Who will initiate?

While going through a beautiful post Mamtaji [Benarji ji] , are u listening? , I re-collected an incident which happened with me, or say one of my friend.

After having a dinner @ my hometown, I dropped her at a public place called race course which is frequented by families and young crowd till late hours. I always make it a point to drop any female to her desired destination 9.00 p.m. and I did the same. As she had her own vehicle parked @ so-called public place, I decided her to follow in my car till her home. It was quite difficult for me to drive @ 60 kms an hour on that road as there were few vehicles on the road which created a gap between me and my friend. Out of nowhere I see one bike and two guys driving along with my friend... Whoops!!!

More than hundred thoughts crossed my mind... Do they know her? Her neighbors? Cousins? Road romeos? Should I move my car close to them? Should I stop them n try to be a Hero? etc......

It was not more than a matter of 10 secs and she took a turn towards her home and those lil puppies made their way on different lane..

I felt more relieved than my friend would have at that time. Unfortunately, ladies experience these incidents on a regular basis, so they normally avoid any confrontation but it was totally out of blue for me!!!

If those guys would have tried to act even lil smarter, they would have been treated with the experience they wouldnt have dreamed of(I can swear on that). But is it necessary that a female needs to accompanied by a male after late hours?

Our state is known across India and world for its safety for women. It is said and seen that girls move out on roads till late night on various occasions such as Navratri, Diwali n lot more...

After that incident, I thought what would have been my best course of action at that time? And I thought that I should have followed them, leaving my friend on her own as she was only two minutes away from her home.. stopped them and would confronted them with appropriate measures (Sam-Daam-Dand-Bhed) which might have made them think twice before following any gal or making any other advances...

Bhumika, if we have got lucky and escaped such situation, it doesnt mean that we will be lucky next time or that asses are not going to repeat the same thing with other individual with more boldness...

You and I are equally responsible for promoting them to get more bolder and directing them to serious crimes like eve-teasing, blackmail, rape n murder...

I would like to quote an example of Surat Rape case, where in three males gang raped a teenager. Later it was discovered that these goons have been committing such acts from long time but didnt get caught as no one complained.... Just think, it would have been started off with eve-teasing when these goons must be young... If they would have been stopped at that stage itself, they wouldn't have committed such act..

Men are not born Demons, society creates them!

Monumental waste: INR 350 cr Shivaji statue

I was so excited to hear this news!!!

Wow! A statue in India bigger than a statue of Liberty! So what if our Prime Minister has declared most part of our country drought prone. . .

Well, we can definately afford it as such we have trillions of dollars worth black money lying in Swiss bank accounts, so why not little more of stripping our economy?

Our Govt is proudly boasting that this statue of Shivaji Maharaj will rival NY's Statue of Liberty, a statue that was build 110 years back! Don't we have anything to compete that was build recently? Burj Dubai !! Wont it make us feel more proud?

If our Govt thinks that they need to do something for our cultural heritage, there must hundreds of endangered monuments, structures which are part of our cultural heritage dying slowly towards destruction due to lack of funds. The Govt has funds to build new structure but dont care about what we have been gifted by our ancesters!!! Can you imagine what can be the face of our city like Mumbai if this amount is spent on beautification of the city??

I agree that this statue will attract tourists across the globe and will generate revenue... but will it really seduce the people to put this statue in their 'wishlist'? I doubt... Mumbai city has so much to offer that one more 'must see' wont make much difference...

I wont re-utter the same crap that our country needs to invest more in infrastructure and other development projects, but atleast our so-called janta ke sevaks should think how these funds can be utilized to get optimum return in any kind..

Getting re-vived

It feels bit strange to pen (make it type) down thoughts after a gap of almost four months... Lots of reason behind this agyatwas, but could not hold more... so I am back to business.

A lot has happened in social and personal life during these four months... few good memories and couple of terrible ones too...

As I am getting lil old, I would be able to share one of the good thing that happened to me few days back... I accidently bumped on a friend whom I had lost almost twenty years back!!!! Yeah, we were schoold buddies and lost each other's touch after third grade due to change in school and city. I had tried couple of times to track him down by orkuting n facebooking with no luck.

