Yummy

I love "Shahi Toast" since the time I first tasted it. Simple to make, so the best dessert for a lazy day has to be this one!

1. Cut the edges of the bread and cut each piece in triangles.
2. Deep fry it in oil or ghee or butter
3. Boil some milk on low heat for 10 min. Add scented or plain cardamom powder to it.
4. Add sugar as per taste.
5. Place the fried toasts in a dish - pour milk
6. Keep turning - so that all the breads soak properly....Let it cool for an hour or so and enjoy!! (I sprinkled some crushed almonds too)

Surrender

Surrender shall we to our ego,

or rise above it with humility?

Surrender shall we to our anger

or rise above it and spread love ?


Surrender shall we to our greed
or rise above it with respect to nature that caters for all that we need?

....

Life as a wife of company commander in RR:

Many years ago I had the privilege to visit one of the naval ships in Cochin. That was probably also the first time I was being introduced in a “defense environment”. While I climbed the stairs, a smartly
dressed officer stood in a crisp salute. He looked like a statue and those 30 seconds are imbibed in my memory forever. What did I do to deserve such a gesture? Simply being married to an officer in Indian armed forces was enough qualification? Something didn't seem right and as much as I cherished that memory it also made me immensely uncomfortable. At-least until now!


It is mandatory to serve tenure with the Rashtriya Rifles in Kashmir for curbing the insurgency of the militants from across the borders. We were in DIAT, Pune when the posting orders came and the thought of him going away in a “hot” area was indeed scary – at-least if I thought about it.

People often asked me – how I felt - “don’t you feel scared?” I replied saying that I don’t think about it. I started waking up at 5:30 am. Went to gurudwara with my mother in law, then to office gym and was at my desk before 9 am. This is how I coped for first few months - without thinking.

It took him less than 6 months to get in the grid and I could hear the enthusiasm in his voice gradually increasing. He loved what he did and knowing that made me happy and even proud. I always knew that if anyone deserved to be a true officer in the Indian Army – it is him. During school days I have seen the shine in his eyes at the mention of the fighter planes and though that dream was not to be – it was for good reason.

It was the toughest challenge ever. To be in field and to be responsible for life of men under his command was unnerving indeed. All he could do was to be-prepared. And that he did. With full force he trained his men. When he told me of the things he did for training men, I was simply in awe. There were operations that stretched for days together with barely anything to eat. Terribly cold weather, hostile civil environment didn’t help either. The list of hurdles is not short and it is difficult to pen them down here for many reasons.

Bravery is not a matter of choice. People who show an act of bravery don’t choose to act in that way. There is often no time to think. Such people just act as they always do, on instinct. It might seem as bravado only as an after-thought. It is an animal instinct, like a tiger knows when to hunt, deer knows when to run, and a soldier knows when to rise above the call of duty. It’s a character, not an action.


Every time there was a kill he would sound happy. I usually said nothing. And in the fag-end of his tenure, he actually sounded low after a kill. He and I were finally in the same boat. Ending someone’s life is not a happy occasion, even though for a cause

Quote Unquote

"He put his life on the line so many times and mostly when no one was watching! In my eyes he deserved a Param Vir Chakra." - Anonymous

"Freedom means you will have to be responsible for every act, for every breath; whatever you do or don't do, you will be responsible" - Article from TOI.

Jaisalmer Night Stroll

The best way to really see and feel a city is to enter its heart, the very foundation around and on top of which it grows to become what it is today. Jaisalmer is surely one of those places to be seen from inside out. When we entered one of the popular market near the fort, we took a de-tour purely on instincts.


The narrow streets that were barely 3 to 4 feet wide seemed to be calling upon us.




We were warned by the locals about a bull fighting in progress around the corner and a bunch of bulls came charging and even knocked an old man.
The poor chap couldn't hear our warning, but thankfully he wasn't hurt, just shocked.
And me the camera-woman, jumped and climbed a high slab in one attempt.

Since it was past nine, most of the people were done with dinner and just preparing to call it a day - watching tv, closing the shutters, rinsing mouths post dinner, sitting outside on the stone slabs outside the house, after a tough hot day.

There were children playing badminton and seemed to get more enthusiastic about their otherwise mundane routine on seeing us. They started playing with more energy.

Even the elderly folks looked curious about a strange couple roaming around in the streets carrying a camera and at the same time no one actually felt intruded upon.

I shook hands and clicked a pic of 2 kids who looked intrigued by the camera. They were shy and very happy when I showed them their picture in the camera screen. It was a very precious moment for me, though the pic came out a bit blurred. Bad light + no tripod :(


The smell of cow dung, food that was cooked and eaten and variety of other smells filled the place. The houses were a continuous stream such that it could have passed as one single home - ancient, artistic and rustic.

