Maggi.. Chowmein style

Instead of cooking Maggi in the conventional way that comes printed as recipe on the packet, you can add a bit more effort to make your favorite snack(sometimes a life-saver when you’ve nothing else to eat) taste a lot better. Trust me on this, do try it out. I bet you’ll love it.

Let me introduce you to the ingredients. You’ll need Maggi noodles, I’ll recommend aata noodles as it tastes best when cooked this way. But it’s up to you, any type of Maggi noodles can be cooked this way. Among vegetables, you’ll need cabbage, beans, onions, tomato, carrot and green chilli. If you’re a non-vegetarian, you can add an egg to the inventory.

In a container, heat water for a minute. Add the noodles to this hot water, and keep the flame on high. Keep stirring and wait until you get the first boil. When I say boil, I mean the phenomena when the Maggi-water mixture swell up and try to spill over your container. Right at that moment, remove the container from the flame. Drain out the hot, waxy water, and add some cold water to it. After a few seconds, drain out the cold water too. Keep the dry noodles aside for future use. Finely chop sufficient amount of  vegetables. Now, heat some oil in a container and fry the chopped vegetables. Add salt to taste. When the vegetables get the easily recognizable ”golden brown” color, add the dry noodles to the mixture, mix well and fry for a minute. Add the standard Maggi masala to it and mix well. For non-vegetarians, scramble an egg(don’t forget to add salt) and add it on top of the dish. That’s it! Ready to be served. Add sauce if necessary, and enjoy!

P.S.: Life must have taught you that Maggi can never be cooked in 2 minutes.. So why not use the extra few  minutes to make it taste a whole lotta better?

Today, my dog made me cry.. ;-(

I returned late from office today. It was 20:00. I parked the car, rushed to the door, unlocked it.. and there he was. He came running up to me, wagging his tail, implying that he was happy to see me. I gave him a hug, whispered a soft “Sorry” to his ears. In return, he licked my cheek.

It took me a moment to realize that the house had gone all dark. I had left for office at 15:30. It was all bright and sunny, so I hadn’t turned on any lights. I had planned to return by 18:00, 30 minuters late for Bahadur’s dinner. So, when I returned long after it was dark, I faced Realization #1: “I had left Bahadur locked up in the house, hungry for two whole hours, and adding to his misery was the complete scary darkness.”

I turned on the lights, rushed to the kitchen where I had kept his dinner ready since noon and started heating it. The smell of rice and chicken curry filled the kitchen. Bahadur stood by the kitchen door, excited to smell his food being heated! I had a smile on my face when I told him, “Yes dear, it’s all for you.” A minute later, his food was ready, that’s when I faced Realization #2: “I hadn’t cooked enough rice at noon to feed me one lunch, and feed Bahadur one lunch and one dinner. We both had proper lunch. But, for Bahadur’s dinner, a small amount of rice was left. It was almost half of what he generally eats. In short, I kept Bahadur hungry for two hours, which means he deserves to be fed twice as much as he eats, instead I was serving him half!”

I dug up each and every grain of rice, mixed it with the warm chicken curry, and served Bahadur his late dinner. He started gulping up as soon as food was served to his bowl. I watched him for a while. I felt relaxed as he ate, I felt that my responsibility for today was over. Well, it wasn’t.

I noticed some things on the floor in our drawing room. They looked like chocolate wrappers, the shiny silvery ones. Upon analysis, I found that they weren’t chololate wrappers, but still I couldn’t figure out what they were. They looked like the packing material of medical pills, only they were crushed well by Bahadur’s teeth. A brief thought came to my mind that someone might have dropped some eatables through the windows, and Bahadur might have ate it up. I checked the windows. All were closed. Whatever it was, I picked up the mess and went to throw it in the dustbin. That’s when I faced Realization #3: “For lunch, I had cooked rice, daal and potato fries. Chicken curry was bought from a hotel. It was packed in an aluminium container, with a paper cover, and wrapped up in a ploythene bag. I had unpacked the chicken to a kadai. Due to some leakage problem in our pressure cooker, I had burnt the daal at noon. So, I packed the burnt daal in the chicken container, and threw it in the dustbin. Apparently, when Bahadur was hungry by his dinner time(17:30), he took up the pack from the dustbin, and ate up all the burnt dal. Since the pack smelt of chicken, and he was hungry, he ate up every thing, including the burnt dal, the paper cover and even the polythene! Seeing the condition of the aluminium packet, I bet he had tried to eat it up too, but failed. I realized he must have been pretty hungry.”