But, one fine day I see this guy's post on a networking site!!!! Couldn believe that I had found a friend after a span of twenty years!!!

Miracles still do happen :)

G T Sheth '97 Alumni- Sincere efforts always pays well

Who could have ask for more?? It is beyond our imagination to see our event catching eyes not only in Rajkot city, but also whole gujrati community spreaded across the world.

Bharatsir highlighted our small effort by publishing the event in daily news paper 'Phulchhaab'. The news has been published in Gulmor suppliment dated 10/4/2009.

Nostalgia @ Re-union (G T Sheth '97 Alumni)

Finally, we saw, we heard and we felt what we were eagerly waiting for more than two months...

REVIVE- Re-union of all families of G T Sheth '97 batch which not comprised of ex-sutdents and faculty members but also family of our friend late Kunal Mehta who expired on our journey to this challenging world.

To give a helping hand to guys who have been continously putting efforts to make this re-union more eventful, I decided to land up in Rajkot by friday. But all I could do was to engage the whole team in more of khana-peena(non-alchoholic) and less of work... Fortunately, there was nothing left for the last few days as all team mates were well equipped and had done everything possible on this earth.

D-Day:
Rajkot, which bears an accolade of bearing highest tempreature in Saurashtra was our biggest challenge. The venue was a open garden plot with a small stage at Chowki Dhaani, which meant lot of trouble on account of high tempreature.

But due to well wishes of our elders and friends, nature shaded the whole city with clouds and to add more comfort, showered few droplets right before the event. It was beyond our imagination to have such pleasant atmosphere in sizzling summer.

As expected, most of the people had turned up for the event excluding few who could not manage due to unavoidable circumstances and few who did not wished to manage.

The faculty who once enlightened our mind and soul, lighted diyas preceding Vincy Malkan's inaugural speech. Most of the students including me, received most expensive gift from our beloved Dipti Ma'm who also showed us birthday cards prepared by our school mates on her birthday 15 years back!!

It was very nice to see all mates almost after a decade with their family, happy and eager to know about each other. By God's grace, everyone seemed to be in their best health, peace & prosperity....

At the end of the event, the most including the faculties concluded to have a bigger event in future. I am sure, those who could not manage to attend this event will definetly look forward for the next event....

Checking crime, tracking crime

I am fond of watching 'super-fast' news every morning. The most common news one can find almost every day is abduction, dacoity, theft, rape, murder and much more in metro cities particularly in Delhi and Mumbai.

Delhi, being a national capital should be as good as heaven for the innocent citizens, but on the contrary it is becoming a hub for all kind of small and big crimes. I wonder why and how local police and other security forces are unable to check these crimes and atrocities against helpless citizens.

Its not the case that this post is all about blasting off on the security lapse or less effective control in checking crime. The police force have been quite successful in solving crimes, but is only our security force responsible for checking and tracking crime?

We, as a citizen, simply avoid any involvement in eradicating criminal offense.

Couple of days back, a girl named Jigisha working in a BPO was murdered. Police and news channel states that the criminals used her credit cards in purchasing some expensive items from stores. All the criminals were involved were males. They had used the credit cards of Jigisha, a female. So, how come the shop keeper who accepted the card did not noticed such vast difference? The shop owner should have questioned the culprits regarding ownership of card.

No doubt that these murderers will be punished as the murder case has been resolved. But the shop-owner along with the person who accepted the credit card should also be penalized and punished.

Pasta in Vodka Sauce with garlic bread

I wonder why people go out and shed so much of money eating out when you can prepare exotic dishes in no time. It not only saves time, but also gives you a satifaction of having a good and hygenic food.

The restaurents which serves few italian dishes like pasta are either too expensive to afford or too much tasteless.

Pastas/Spaghetti is generally prepared in varied combination of sauces, herbs and vegetables. Once you get accustomed to the taste or blend of pasta, you can prepare a wide range of delicacies by adding differenct ingredients to pastas.