Great carving on almost every house, old small doors, thin 'naalis' to drain the waste water on each side of the street, the stone pavements... it was one the great walks to be remembered for a long long time.

Don't touch me

DON'T TOUCH ME, don't touch me, don't touch me ........don't touch me! I screamed. I'll fall if you even try to touch me, don't touch me. 'Ok' he said, looking tired and sitting a meter away from me, on the edge of the roof we were trying to climb.


Now this was no mount everest, just the roof top of our home in Nasirabad cantonement.
I took a deep breath, giggling a little and then cursing those who didn't build a stairway to the roof. (No reaction from the other side)


We do have a spacious terrace on same level as our first floor home, but its different to be on roof top. We were using an iron ladder to reach the top and have an un-obstructed view of the surrounding and the sky.


So here I was standing on the ladder mustering every ounce of courage to climb the remaining 1 feet of my 12 odd feet climb. I had a flashback of the time I was trying to jump from one castle wall to another (that's in old blog), and of the time when as a kid of 12 something, I used climb like a monkey and then jump like a frog from 10 feet height easily.


I didn't want to give up, so I thought of a cool strategy.
'Come and hold me', I said! I am sure I saw a flicker of anger even in the dark. :)
Hold my arms, DON'T touch my hands and DON'T pull me even one bit. 'Ok' he said with assurance.


I am sure I would have been pissed off by now if the roles were swapped, but he patiently (and lovingly) came and held my arms.  I took the last 3 steps and he hauled me up on the last step.


All this just to see the roof? Sounds like an over-kill, but when we lied there silently gazing at the sky, all the efforts seemed worth it.


(M)"wish we could sleep here".
(G)'Yeah, we can do that'.
(M) We'll need a mosquito net (G) and a bamboo pole (M) no not one two of them, else the net will fall on our face.
(G) Fine I'll send someone to get it (M) No we'll get it ourselves, we need to choose our colour
(G-puzzled) o.o..ok, sure, ummm which colour?
(M) You know, pink, blue something like that, we can even get half pink and half blue
(G- didn't get my attempt to a bad joke) huh !!?? (M) boys like blue ,,, ummm, leave it...
(M- after 5 min) don't we have the camping net we bought in Stockholm?!
I could sense, he is smiling.


Out came the tent, mats, pillows, bed sheet and we spent a wonderful night under the virgin sky in fresh air. Woke up to the chirping of birds and the loud cacaophony by peacocks.


And yes, how we managed to take all that to the roof using the same ladder, I leave to reader's imagination :)

'Mitaahar' - So much to be thankful for

While reading a book on loosing weight (and not your mind), I came across this term. It has a very sweet tone to it.
It means to have a wholesome nutritiuos meal in right quantity and most importantly using all 5 sensory organs - touch, smell, see, hear, and of course taste.

Thanks to the Indian way of eating food, we do actually eat food with hand. Now the use of cutlery is surely integral, but at-least at home we eat with our hands. Keeping the spoon only for liquids like dal.

So today morning, I kept my spoon down to eat my sprouted moong dal with hands. Felt the tender sprouts, the juicy tomato, the coarse onions, the thin coriander leaves.
Heard them crunch with every bite, the smell of coriander and tomatoes dominated with hint of sprout and onions in background.It tasted heavenly.

Seeing food might not seem a big deal, until you actually start 'seeing'. Just now I consumed a bowl of curd. My spoon made its way into the bowl and almost without disturbing the consistency of curd in the bowl, out came a spoonfull ready to be eaten. It almost looked like a jelly :)

It feels so great to be on this break and in probably the most peaceful place you can be (in India). The summer heat is ready to say goodbye and the rains are playing hide and seek.

Still its that time of the year when even at 2 pm I can sit near the balcony door without any gadget moderating the temperature and feel the soft wind playing with my hair.

While eating food in this way, I felt grateful to the chain of people who helped in bringing this to me. Started with the milkman, then the cow that gave the milk and so on and so forth. Going on this endless chain I ended up thanking the entire universe.
No wonder it is said that we must offer our food to God first and then consume it as 'prasad'

I do

I saw a church wedding scene on TV and saw the couple getting happily married in such a simple ceremony. 

Questions asked and all they said was 'I do'. Thats it? This is all it takes to get married. Are words enough? Is this the power of words?

It brought back fond memories of Luis. In one seminar he talked about taking responsibilty for your words. As an interesting experiment, he explained to us the meaning of 'I'll try'. A young man was called upon the stage and Luis asked him to 'try to lift the table'. The young man smiled, looked confused and did something. Whatever he did, fell in 2 categories - either he was lifting the table, or he was not lifting the table. There was no stage where we could say 'he is trying to lift the table'.

At that moment, the critic in me woke up. I knew that this is just one off case and probably a bad example - just to prove a point. We don't have to take these words so literally and so seriously. 