This is when tears filled my eyes. I wished Bahadur could understand me so that I could apologize. I begged God to forgive me for the sin I had just committed. I wished I could do something to make things right, I wished I could make him happy, I wanted to do something good for him.. Idea! I ran to the nearest fast-food stall. I ordered a egg-chicken roll, had it packed, brought it home and fed it to Bahadur. He ate peacefully this time. For the second time, I felt my responsibility for the day was over. Well, it wasn’t.

After feeding the roll, I went to my room to change clothes. Just as I was about to unbutton, I heard sounds of utensils being dragged across the floor. I went to the hall to see that Bahadur was licking his water bowl, which had gone empty. That’s when I faced Realization #4: “Bahadur had drank up all his water when he was hungry. I clearly remember refilling his bowl with water just after lunch. Normally, the bowl needs to be refilled once a day. He doesn’t drink much. Locked up in a house, darkness, hunger, thirst!.. That’s the list of what Bahadur had been through!”

I filled up his bowl with drinking water, he quenched his thirst. There, I noticed some water spilled on the floor near his bowl. First I thought it might have been from Bahadur’s water bowl, but after a keen look, I faced Realization #5: “After drinking up all the water when he was hungry, Bahadur had urinated near his bowl! Trust me, in the past 10 years, he has never urinated inside the house. He does it either in our garden(downstaris) or on the terrace. But today, he was locked up in the house and he had nowhere to go. I tried to put myself in place of Bahadur.. Locked up, complete darkness, hunger, thirst, no food, no water and not even a place to pee! Horrible!”

Anyways, I brought a bucket, and started cleaning the floor. That’s when Bahadur did something, that, for the second time in an hour, made me cry.

When he was a kid, rather, a puppy I must say, he used to pee indside the house. Whenever he did so, he was a given a beating with a stick, so that he learns that it’s wrong to pee indoors. So, now when he saw me with the mop, resambling with a long stick, he thought that I was about to beat him up for what he had done. He got scared and below a bed. I didn’t have the slightest hesitation to clean up his mess. After all he had been through, scaring the poor creature was the least I wanted to do. I just wished I had a way to make him understand not to be scared, I wasn’t angry upon him, wasn’t going to hurt him. Tears filled my eyes when I cleaned up the floor.

A few moments later, with some pampering, biscuits and chocolates, I somehow made it up to him, made him comfortable and confident that things are cool, nothing to worry about. Life’s back to normal now.

An advice to the readers: If you have a pet, respect it, understand it, take good care of it. A pet is just like one of your best buddies, just that  he/she can’t speak. You have to understand it. And for those who want to have pets in near future, please think before you get one. Don’t just go for a pet because you want to have one, or because you think it’s cool to have a pet, or for any other reason.. Go for a pet only if you truly believe that you can give an animal a better life.

P.S.: I went to office on a Saturday because it was an optional working day. The deal was that if you work this Saturday, you earn a leave, which you can use to take a day off later someday. Period. My parents are out of town for a few months. I’ve a full time housekeeper who cooks for me and Bahadur, but he is on leave this Saturday and Sunday. Period. I’m spending the whole Sunday with Bahadur.

