own well-being, I must forge on. I have great regard for those gifted people who are not as challenged at eye-hand coordination, or such things as judging car-to-bumper spacing, or not-freaking-out-when-rabid-dog -zips-across-the-road. I envy them unfairly talented drivers who juggle effortlessly between choosing their favorite songs on the deck while cooing on the phone and maneuvering their way into the teeniest parking space simultaneously with just a touch of the wheel.

Parking a car takes a particular DNA make-up. Somehow the genes that are responsible for this fine art found their way into my sister through my parents (fine drivers that they all are), but did not so much as touch me with a barge pole. And so, unless the parking lot has enough space to land a plane, I choose to look elsewhere.

Having driven (or having got away with my kind of driving) in Goa for many years now, driving in Bangalore should not be a problem, right? Wrong, so wrong. Where Panjim has never felt the need for a flyover, Bangalore is the flyover capital of the country. Goa witnesses a traffic jam once a year – when the carnival is on, and Bangalore, oh where do I begin? So much for so-called city driving experience.

Anyways, lulled into a false sense of security, with the demons of my past behind me, I signed the papers last week. Now, if only the hubby could get me the 4-wheeler equivalent of bicycle training wheels!

Non-violent TV watching.. is there really such a thing?

If you are married or live with your significant other, then you will understand why the idea of non-violent TV viewing is actually a myth. The day optical fibers and coaxial cables brought with them a plethora of options in TV viewing, the almighty probably decreed that a man and woman can never agree on a single, mutually agreed upon TV show to watch.

This probably remains one of the biggest mysteries of all time, ranking up there with other unresolved enigmas such as what does Lady Gaga really look like underneath all that make-up? or how does Himesh's music really sell? or how does Victoria Beckham become a fashion icon by being anorexic and pouting for the camera? But lets not digress.

My biggest grouse really is when a seemingly intelligent young man who follows CNBC TV 18 like a religion and reads the Economic section of the TOI like the word of God, can also, in the same breath, watch with bated breath as Sly Stallone is beaten to pulp in a boxing ring, in a movie with a standard plot that can be summarized as: "Boxer is challenged by reigning champion of the time. Boxer accepts challenge. Boxer defeats champion in final showdown" repeat 6 times till boxer becomes a drug-abusing aging star. Or when said young man begins flipping channels and stops in awe at one where cars are flying and guns are blasting and there is general bloodshed, or if there is the presence of the timeless acting talents of either Bruce Willis or Nicholas Cage or the afore mentioned Sly.

Now, if you are a male and you haven't already shaken your fist at my blasphemous description, then I admire your constraint and will reward you with the view from the better half's side.

Now the better half is a very accommodating person. And believes in equality of the sexes and all that. But he doesn't fathom why I simply must find out who Rahul Mahajan chose to marry and why. And why, if I hate the show as much as I claim to do, must I still tune in sometimes to watch the vagaries in his wife-picking. Or why I must watch Carrie Bradshaw and her 40+ "girls" run around New York in heels. Or that the reason I watch this show is partly because of said heels (and clothes and bags).

If the above views do not apply to you, then you are probably in the courtship phase of your relationship or you fall in that wise 20% category of happy couples who have decided to avoid bloodshed by buying two TV sets for the home.

Food shows deconstructed (or why Nigella works)

Now who doesn't like a good food show ? (question not directed to audiences consisting of certain better halves who only watch CNBC TV 18 and consider Discovery Travel and Living a waste of time). Food shows have come a long way from the cookery shows of the 90's a-la Sanjeev Kapoor and Tarla Dalal's step by step precise instructions delivered in monotone over cable channels of yore.

Enter, for example Nigella's kitchen. Measuring cups be damned, this is a world of eye-balling ingredients and grabbing fist-fulls of the greenest greens, or the juiciest fruit, all of this enhanced by a camera lens that suitably contrasts food against a bokeh background. In short, your dream kitchen.

There is a subtle reference to Nigella in the book "Julie & Julia" where there is a description of a "chilly blonde kitchen dominatrix" with "soft-core images of the glossy haired author sinking her teeth into a juicy strawberry". Perfectly apt, and probably reason enough for certain male audiences to watch her show. But for certain female audiences with purely food-related proclivities, who after a generation of watching their mothers/neighborhood "aunties" jot down Tarla Dalal's instructions, "food porn" (as described by Anthony Bourdain) comes as a refreshing change.

