Saturday, July 11, 2009

Lost in the Kitchen !!!!!!!

What you do when you are alone at home?
No, i am not talking about interesting things but the nasty things like preparing food for yourself.
Boys hardly pay visit to kitchen unless there is some extreme emergency.Same is case with me.Although visiting kitchen and getting acquainted with it are two entirely different things.Former is watching a pretty girl and latter understanding what she actually wants.Although a crude analogy but one can understand the tragedy.I too had to undergo the trauma of knowing the kitchen,it was like you are left alone in a jungle.The only difference is here you are thinking "what to prey upon?" than in jungle where you are stressed by "who is going to prey upon you?".
Another crude analogy indeed!
When i got rendezvous with our kitchen i felt amazed by most ubiquitous thing in any kitchen "the modular racks".I am gonna kill the person who invented this modular kitchen thing.He must be a puzzle freak,as most of the time i spent in the kitchen, was spent opening the drawers,racks searching,closing hen again next one.This whole exercise sucked most of my physical as well as mental energy.


Nevertheless i persisted then the next surprise was "the almirah".Some people have hobby of collecting things like postal stamps,coins etc etc,but my mom has hobby of collecting pickles,as i understood by seeing her collection.Mango, Amla,Lemon,and what not she has got every pickles that has been invented


After recovering from pickles,i caught "spice flu".Name any spice and herb my mother's kitchen has got it ,i think so.In fact I thought i have lost my ability to smell after struggling among the spices.


The next thing waiting to bedazzle me was the boxes with what not,sugar,salt,every specie of pulses existing on this earth,wheat,all varieties of rice ever grown in the plains of Chhattisgarh,sauces,chutneys,dried vegetables etc etc.


If this was not enough her collection of crockery,steel wares,frying panes,plates of every diameter,and every utensil you can think off.
The microwave , the Electromagnetic heater,Mixer grinder(although she has also a ancient style grinder made of stone),Food processor,Refrigerator,Gas stove etc made me think that i have landed on some NASA Lab.

My Lil sister too had played her part in making my mind go awry.Her own store with all fast food preparatory materials added to already troubled waters.
Anyways i conquered upon all the difficulties and emerged from that jungle(read kitchen)victorious with some boiled eggs and bread.I know that very less but that all i could manage with the remaining mental energy.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Contrasting Neighbors

Neighbors are always interesting. Incase of India this “interesting” thing has many different connotations. On one side is Pakistan which is grappling with different cultural and tribal groups is finds it difficult to bring them into a unified nation or rather federation .The Baloch,Pahtuns,Wazirs,and others are able to assert successfully themselves n the weak federal administration. The country whose raison de tre for formation is the distinct cultural and religious distinction of Muslims, cant deny the different groups right to maintain their separate identity. The effect is visible crystal clear.

On other side is China, where the communist revolution was based on dispensing every form of religious and social hierarchy too has gone too far .Chinese administration has left no stone unturned to in Tibet to end the institution called The Dalai Lama. Thousands of Tibetans along with His Holiness Dalai Lama fled the land of their ancestors when the cultural revolution knocked the doors of Patola Palace.




India had to bear the burnt of the extreme ideology of both its Neighbors .The Muslims in India are as Indians as any Hindu or Christian or Sikh is, but still they are called Pakistanis and told to go to Pakistan by some frantic and so called Hindu Nationalists of India. The Tibetians to who are exiled in India at Dharamshala for years are longing for the time when China will accept them and Their Dalai Lama.Tibetians have been living since last fw decades have provided a different hew to already colorful culture and tradition of India.Isn’t it that every winter we wait before buying new sweaters arrival of Tibetans sellers to our cities. So they have became more like a part of India itself. But still they want to return to their homeland. A section of people in India, ideologically loyal to communism, hates their presence in the country, similar to their hindu brethren.

Tibetans are as pure at their hearts as the air flowing in Tibet. The strive to save their culture, tradition and religion has made them to suffer as well as sacrifice a lot. The honest people, who know nothing what diplomacy means ? ,are caught in the worst of diplomatic tangle. Dalai Lama has lead longest peaceful agitation in world to demand for the tibetians their rightful place but has till now got nothing. While diplomats in China are waiting for the demise of Dalai Lama, so that they may throw next series of moves, Tibetans in India are losing their hopes for return. India is unable to do something for their sake, given the rise of China and its own precarious position in diplomatic world.
A long wait and hope,has been kept in the fortune of all.

Some one has rightly said "never deprive someone of HOPE ,it might be all they are having"
(except the first all photos above were taken by me through mobile cam on my visit to Dharamashala)