Of purple lips, sandy hair, Gulmohur blossoms and the sea

Goa was excitement and lots of fun and full of Gulmohur trees in full bloom. Gulmohur blossoms against the blue sky is a sight I have cherished since childhood and Goa this time around was just that.  I took a gazillion pictures that only we will remember fondly. After dusty and hot Delhi, sultry and sweaty Goa was like a soothing balm on our souls. We visited pristine white churches and an old Portuguese House built in 1756 that incidentally belonged to a Portuguese Advocate (Wow!) and was inhabited by him, his wife and their 4 kids. His law degree was from Lisbon and was framed and hung lovingly on the ancient wall that had turned yellow with time. By the time my Mum had progressed to seeing temples Nutty and I put our foot down and asked the folks to proceed. We happily sat outside the temples clicking pictures of each other against the background of shady pav bhaji joints with swarms of tourists. Our tolerance level of the heat, dust and grime has increased considerably I must say as I do not remember feeling irritated at all. I was enjoying the sticky mess my clothes were and the salt on my lips and the feeling of sand in my hair.


Souza Lobo was delicious and the whole family announced my choice to be the perfect one. How we enjoyed the Royal Goan Prawn Fry and the Kingfish Curry Rice and the Prawn Masala Rice. The spicy Pork Sorpatel with only a slight hint of sweetness was devoured by Nutty along with the Cheese Nan. The Aunt and the Mother were instantly debating on how to make it at home. The desserts were divine. I have never tasted such creamy Caramel Custard before and the helping was huge. The Tiramisu was wonderfully bitter.

The beaches, what can I possibly say about the sea and sand. They were in perfect harmony with the waves. I love the sea. The sea will never cease to amaze me. I marvel at its beauty time after time. Like Lee Ann Womack said "I still feet small as I stand beside the ocean." Nutty and I climbed down every cliff we could and made merry in the beaches as we waded in the sea water and jumped from rock to rock and each time without fail I nearly lost my chappals. Some hapless local boy would swim into the water and get it for me as I looked on squealing that there go my pink chappals that Mona bought me from Goa  last year. Our lips were purple after eating jamuns sprinkled with salt that were being sold in paper bags by the local women in those tiny stalls on the winding and curvy paths leading to the beach. They were velvety soft and had melted slightly in the sun that made it even more luscious. We bought insanely coloured harem pants and a funny Goa magnets for my refrigerator. We would be talking in Bengali trying to figure what price should we quote and of course the shop keeper had to be Bengali and he would understand exactly what we did not want him to understand.

We even went water biking in our black and white dresses and what a fright I got. I think I can be a scaredy cat in the water and all Nutty did was to laugh at me being so frightened. I looked like a bedraggled crow by the time we got off. The River Cruise was more of a circus with the strangest people and a cacophony of sounds . Punjabbi music followed me to Panjim too and sadi galli was played in full blast even here. We were more intent on clicking a few more pictures and capturing whatever beauty we could in the frame so that on some summer afternoon when I am down and out and the loo is howling outside eating away at my soul I can look at this picture of the blue blue sea and imagine what it was to be standing at the beach with the spray of waves on my face and the whisper of the sea breeze in my ears and a Gulmohur blossom that I picked up on the sea shore in my hand.

What happens when you realize “us” was the only chance of a story you would ever have? As I walked out last night, happy, giggling, 3 drinks down and as you looked on at me wondering if this was true and you finally realized I was actually  choosing not to spend an evening in close proximity with you.  That even after you asked me to stay back for some more time I walked away.  

I am the Queen of Random posts

Okie so this is gonna be another one of those random, random posts. Am I turning into the Queen of Random posts ? Maybe I am but wtf this is my blog. Heheh!

You know I got the craziest urge the other while on my way to office in the morning sitting in our blue and white bus with blue velvet cushions and no air conditioning as we zipped along the dusty Kapashera highway and as I changed the music on my mp3 player which is perenially on shuffle from one song to the other I came upon Shakira’s Waka Waka the Spanish version. I fell in love with Waka Waka last year just before the soccer World Cup and have been wanting to sing it in some karaoke place but somehow do not have the courage to do so thinking what if I make an utter fool of myself? Anyways so this summer morning I had a lot of things running through my mind including how I need to pick up a foreign language for a certain reason and then I got this idea on how I would love, just love to be able to sing Waka Waka in Spanish so why not learn Spanish once I get a test out of the way. So there you go someday I dream of being able to sing Waka Waka in Spanish at some Karaoke place and sing it convincingly and to be able to get the pronunciation and diction right besides Shakira’s seductive and sensuous lilt. That is something one can probably work on but imagine being able to sing Waka Waka in Spanish. Sigh!