101 facts about me…

• 1. I was born on 19 July 1988, in Bhubaneswar. By birth I’m a Cancer, buy my parents say I’m Aries. I follow Cancer.
• 2. I have studied class III twice, not because I failed, but because my parents felt they had admitted me to school a year early.
• 3. I like to sing, but I have one of the worst voices.
• 4. I can type without looking at the keyboard.
• 5. I like texting.
• 6. I keep a daily record of how much money I’ve spent.
• 7. I love driving anything which has wheels, it might be a bicycle, bike, car.
• 8. I love playing computer games, mainly racing games, and Counter Strike.
• 9. My name was Mrinmaya till 2004, when an error in class X certificate forced me to make it Munmaya. I agreed for the change because Munmaya is easier to pronounce than Mrinmaya.
• 10. I like featureless phones because it’s fast and easy to make calls and send text, and they’ve longer battry life.
• 11. I seldom call people and stay in touch.
• 12. I drive a TVS Victor. I know it’s old and a bit low on power, but still I love it, because it’s a bike afterall.
• 13. I take my Dad’s Alto few times. Few times because driving a car is thrice more expensive than driving a bike. But it’s fun.
• 14. I’m too lazy to make a playlist. I add all songs on my hard drive to Winamp, turn on Shuffle and Play. If I don’t like any song, I click Next. At present, my playlist has 5878 songs!
• 15. Out of all the things on my table, the least used is my study lamp.
• 16. I feel more comfortable in formals than in jeans and tee-shirt.
• 17. I hate driving without a helmet.
• 18. I used to draw/paint/sketch when I was in school. I never found time for those stuff after that.
• 19. I like cooking and eating.
• 20. I’ve never had a bone fracture.
• 21. I download more stuffs than I actually need, because I feel that leaving an unlimited download internet connection idle is a waste of money.
• 22. I sometimes feel like coding, but never find anything worth coding. So I don’t code.
• 23. I prefer desktops to laptops.
• 24. My two wheeler driving liscence states my DOB as 19 July 1980. I had faked it to get a DL when I was 16(Minimum age to get DL is 18).
• 25. I like fantasy, sci-fi, car/bike and animated movies, mostly Hollywood.
• 26. I think burgers, pizzas, french fries are always over-priced. They’re not even worth half of what they sell for.
• 27. I once liked reading novels. Now, I don’t find interesting novels. I start one, find it boring, and stop reading after a few pages.
• 28. I recharge my cell phone as soon as my balance reaches 100 INR.
• 29. I always have a sms pack activated on my phone.
• 30. In my eight years of driving experience, I’ve had only 2 minor bike accidents. No car accidents.
• 31. I sometimes go out driving just for the feel of it, just wandering on the roads.
• 32. When most of the childern played cricket at evening, I used to go cycling for 2-3hours.
• 33. I’m not a cricket fan. I can’t play cricket.
• 34. I like to watch MotoGP/Formula1. But it’s difficlult for me to memorize all teams and drivers names. I like seeing the action in the races. Who wins doesn’t matter that much to me.
• 35. 95% of people who know me call me Munu, instead of Munmaya. There’s one food vendor who calls me Pappu since I was in Class V. I never rectified him. He still thinks I’m Pappu.
• 36. I get confused between left and right when said in any language other than English.
• 37. I’m zero on general awareness. I’m aware of this fact, still I don’t read newspapers or watch news, because I find it boring and uninteresting. I feel sleepy if I try to do so.
• 38. If I’ve 10 minutes and I’m hungry, I would most probably cook egg sandwitch or maggi.
• 39. I like to watch something while I eat. So, I always eat either in front of TV or my Desktop.
• 40. I love Black Eyed Peas.
• 41. I like things around me to be neat and tidy.
• 42. I like pickles. Sweet mango and lemon pickle are on top of my favourite pickle list.
• 43. I used to play football when I was in school, and I wasn’t good at it either. I suck at outdoor games.
• 44. My first phone was Nokia 3315. Second Nokia 6060. Now, I’ve a Nokia 5030 and a Nokia 1100. None of these had/has a camera or even a mp3 player. I like phones this way.
• 45. I still use the same intex keyboard that I bought in 2001. It has become pale yellow. It was white once. Rest ALL parts of my desktop have been upgraded.
• 46. I prefer trains to flights. I like the journey time, specially if I’m with friends.
• 47. I’m starting to hate birthdays. The older I get, the dirtier and more painful they get.
