My favourite ad...

Once again, happy ugadi to all. I woke up at 1.30pm!
Had lunch and two cups of tea. And have been watching the memorable tour "Unforgettable tour" of Amitabh and others - Abhi, Ash, Riteish, Preity, Madhuri, Shilpa, Akshay Kumar...It just got over. It was nice - Amitabh is truly a legend. He started with 'jahaan teri ye nazar hai...'. aur kya chahiye!

Spoke with parents, kids, paru [Rajahmundry] akka, bavagaru [Hyderabad],anna [Bulgaria] and kala, arvind and ashwin [Malaysia]. Mobile phones bring people closer - like Close up?!



Little Bittu thinks of me whenever this ad comes on TV. So sweet of him - he remembers me saying I like it very much. The one in Telugu goes 'daggaraku rana...'.

I found a longer version of it which has been picturised beautifully. Originally sung by Sona Mahapatra. Enjoy!

Happy Ugaadi!

Wishing everyone a very happy new year!!

Just today I was wondering that in the anticipation of a new tomorrow, we tend to forget today's significance. Today is the last day of the old year! Last year we celebrated it's arrival!

It's 2.15 am! I got up at 9.30am and from 10am I had been doing only 'productive work'. I didn't go shopping also. This sem I have 50 students in one course [2 sections] and 40 in another course [2 sections] and only 2 in another course. I am used to teaching small classes. So from morning trying to keep everything on track.
Corrected students' work. Then updated the newly made course websites for the two courses. Put more pages. When I am on this, time passes very quickly.

The positive side is I teach 3 courses instead of 4. And I have classes on 3 days only. Saturdays and Tuesdays are offs. So got enough time...

I have the satisfaction of working good on the last day of the old year:-)

The highlight of today was the walk to the ATM. The weather is so beautiful - cool, breezy and pleasant. I was tempted to go for a long walk. But I came back.

When I really work, the TV should be on for me. I 'hear' TV. "Heard" several movies and TV series. Even now at this time, it's 'RACE'. This is one movie I liked very much esp since I hadn't heard or read about it earlier.

This day should really go in my time capsule. saal ke aakhri din toh kaam kiya maine;-)

I wanted to put a nice picture and as I browsed I found these on the first page of google images. Memories flooded back. I love Ugaadi pachchadi!! It has the wonderful taste of sourness, bitterness, sweetness...We used to remove the neem flowers and eat the rest. In the magazine, Andhrabhoomi, I remember there were cartoons on this 'pachchadi'. Raw mangoes, mango leaves, neem flowers, cuckoo bird, signifying spring from another image made me nostalgic. And the lunch!! The lunch on festival days is something I really misssss!!

Once again, with wishes of peace, happiness and prosperity to one and all, I sign off to catch some sleep! It's 3am!! That means 5.30am at home! People must be getting up to celebrate the new dawn of the new year....

Spring festival at Turkish embassy

Today afternoon, went to Turkish embassy for the spring fetival. It was nice - full of spirit and life! Ate very good food. One interesting dish was like our parathas - sounded like "goes-lemon". Had both spinach and meat stuffing.
There was cultural program by the school children mainly.
Apart from Turkey, the exhibits were from Azerbaijan, Krygysthan, Uzbekistan, Tajikisthan and Kazakhstan. It was nice talking to some people in 'no-language'. Apart from a few photos, I brought home two small fridge magnets.

Happiness is...

Seeing the 'phulka' really phulta hua.
---Finally, I started making the phulkas - I made it thrice so far. I thought making rotis is the toughest thing. Though I don't get the perfect 'round', it is not bad. But I wonder it is fun making a few rotis - not dozens.

Tasting your own 'aalu parathas'. Another happiness giving activity.
---They were too good. Though I researched on how to make them, I got my own version.
It was sooooo tasty with achaar. I thought of all the places and people I associate it with:

First and foremost - NCST. Thursday breakfasts!! everyone's fav!
Residency hotel, Nampally - with Indrani. It was my 3 hrs transit from B'bay to Rjy.
Punjabi rasoi, Gachibowli - Himani, Priyanka, Santosh - aalu and more...
IIIT hostel - on Sundays - oily but good.

Now that I know how to make it - I will keep quiet about it;-)

Sharing the recipe:
[more for my time capsule]

Made dough with salt and little ajwain
In a saucepan, added boiled and mashed potatoes to sauted green chillies. Added pinchful of dhania and jeera powder and salt. And then fresh coriander. Mixed well. Tried two ways:
Either you roll out, add the mixture, fold it twice - semi circle and quarter and roll out again. Or put the mixture between two 'rounds' and roll out. When the tawa is hot, reduce the heat and fry them using oil.
With achaar [and butter which I avoided today] it is yummmmmmmmmmmmm....

When you write a recipe, your inadequacy in translation surfaces!!
Will post the photos later after I download them into my comp.

dhool ka pool!

March 10th, 2009. Riyadh.
My talk was from 12-1 pm and what an exciting day. By 12 noon, outside -it became all dark and later orange. Luckily my topic was interesting - 'Translation and Humor' which made all the teachers sit. The afternoon classes were cancelled. Many were wearing masks. It just reminded me of the heavy rains - school would be closed and some would have umbrellas ready like many had masks. Here are the pictures which I emailed everyone today. Though we are inside the building, the dust is still in the air and in our mouth too...

Gandhiji, aap bhi na...

kahin bhi apna chashma aur chappal chod dete hain. tch!

all the beer money is going to bring your belongings back to India for 9 crores of rupees!!

I wonder how you would feel about it - you who did not get attached to your personal things; you who would definitely have asked Mr. Mallya to build a school or hospital or public lavatories for Rs. 9 crores!

This is one way of showing patriotism, I guess!

Able, Stable, Disable....

Who has the power to destabilize a whole nation? Who has the ability to bring peace between warring nations? Who can build a relationship and who can destroy it?

Such questions were popping in my mind as I saw once again - the live action of the young men terrorizing this time by targeting the sportsmen.

As I watched the interviews of sportsmen, saw the demonstrations against Pakistan by our citizens, read the statements of our politicians....I felt happy that there are some sensible people in the sports world at least.

My respect for Kapil Dev grew as what he spoke made sense. He emphasised on the need to have strong neighbours. Though he said that he will do what his government asks him to do, he said he wouldn't hesitate to play in Pakistan if his government asks him to.

When our politicians are speaking of the security breach there, I wonder if they did any self-analysis as well.

Our politicians should try for peace by first differentiating some facts:

All these terrorists are Pakistanis, but not all Pakistanis are terrorists.

Our politicians should not mislead us citizens. There should have been demonstations against terrorists and not against Pakistanis.

For me P civilians, government, military and terrorists are all different even if they have the same nationality.

For once, our leaders should think of us and not the elections!

Though I speak of our leaders here, I will put other governments like American, Saudi and others along with them - for having double standards - for being confused and confusing others!