I found a particular online magazine which professes to be anti-pop culture. I feel pop culture is a very generic term so I couldn’t quite understand exactly how it is against popular culture but nevertheless the bookish me found a treasure trove of articles in this site. I particularly liked this article that was meant as a graduation speech for a class of English Creative Writing pass outs. I loved one paragraph :-

“You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don’t have to explain what you plan to do with your life. You don’t have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. You don’t have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history or economics or science or the arts. You have to pay your own electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth.


But that’s all.”

Some of my friends would so agree to this as I remember our conversations about people our age earning mindboggling pay cheques and the sheer materialism doing rounds on social networking sites read FB statuses. Initially I told myself okie maybe this is just about grapes are sour but when I delved deeper into it I realized no grapes are not sour but it is the public display that is atrocious. Someone on my FB list shifted out of her older home to a bigger better place and even before they shifted in she’d put up a picture of the huge balcony which is obviously such a luxury in Bombay and titled is as plain “BALCONY”. What followed was a line of comments and questions like so is this place bought or is it on rent. Like really do we need to know that just be happy looking at the pictures no?

Another one of my favouritest websites these days is this one. Yeayyyyy they have such treats for the food bloglover every single day and pictures are another different world altogether.

Oh and the funniest thing ever happened day before as I got a call from this shop called Vero Moda from where I had picked up a pair of jeans a month back and filled up some voucher for a lucky draw and surprise surprise I won the lucky draw and the prize being a lunch date with VJ Rannvijay of MTV. The lunch date I never went for because of bad PMS. Hahaha! I think this lunch date came a decade too late. So not excited one is at 27 going on 28 about supposedly hot MTV VJ.

I think I should be off to Goa this weekend unless something important at work comes up. I hope I do. I haven’t seen the sea for such a long long time. Good bye for now.

Sharing recipes and sharing laughter! :-)

I have fallen in love with this Travel and Food blog and last couple of days I just cannot have enough of these posts and the fabulous photography, mainly food photography. I love reading food blogs, a habit I seem to have developed the last one year or so when I first stumbled upon Nupur’s One Hot Stove and then Meeta’s What’s For Lunch Honey? I love the homely touch in Nupur’s blog and she is great with Indian Vegetarian Fare and Meeta continues to amaze me with her photography skills and the sheer variety of recipes right from salads to main course to desserts. Not to forget the Bong Mom’s Cook Book with her take on traditional Bengali cuisine. I adore the tiny vignettes of personal stories these bloggers weave into their blog posts. It is amazing how these women sitting in different corners of the globe manage to balance their diverse little worlds with the work front, household chores and kids and yet they find the time to post recipes regularly with the most gorgeous pictures. I guess these are just a few of the food blogs out of the thousands present on the internet today but they are a part of a generational change as food bloggers have brought about a veritable revolution in the industry as celebrated food bloggers have grown to exercise an influence on the tastes and palate of the foodie public. Most of them started out with their blogs as a hobby and for some of the passionate and lucky ones with time this hobby changed into a full time job. Wow! I don’t know about you but every time I am looking for a new recipe I always look for it on the internet and invariably some food blog would have some tried , tested and enjoyed recipe and of course I give it my own touch but these recipes never disappoint me.

We went bowling this Saturday and we had such a merry time but for my little thumb that was almost dead and swollen and painful after three rounds of bowling. There was M and two of her friends S and K and of course me. We caught the last show of Ragini MMS after that and I was so not impressed with the explicit scenes but the ghost of the old maharashtrian lady chanting “mah chudail nahin” did give me the creeps as I shrieked my lungs out but the majority of people in the hall were laughing and I asked S why is everybody laughing and am I the only one scared which was actually the truth.  M walked out after half an hour cause she hates horror flicks and I felt like such an idiot to have forgotten so. Hmmmmphhhh! My house is full of people now as Nutty and her friend M create quite the ruckus and add Ma in who loves the constant twenty something banter between the two as they burst into giggles every one and a half minutes and we wouldn’t even know what they find so funny in the most ordinary situations. To be 23 again and to be able to laugh at anything and everything again. But to be very honest us friends do manage to do that every time we meet up like Fino, Bratty, B and I in Delhi this November. That was the craziest night ever and whenever we reminisce that night and how irritated Bratty got with B for getting all of us sooooooooo drunk that they almost missed their flight the next morning , we fall of our respective chairs and beds in Bangalore and Delhi or that drunk night at WTF and China House in Bombay and all of us together after so long and the next morning on our way to Pune, Rad, Nik, Fino and I went on and on about the funny incidents the night before that all our plans of taking a much needed nap were forgotten. How much Tinni and I laugh every time we think of those sidey boys following our auto (but then at that time we were sooooooo scared). Nothing like sharing laughter with friends and family I say.