• 48. I don’t see any possible valid reason why we need specific dates for Friendship Day, Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day.
• 49. I’m a Barney fan.
• 50. I’m a Valentino Rossi fan.
• 51. I seldom change my passwords.
• 52. I would like to marry the girl of my parent’s choice, because that’s how they want it to be. No arguments.
• 53. I like to watch series, 1-2 episodes a day. I know it’s slow, but hey, I’m in no hurry.
• 54. I like only big movies on big screens. Others, I watch them at home.
• 55. I’ve no affinity towards first day-first show. I can wait a year to watch the movie. The story still reamins the same.
• 56. I HATE shopping and over-shopping, I don’t want to have things around me that I don’t use.
• 57. I like to be on time. I feel uneasy if I’m late even by 5 minutes.
• 58. I can’t tell anyone if I hate him/her for some reason, because I don’t want to hurt that person.
• 59. I wear a ring on my left hand. A ring is the only ornament I’m comfortable with. I’m againt chains and bracelets.
• 60. I’ve never gone for a visual upgrade on my bike/car. I like them the way they were when bought from showroom.
• 61. I can’t watch any hindi TV soap, they’re full of drama. Reality shows are better.
• 62. I want to do stunts. Wheelies and burnouts are the olny things I’ve done a few times. I’m scared to do the rest.
• 63. I’ve never got drunk, neither do I have intentions to.
• 64. I’m not good at bargaining.
• 65. I’m not good at handling emotional moments.
• 66. I take life very lightly. I laugh out most of the things.
• 67. I don’t like to ask for money, even if it’s my money.
• 68. I’ll help if asked to, even if I don’t want to. I’m not good at saying “NO”.
• 69. I forget names. I can remember where, when, how we met, but I can’t guarantee I remember your name.
• 70. I don’t talk much. I like to listen.
• 71. I suppress my anger for as long as possible.
• 72. I’m 23. I’ve gray hair. I use Mehndi to cover them up. I don’t want to use colors, they might be harmful.
• 73. I know I’m fat, weigh around 80kgs. I don’t want to get thin. I don’t want to grow fatter either. I’m happy with what I’m. See, I’m health conscious. I used stairs to get to my flat when I was in Hyderabad. My flat was on 8th floor.
• 74. I don’t like deodorants. I’m use with talcum powder instead.
• 75. I don’t change my toothpaste and shampoo. It’s Pepsodent and Head&Shoulders since… forever.
• 76. I think sandals and slippers are more comfortable than shoes.
• 77. I’ve a dog(this is my 2nd dog) and I always want to have one.
• 78. I can’t swim.
• 79. I don’t have a healthy relationship with my elder brother.
• 80. I can roll my tongue and curl it downwards, making it look like I’ve split my tongue.
• 81. I can compromise on quality for quantity.
• 82. I get nervous in front of an audience.
• 83. Most of my friends think I’ve more girl friends than boy friends. That’s not true. I counted. I’ve almost equal number of friends from both genders.
• 84. I get angry if someone says, “Why are you angry?”, when I’m not actually angry.
• 85. I hate eating oranges. But I can drink orange juice.
• 86. I like apple shake.
• 87. I love thick sweet lassi.
• 88. I’m not good at Mathematics. I don’t hate it, just that I’m not good at it.
• 89. I don’t like to argue even if I’m sure I’m right.
• 90. I once won a NFS Most Wanted competition in college and was awarded Rs3000. I bought a 500GB hard disk with that money.
• 91. I can sleep peacufully with a train passing two blocks behind my house. Yes, I live in a house two blocks away from a railway track. I’m accustomed to those noises.
• 92. I watch porn, atleast twice a month.
• 93. I hate mosquito nets. They reduce the efficieny of fans.
• 94. I like watching horror movies alone, late in the night, with all lights turned off. I find the feeling of being scared adventurous.
• 95. I like to watch and identify different cars and bikes passing by the road.
• 96. I’m against racism.
• 97. I believe in God, but still I don’t visit temples or pray in front of idols. I pray whenever and wherever I feel like parying.
• 98. Once I ate a 3 inch green chilli to win a bet. The guy who lost the bet had to treat me a lunch buffet worth Rs350. I enjoyed both the chilli and the buffet.
• 99. I still have toy cars. I don’t often play with them, but I like them around. One of them is a Gallardo.
• 100. I religiously turn off lights, fans, computer screens, water taps when they’re not in use. I hate wastage of anything.
• 101. I still have a lot many secrets…