For Indian audiences with no access to Food Network or other TV channels that we watch in the hope of inspiring the budding chefs within us, shows like Nigella's Kitchen, Rachel Allen's Bake, and the like have more than made up for that latent need. And how could you not root for Nigella when she throws all caution to the wind and douses her chicken with sticks of butter, or when she guilt-lessly gets up in the middle of the night and raids the fridge for a midnight snack? Not really what the doctor ordered, but ohh so so enviable.

Now a special mention of that baap of all travel shows, Highway On My Plate. From roadside dhabas to culinary meccas like Karim's in New Delhi, food is profiled with honesty and enthusiasm. No great camera work here, and no air-brushing. Here are two "healthy" men, not exactly crusaders of good health and low fat, eating their way through idlis in Chennai and biryani in Lucknow, and in the process, managing to give humble street food the respect it rightly deserves. Why count the calories when you can have a deep fried kachori dripping with ghee?

From kitchen goddesses to highway foodies, food and travel shows have come to stay. Say goodbye to Tarla and the gang, and welcome Rocky, Mayur, Nigella and the brigade.

Statutory warning: Food shows are conducive to weight gain. Rocky claims that between Mayur and himself, the two have to have "gained 45 pounds or 20 kilos since we started shooting for Highway on my plate"

Pondicherry revisited

August 7th 2010: The hubby and I packed our bags and headed south-east towards that one place with a blend Tamil culture with French influences set alongside the choppy waters of the Bay of Bengal. The trip was meant to be a celebration of sorts of my current unemployed status, this wonderful period between jobs. Not sure when I would ever get free time like this again, we seized the opportunity with both hands.

The beauty about Pondicherry lies in its serenity and architecture. This does not mean that it has any architectural wonders that warrant whole afternoons of sight-seeing. It just means that this city has the kind of cobbled streets, french windows and wrought iron balconies reminiscent of those small alleys in Fontainhas, in amche Goa. Well, if you have been to European towns, these these should probably remind of of them, but in my case, having never been to said towns, they remind me simply of beautiful Goa.

As we walked around the French Quarters (the area with a predominant French influence, that contains the sea-facing promenade), we passed by a park with wind-chimes up in its trees, the sea breeze gently drawing out tunes from it. The use of wind chines in public areas is something i'v noticed only in Pondicherry. Auroville also had a similar 4 ft. tall wind chime up a tree.

The beach front, called the Promenade (its namesake, the Promenade hotel, owned by the Hidesign group, is also along the sea shore, and charms you with its clean angles and white facade) is something like the Bandstand at Bandra. Rocks line the shore. We came across a charming cafe on the beachfront, and having had our food just a while before, we did not stop to eat, although the scones and granitas being served up looked tempting.

 

The hotel we were put in - De l' Orient is in Rue Rolland street, a 2 minute walk from the beachfront. A heritage hotel, restored and operated by the Neemrana group, comes highly recommended. Now, "heritage hotels" are tricky to trust, and a "charming antique four poster bed" described on the website might have just turned out to be an excuse for moth-eaten old furniture that has been given a coat of varnish. But charming it really was. A spacious courtyard doubles up as the out-door restaurant. Each of the 10 rooms are different and are named after south Indian cities (ours was the Madurai - tariff Rs 3000 inclusive of breakfast) are a pleasant change from rooms that are cardboard cut-outs of each other.



Two reasons why we chose Pondicherry - the laid-back beautiful city and the appeal of fresh seafood. Full marks for the former but the experience of the latter was very disappointing. The idea of having "Creole food" as peddled by 75% of the restaurants/eateries/cafes was unappealing to us since it would take a more refined tongue than us to appreciate food whose second name is blandness itself (apologies to all you French connoisseurs). Now I love a well made croissant like any one else would but give me my prawn recheido over a greek salad any day. Still, Creole food non-withstanding, we did have high hopes for seafood. Our planned dinner at Le-Dupleix (Rue Suffern street) where we had eaten on our last trip, didn't happen due to a sudden rain shower. We ate at the hotel itself. Though the set-up was in itself very good (a live band played Nirvana and Guns and Roses!), the prawns in garlic and pepper and the French Onion soup were a disappointment. A lot of sauces and spices were used to camouflage the fish (which lacked in flavor) in the Orintal fish curry that we ordered.