A fun weekend, the two P....ma's and a horror flick :D

I had a fun , fun weekend. La di dah di dah!  I met up with two different P…..ma’s over the course of a day and a half. I am not divulging their names but the first letter and the last two letters of their names are the same. Hehehe! So Saturday evening Nutty and I were at Bennigan’s cos Batty’s brother made a plan and Nutty quickly decided I would be escorting her there and if I was so close to P….ma1’s place in GK2 then I had to ask her to drop in considering the fact I haven’t met up with her for 6 months. So there we were a merry bunch with R and his funny friends and the cherry on the cake being it was the karaoke night. Bennigan’s was full of karaoke regulars who meet up very often as I noticed the air of familiarity that everybody greeted each singer and how the crowd ooheed and aahhhed and cheered every singer on. We sat at the bar and munched on Fish Bites which were very bland if I may say so. But we also had the most amazing and lip smacking Bloody Marys I have had in a while and the last couple of weeks I have been going out pretty often and trying the same cocktail out in some 3 different places but the Bennigan’s Bloody Mary won hands down over the two Turquoise Cottages’ and Morrisson’s Bloody Mary. So a hands up for that. It was so spicy and chilly with just the right amount of lemon juice and the salt on the edges of the glass. I tried the Falafel platter later but the Humus was sooooooo tasteless and the Falafel was over fried and overdone. Yes I have had better Lebanese food before but I think one should visit the place on Saturday if not for anything but the happy cheery atmosphere and the loud music that is so needed on a Saturday evening. No this time I did not take a rick back at 1 at night because R being a gentleman assured that we were dropped home. Such nice gestures from a 20 year old was so refreshing. Of course being Batty’s kid brother I do have a soft spot for the child.

Last morning Nutty and I headed out to meet P….ma2 for lunch in this place called Gun Powder in Hauz Khas village. I have never been to Hauz Khas village before but P..ma2 lured me to it promising me the most amazing Andhra/Coorgi/Mangalorian Cuisine and who was I to say no to sample such delicious spicy fare. We reached Hauz Khas village way before and wasted some time at this tiny café called Bagel’s Café where we drank Iced Teas and ate a raisin cinnamon Bagel and took some random pictures. I loved the black and white photography on their wall and I am going to come back for their various cream cheese bagels very soon. Our table had been booked for 12:30 and the lanes and bylanes being all curvy and narrow it took some time to find our restaurant and what a surprise as the entry is soooooooo shady and tiny and one is greeted by this big balcony overlooking the lake and tables set out. I lurrrveeeed the food. We had Buff Fry and Pork Ribs and Pandhi Curry and Meen Curry and Malabari Parathas and Butter Milk and how much we spoke and spoke and gossiped about strange people in the restaurant and the strange people and not so strange people from college. Hahaha! P…ma2 is such a sweetheart. Nutty and I followed that up with a show of Haunted 3D at Vasant Kunj and we were scared out of our wits. I mean yes it’s a silly often told tale but I almost always enjoy scary flicks that centre around an old house in the hills and the spirit of a lovely maiden and the foreign returned hero trying to be her knight in shining armour and the evil spirit etc. Haha! I think the 3D effects was what did the trick as the spirit seemed to be in the same room as us movie watchers.

Monday morning and I am still a happy happy child. Ma’s coming day after from Calcutta and M tomorrow from Bangalore. It is gonna be a full house for a month. I like that. :-)

P.S: On second thoughts why for heaven's sake am I sounding like a part time food critic in this post? Hahaha!

Yesterday

That the funniest conclusion me and F came to was there is a higher purpose as to why we have always lived so happily with little. That F and I have always been the Queens of the saddest phones in the market but for interim periods in the middle and that we can laugh about it even now.

That I actually, truly cut somebody out like snippety snippety snap and that is such a huge burden off my mind. That I didn’t even know I was carrying it around for the last couple of months. That it feels like Whewwwww is it actually over?

That work is taxing and I am running from pillar to post trying to reach an even ground and reach to a consensus and sometimes I feel it is an impossible, mammoth task. That by the end of it I’ll probably get no acknowledgment whatsoever. That it doesn’t bother me as much as it would have a couple of years back.

That I cooked some very bad chicken last evening while talking animatedly on the phone with an old old friend who touched some chord somewhere. That strangely I like the way my hands smell after chopping all that onion and garlic. That even this morning on my way to work I was smiling just thinking of our conversation when there had been nothing extraordinary about it.

That my sister made me cut my pretty pretty nails that I had recently acquired saying she won’t touch the food I make unless those nails are chopped off. Hmmmphhh! That my fingers feel funny and I keep looking at them thinking something is missing.

That I am writing utter nonsense but then what to do it is this urge to write. That I couldn’t think of anything else right now.