The super-special Sunday lunch buffet..

“Buffet Lunch, Unlimited food,” how alluring does that sound? Well, that’s what we did this Sunday. Me, my two flatmates(AR, AS) and another friend(PB, a distant neighbour) went out to the Swaad Vegetarian Buffet. To get to a restaurant, around 21kms from our place, we decided to use public transport, because we had one bike less than needed. So, we set out on our quest under the scorching sun at around 1pm. After two auto rides, 20mins of walk, 10mins of waiting in the sun, one bus ride and one final auto ride, we reached our destination: Swaad Vegetarian Buffet, Street No. 3, Padmarao Nagar, Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh.

It was already 2pm. We read the boards at the reception, which said, “Lunch Buffet, Adult Rs175, Children Rs100, Timings: 12.00pm to 3.30pm.” Looking at the timing, we were happy that we had got atleast a hour and a half to quench our tummies. But, when we entered, we were put into a small holding area! It was the waiting hall. We were queued to enter the buffet hall after a six-member group and a four-member group. The receptionist didn’t give clear timelines on how long we’ll have to wait because no one was sure how long it’ll take for a table to be vacated. Since it was a buffet, one can sit there as long as desired. Luckily, people started pouring out pretty soon. So, we’re in after a short waiting time of around 20-25 minutes.

The ambience was calm, cozy; I don’t exactly remember if there was any music, all I remember was that there was food, food, and a lot of food, waiting to be gulped down to my stomach! We were honorably escorted to an empty table and were served a initial glass of watermelon juice. Starters were served soon, which included sweet corn soup, tomato soup and a plate of Paneer 65. Except AS, rest of us had sweet corn soup, which was tasteless, even after adding lots of salt and pepper. AS claimed that his tomato soup was better, atleast it had some taste. But our disappointment with the soup soon vanished when we had the perfectly cooked, soft and slight spicy Paneer65. We’re discussing our plans on how to eat as much as possible while having our starters. The plan included small instructions like not drinking much water, not eating more naans or rotis, or rice(things that fill you up pretty soon) and giving more attention to starters and desserts. The small Paneer 65 plate vanished within minutes, and we were all geared up for the main course. The waiter had clearly mentioned that only starters will be served on table, rest was self service. So, we grabbed our plates, hung nasty, hungry, mean smiles on our faces and went off for food hunting. Not a single dish was to be spared, everything was to be tasted atleast once, and things that tingled your taste buds were to be eaten ruthlessly. There was an unlimited supply of puchkas(golgappa/gupchup), Achari Aloo, Bagara Baigan, Paneer Butter Masala, Paneer65, Dahi vada, salad, fryums, Chilly Soya, Channa curry, Capsicum curry, Bhendi fry, Plain rice, Pulav, Veg biriyani, Veg noodles, curd, raita, naans, and a few more dishes I don’t remember. Paneer itmes were our main target, because they were simply awesome. We ate paneer until we got so-much-paneer-sick. After having fed to our capacities, it was time to attack the desserts, which included Gulab Jamun, Ice Cream, Kheer, Fruits and Carrot Halwa. AS brought 6 Gulab Jamuns. They were small, each the size of an average grape. But they were warm and tasty. Gulab Jamun, being my favourite sweet dish, made me bet AS that I’ll have atleast 12 of them, twice as much as he had. I ended up eating 20! We too had a lot of strawberry ice cream. The mix of warm Gulab Jamun with Strawberry Ice Cream, an innovation from AR, was simply ambrosial. That’s what tempted me to go for the 20 GulabJamuns and 2 scoops of ice cream. PB, didn’t eat much though, he just kept bragging about eating some 2 scoops of ice cream, which he thought was legendary! We heartily ignored him. By the time we all were tired of eating, being cautious not to burst anytime because our stomachs were overfilled, the clock struck 3.30pm. The buffet was to close; I made a rush for one last scoop of ice cream, while AS and AR made themselves paan(betel). Soon, the bill arrived at our table. For four persons, it was Rs700, plus a nominal tax of Rs28, “ONLY”.