There are times we have to say "I'll try", and why create such a big fuss? Yet this incidence stayed with me and gradually even started irking me, when I heard poeple use such words simply out of habbit and without thinking.

There was a time, when people used to  say 'I give you my word'. That meant something. People could give/take life to keep their words. 

Think about it how many times we use it - in recent past? ever? And even if you said, did you stick to it?

Some learned men say, don't under estimate the power of positive words. They affect our lives and the way we perceive and do things.

Most of the conversations I hear these days, include words like 'think so', 'will try', 'yes, but, 'may be'. Ask a friend will you join me to gym tomorrow morning. 'Yes, I'll try'. What does this mean?

a) 'You want to keep it felxible, depending on your mood?
b) 'You can come only if some other task is taken care of'
c) 'What if the alarm doesn't ring?
d) 'You don't want to go early, but can't say a No
etc etc

If it is 'd' then that is a different topic and a far more serious issue.

It is the a,b,c that I want to write more about. If you think about it, all three statements demand a certain kind of responsibilty. If you say 'yes', you have to make it important and make sure that alarm rings, you have to be in control of what you want to do, instead of letting the mood rule over you, and ensure that the important task is taken care of.

Why not say - 'No' or 'Yes' or in worst case 'I'll consider it and let you know'.

You can feel the difference in what might seem like a 'play of words'. We do this un-conciously all the time. For a change say things that you mean and then take responsibility for it. If you say 'Yes' to something, make it important and do it. If it doesn't work out AFTER you tried 100% to make it important, say sorry and mean it. But say it only if you know you did your best, not 'tried your best'. Else saying sorry is again another way of not taking responsibility.

People say 'I do' and get married, not "I think I do" or "May be I do" or "I do, but not sure".!
~~~~~~~~~~

Note: Luis is the man who changed my approach to life and of many others. In the beginning of ISA experience he said - 'This experience will be for 4 days (Thursday to Sunday)', but the real ISA experience will begin when you wake up on Monday. He was right. Almost every word he said in those 4 days, made more and more sense as an after-thought. Its been almost one year, and I feel that even now suddenly out of no-where, I recollect something I heard from Luis and understood the meaning of it now!http://www.isaexperience.com/

Godaan

Just finished reading Godaan - feels so empty without it. I waited each day to see what Hori is up to and how will he deal with his next problem. It ended a bit dramatically and that gave it the touch of “Happy Ending”. In any other novel this would have taken the charm away, but in Godan I can forgive the author. Every moment I read the novel, I craved to give away a 100 rupee note to Hori and tell him “go get your cow my dear”! And also to see the happiness on his face while he fed his kids with cow milk every day – if only he could.

We live in a different world. It’s a “far far away fairly kingdom” we live in.

Hori and many other likes of him continue to suffer. Certainly giving away money is no way to help, but even a small amount of awareness in how to deal with loans, would make a lot of difference.

The trouble is how the hell Indian people will even know about these issues when all the reachable modes of communication do not talk about it. Television Media is a lost hope and the bookstores I go to have the tiniest section for Hindi novels and that too is filled with the translated works of novels by English authors. It is such an amazing fact that there are multiple novels on India up for sale, but they are all written by Western writers. Hardly will I find any novel by an Indian writer on India!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godaan

My inner child

Last weekend I climbed a castle! Well technically it was not more than five meters high, but you know ....


It felt so big and huge when I was standing on one of the pillars and preparing to jump on another one barely half a meter away!


I felt like Marshall from How I met your mother. And yet my goal was so much smaller.

It was then I realized that how afraid I am of doing things, which I did fearlessly as a child.


I could effortlessly walk on a thin wall which was 10 meters high on one side and jump from a height of three meters, ten times in a row! And now!! I felt I would not make it - half a meter, cummon don't think, just jump... you cannot be serious... jump, jump, jump. Still nothing happened!



Finally after standing like a penguin for 10 minutes and lot of cheering and words of comfort from hubby, I took the leap. It was exhilerating! Then I jumped to another and another .....


On Sunday I climbed a tree fearlessly!

The child within me was wide awake and happy :)

A new bar of happiness

Sometimes I get comments like 'that picture is blurred' or 'you should have taken a closer shot' or something something.
When I look at the same picture I can still see the lovely colours of the flowers or the innocent expression of the bird :D


Though I never mind these comments and it doesn't change my point of view of taking pictures from the heart!
However it does make me wonder!
Are we getting too caught up in being too correct.
Do we do this with our lives too?
Have we set a new bar for happiness and thus live in confused state of mind, most often thinking we are not good enough!


While progress is good, we should not forget that life IS a miracle and that everything we have is on a fixed term loan!


Live it while it lasts, this is the only loan that ends sooner than we want it to ;)