Our opinion about the food did not change when we had lunch the next day at Rendezvous, a popular roof top restaurant, well known for sea food. The crabmeat was overdosed with turmeric and coconut and served up as Crab pepper fry. The only saving grace was the malabar fish curry (tangy and mildly sweet) and rice.


And now for the one thing that tipped the scales in favor of Pondicherry (at least for me)...shopping baby! The birthplace of Hidesign (they have a Hidesign factory outlet for pete's sake), the epicenter of pottery crafts, junk jewellery, hand-made paper... I should stop now, the drool is practically on my keyboard now.

Its just one of those quirky things I must do, like doing a pad-yathra to Mannat (if you don't know who lives here then you wouldn't care to know anyway) when i'm in Bombay, or like I simply must browse a Hidesign store if i'm in a 50 mt radius even if i'm not buying anything (read as can't afford any more - eyes spot price-tag, swoon, whoosh, thud!).



So that was my Pondicherry for you ... a big thumbs-up for the senses and a big thumbs down for the palate. And oh yes, do not forget the sun-screen.

Banging my head against the wall...

for my stupidity... at the way i lost my phone this week. A black and orange beauty, my samsung monte, just 3 weeks old (!!!). Lets take a minute here to remember her.

But its not so much the loss of the phone as the way i lost it that makes me want to thunk my head against a wall. I lost it somewhere between waiting for my shuttle and getting to my desk on Monday morning. Many theories have been discussed over the last few days - i may have just kept it on my seat and forgotten it, or it may have dropped from my purse, or it may have been picked up from office by some dubious character (this last theory being highly unlikely ).
Having been a firm believer of using very basic phones over the years for this very reason, I had finally purchased my first touch screen gadget ( my first real gadget for that matter).

After moping around for a few days, quite irrationally, I'm now itching to get a new and improved phone, and very un-pocket-friendly thoughts spring to mind - "get an i-phone, get an i-phone" the voices in my head keep saying. What to do ? Haven't told the hubby yet about the voices in my head, since he is currently teaching me the good values of frugality, being a firm believer in observing self-inflicted punishment a-la Silas of the opus dei, da-vinci-code style, or, in my case, using my old phone for the next year (uncanny is the similarity in the way my mom and my husband think - they both are probably the most practical people iv known).

So i guess ill just have to get them voices out of my head, but in case Pabi darling if your reading this , my birthday like you know, falls next month and i do miss my phone ....:-)

A Little Ranting Never Hurt Anyone

Its a beautiful Monday morning ...why,you ask?
In a large portion, the the B-lore weather, which has considerably improved over the last week,can be held responsible. All of Bangalore has been sighing over one of the best weekends to go by, weather-wise. This weekend also got me, together the girls (y & v) on an oestrogen high, over Sex and the City - the movie (which, by the way we thoroughly enjoyed, call me shallow if you will) followed by a laaazzzzzy lunch peppered with some male-bashing at The Only Place. And trust me, lunching with the ladies is to the soul, what maybe a session at the spa is to your body. I prescribe for all women - one mandatory session with the girls every month, RX.
getting back to my Monday morning... beautiful it may be, but fruitful ... maybe not. For the nth time, i resolved to begin exercising regularly ( and pigs will fly said the husband). And yesterday, both the hubby and I took to the swimming pool in a bid to get those muscles moving. I had a vague idea that splashing in the pool would kick start my body and I would perhaps begin lifting some weights every morning. End result of all my splashing in the water (and some mighty splashing it was, since im still learning to swim) was that i wake up Monday morning with aches in all place. My weights are resigned, yet again to gather dust in the cupboard. Mea Culpa ...

collection of thoughts

I just watched Kramer v/s Kramer for the first time ....

a few minutes back....

and it got me thinking, besides the realization (yet again) that Dustin Hoffman is amazing, about how much responsibility goes into raising a child.
And how the first thought that comes to Kramer's mind when he is being fired is not his own personal failure, but the possible negative impact of his unemployment on his custody battle.

Being in the Double-income-no-kids (DINK) stage of my life may be the best phase of my married life yet !