After about an hour of punishing our body with overeating, we’re happy that it went well, and was all over! We put ourselves together, walked a few kilometers, and found ourselves some autos and buses to bring us back home.

P.S.:

1. I had just one pineapple juice for dinner, it’s around 3am now, my stomach hasn’t finished up its task of digesting lunch yet!

2. My dear Hyderabadi friends, for more information about Swaad Vegetarian Buffet, refer to following links, it’s worth giving a try:

http://www.ordera2z.com/gharonda-food-court

http://www.ramnee.com/India/Secunderabad/resDetails.htm?hid=219

One sleepy noon… One sleepless night.. And a lot many things in between…

A sleepless night doesn’t actually start at night, but it has it’s origins form the daytime. One noon nap is all it needs to keep me awake till late into the night. After bunking office post-lunch, I had plans to come home, make a glass or two of chilled lemon juice and watch some movie or series. Everything was working fine until I made my chilled lemon juice, sat on my bed, put the fan at full speed, switched on my laptop, browsed into the folder containing the video file supposed to be watched. My laptop’s screen showed the same window, after I woke up, two hours later! It was a good, peaceful, natural sleep, something that you would never want to delay or deny if it tries to invite itself into your preplanned life.

(After the nap….)I made myself a tasty treat of bread toast and half fried eggs, which i ate with a lot of tomato sauce(Oh, I love tomato sauce, with anything and everything). At precisely 17:30, I put on my formal clothes, grabbed my bike keys and left my flat. My plan was to drive down to office(which is a mere 1.6kms from my flat), swipe out and call it a day. But when I reached the parking lot of my flat, the cool breeze and the dim sun invited me to take a walk. I slipped the bike keys into my pocket, plugged in my earphones, played soothing music and walked the ‘empty street on the boulevard of Singapore Township’. Office was the same normal routine for me. Met a few friends, cracked a few jokes, checked mailbox for no urgent mails, bid adieu, swiped out and left. FYI, I walked down the whole way back home.

(After office….)I had a job to do, which included driving down to a place, some 17-18kms away, get some doucments and drive back home. I took a friend as pillion, and started off to get the job done. Three months back, when I was new to Hyderabad, I thought that someday I’ll get used to the roads up here. Now, after being on the roads for about two months, I don’t think I got used to the roads, rather I’m used to loose my way around. As usual, this time also, we lost our way, and ended up at some other branch of our destination. A lot of inquiries, driving around the same spot several times, U-turns, wrong ways, wierd shortcuts, help from localites later we reached our destination. The road that lead to the destination was infact pretty simple. One long straight(as they say here.. ekicchh road), take left, again long straight(yeah.. another ekicchh road), take left, and there you are! I messed up, ended up somewhere else in a map that simple! Our return journey was pretty simple and unhappening as we followed the ekicchh road principle and didnt get ourselves lost.

(Before dinner….)I dropped my pillion friend at his flat, came back to my flat. Me and my flatmate discovered that we had no raw materials to cook our dinner, not even Maggi. The township market was closed due to some unknown reason. It was already 21:00. So we decided to dine out. Willingly or unknowingly, we declined all options of eating at nearby messes within our township and decided to eat at some dhaba. We drove down 5-6kms down the Warangal Highway to a dhaba we always thought of visiting whenever we passed by that way. What attracted us to that dhaba was it’s name…”Tandoori Nights”. Though the food was not bad, the feeling of eating there was good as the whole dhaba seemed to be managed by Oriya people. It gave me a feeling of eating at some dhaba back at my hometown. We not just ate, but we over-ate, as we usually do, paid the bill, decided never to get back there and left for the drive back home.

(The night starts….)One more glass of chilled lemon juice and 1.5 hours on laptop later, I closed the lid on my laptop, turned off the lights and went to bed. It was somewhere around 12′o clock, a decent time to go for a decent sleep. But when it’s going to be a sleepless night, no one can stop it. It started with one mosquito bite on my left leg. Itching and scratching started irritating until the mosquito bites seemed to spread to my right leg too. I sometimes wonder if mosquitoes love bitnig when one wakes up from his sleep! Because it always starts with one bite, and when you wake up, it seems to spread wildly throughout your body. It was so irritating that I had to leave my bed. I went up our balcoly, unlocked the door, took a chair and sat there for a while. Cool, quiet, mosquito-free! A few minutes later, I had this urge to listen to music.. So i grabbed my walkman and sat there for a few songs, until someone informed the mosquitoes that I had relocated myself from bedroom to balcony. I locked the balcony immediately thinking that the mosquitoes will be trapped outside and came back to my room. Sleep was gone by then. Out of experience, I got the hint that it’s now going to be a long night. I started wondering how mosquitoes come up to our flat, it’s on the eighth floor. Some say that they come up with us by the elevators, some say that they travel one floor a day and reach eighth floor on the eighth day. I don’t know what which is true and which one is myth! If anyone has any idea on how mosquitoes achieve this, please enlighten me. I played CS for a long time, hoping that I get a good score, worth posting on facebook. But it isn’t my night, I wasn’t supposed to play well. Still there was no hint of sleepiness in me. So I started surfing, which was slow, because the torrents were eating up all my bandwidth(I never like to leave my internet connection idle, downloading 24×7 makes me feel satisfied that I’m not wasting online resources). So I started blogging.

Currently, I think I’ve passed a lot of time writing this down, still it didn’t help me get some sleep. Hope after/before/while reading this, you fall asleep…

Peace…

Peace is what I find sitting across the hall on this cool evening, at our flat’s balcony, high up at the eighth floor of a ten storied building in Hyderabad. All I can see around from this place is a spectacular view of dim lights of other four storied flats in the township, headlamps of the vehicles pacing on National Highway 202, and far at the horizon, a twinkling mixture of colorful lights from various establishments in the city far away. In one word, ESOTERIC!

I used to loathe this place when I shifted here two months back. I used to call it a village, in a suburban area in the outskirts of outskirts of Hyderabad. My views have changed a lot now though. It’s a lovely place, an adorable township, nice and clean.. away from the hustle bustle of the busy city. Sitting out here, my mind drifts with the wind. It becomes free from thoughts that bother all day, it’s brainwashed. It’s just me and the moment… just loving it.

French fries

You love French fries, I know you do.. Now, suppose that your taste buds are tingling to get a bite of those awesome fried potatoes.. but the nearest McDonald’s is 20kms away.. McDelivery refused to deliver French fries to your place.. What’ll you do??????????

Simple.. get your lazy a$$ up to your kitchen and start cooking..

You’ll need a few potatoes(2 potatoes are enough for  medium French fries), around a quarter liter oil for deep frying, and salt.. Optional ingredients include some cornflour(for crispiness), red chilli powder.. You’re must be having all these in your kitchen, if you don’t then probably you don’t cook at home.

All you need to do is peel off the potatoes, wash them clean, and cut them into long strips. If you don’t know how to cut potatoes into strips, get yourself a hand grater to ease your life! Sprinkle salt over the strips and mix well. You may add cornflour and red chilli powder depending upon availability and your taste. When done with mixing, take oil in a deep frying container and heat it. Add the potato strips to hot oil, one handful at a time. Fry for about 4-5 minutes, until you see your fries turning light golden brown. Trust me, you’ll know when to remove the fries from the oil.. Now, drain the fries onto paper towels(you can use clean sheets of paper), keep them warm while you fry the next handful of strips. You may add more salt, red chilli powder, Garam Masala if you want your fries to be chatpata..

Eat them hot, and I bet you’ll get this thought.. “Why in hell I spend so much for these things at McDonalds!”

For more tips on easy cooking.. keep reading.. and more importantly, keep trying.. Cooking is easy, Cooking is fun..

Lot many friends!

Cautionary Warning: No hard feelings friends, these are just my feelings, typed them in just because I’m not feeling sleepy this night.. at the end of the day, you all are my friends…

I don’t like categorizing friends into different groups, but life has brought about this situation, where I’ve to do it.. even if I don’t want to..

Top of the chart.. A bunch of school friends, the good-old-pals.. whom I’ve always loved, and always want to be spend time with, who always make me remember my childhood, who always make me feel that we’ve not grown up, who always make me think that we should get back to our past.. live life to the fullest.. be kids again..

Top of the chart II.. College friends.. love, hate, loathe, abuse.. do whatever, they’re always there for you.. our conversations don’t start with “hi, hello”, they start with “saale, ka*%#@*e, K#$^e, ha#@$mi.. phone nahi kar sakta tha”.. anytime you loose your senses and pretend to be sad, or actually are sad.. you’ll always find these people behind you, trying to get you up in spirits.. anytime you’ve very high on your spirits, they’re there to enjoy with you..

Next on the list.. The people I live with.. We enjoy our nice little flat.. It’s home.. We’re like a family.. watch movies together.. curse abhishekh bacchan on television whenever he says “Get !dea”..  we play songs on high volume, and sing to the tunes… we drink a lot of tea.. We enjoy experimental cooking, no matter what we plan to make, and what we end up cooking.. it always tastes good.. or it’s our combined effort that makes anything and everything cooked taste good.. as they say “mehnat ka fal meetha hota hai.”

Next are the daily faces… people who live around you.. people whom you meet daily.. all kinds of people.. some you want to be with, some you won’t want to be with.. but still you’ve to be there with everyone.. because there’s no way out..  there are friends who want to sit along, watch movies, series, cricket together.. there are friends who want you to go out, eat out, party out.. and some just love to enjoy a peaceful life..

And there are people, the so-called-friends, who like you not because of what you are, but because of what you have.. don’t want to say much about those people.. they’re not worth it.

Sometimes, it gets difficult to decide between different groups of friends.. On a given day, you might get invitation from more than two groups of friends to join them for some occasion.. some very alluring.. some not so interesting, but imposing.. then, you’ll have to decide between friends.. have to make them understand who’s valuable… and that sucks.. why is it that I’ve to make people realize what position they hold in my life.. they should find it out themselves and understand me.. instead of putting me in weird situations of  explaining who, why, what, when, where.. phew!  This is what makes life complex… You’ve to answer ten people if you want to spend time with the other ten people.. Sometimes you’ve to lie, go hard, go weird, get angry, get emotional… HUH!!..

If you somehow get stuck up in such situations.. my advice is to listen to your heart, be with people who actually want to be with you, and who you actually want to be with.. and if you don’t feel like answering the rest of your friends, ask them to read this blog.. they’ll figure out what’s wrong..

Don’t forget the Cautionary Warning: No hard feelings friends, these are just my feelings, typed them in just because I’m not feeling sleepy this night.. at the end of the day, you all are my friends…