My favorite sauce for pasta is full of tomatoes, chillies, onion-garlic and a few vegetables. Once the pasta or spaghetti is cooked, saute some garlic cloves along with onions and chillies. Add ginger-garlic paste to add some tangy taste. Now add some tomatoe puree along with red chilly powder and turmeric powder. Cover the pan for four to five minutes so the puree is cooked properly. Now, you can add vegetables like carrot, green pepper, peas microwaved for around four minutes. For, people looking out something different, a cup of vodka or wine can be added but make sure to keep the flame at lowest level while adding vodka. Now, add boiled pasta or spaghetti and simmer for couple of minutes. The pasta is ready to eat.

Desi garlic bread are quick to prepare and good to eat. Apply some butter on any bread. Sprinkly some garlic salt on the bread. If the garlic salt is not available, one can spread garlic paste with common salt on the bread. Pre-heat the oven and put it on convection mode. Now, put the breads on upper rack for about 3 minutes and the garlic bread is ready to accompany pasta.

Holi Hai!!!

Here comes the most colorful, dirty n flirty fest of the country.... Holi!!Being a proper Surti (in every aspect), I fail miserably to imagine any fest or occasion without lots of khana-peena (food n beverages) and masti. This holi, there were a few people who were made victims of the rowdiness of our inner (can say 'sinner') soul.. Harish who happens to be one of our own gang was not even spared. He played a perfect role of a guinea pig by taking in all type of color, mud and god knows what... :)


The guys were all equipped with latest colors which reminds one how brutally he was colored for days...

The next victim Aman aka Chaman Jingaaa who kept on cursing us till we left him totally ruined..

Mr Patel being a great sport showed up after some time mentally prepared for all torture, but seemed to be more afraid of Mrs Patel rather than us and kept on looking up for the wrath of her better half.... :)

Badly burnt Bread Rolls

However hard we try, sometimes we may not get an alternative for a pan filled with hot cooking oil. A Foodie like me will cannot resist a hot and peppery dishes soaked in oil.. But where there is a will, there is a microwave!!
This weekend, I was once again urged to experiment more on healthy way of cooking oil soaked delicacy. Word ‘Bread roll’ kept hitting my ear and taste buds, so i finally made up my mind to go for it.
There are certain things which these cookery books
don't state is the easier way of cooking vegetable. Just cut finely vegetables like carrot or even onions and microwave them @ 100% for a minute or so. Same goes for vegetables like green peas or corn too but a cauliflower may take a little longer… So, i microwaved finely cut chillies, carrot peas for a minute so that they do not remain raw. The same was done for ginger n garlic paste, lil cumin seeds, red chilly powder and turmeric powder. Little oil should be added in this spices and should be microwaved for 30 secs so they are properly cooked and also don't get burnt.
Once the rolls were ready, i started grilling them after coating up with little oil. But the grilling doesnt work out evenly on every part of roll and one needs to roll them up
continuously. After cooking them up for about 15 mins, some part was nicely cooked, some part remained raw and some was burnt!!!
So, I thought of using convection mode as we do for pizza but that didnt go well either as i guess we were using a flat dish for keeping rolls and not rack.
So, my experiment for a perfect bread roll still continues… if anyone has a better idea, please suggest.

The new wave

If one could understand the joy staying alone in a bachelor accommodation, he would have also gone through the pain of nurturing himself and his little belly. After a hard(ly) working day, when you go home to find empty dishes n pans for your empty stomach, one can only feel agony and pity on thyself. Eating out everyday will again spoil your biological and monthly economic budget. And yeah, Maggi(instant noodle) does remain an edible choice after couple of days.
Though I always boast of my efficient cooking skills, I am nowhere a match for every day cooking. It sucks!
So, when my hope for a miracle was about to diminish, I was suggested to give a second thought to buy Microwave Oven. Well, I had not heard that well for this Electric Chullah and had been always advised to refrain from it as it was good for nothing.
My thought process towards microwave oven started to change on my half yearly visit to Vincy’s Beer treat in Mumbai! There, I learned how to heat up every edible stuff at one go.
On a one fine day in the first week of the month(the most happiest week in the month), I gathered courage and visited few stores where I was shown and marketed all types of Microwave ovens. Though I was running short on budget(as i always do), I again managed to gather up courage to buy a better economical version with a CONVECTION mode!
So, we had a new lazy alien cook who worked only if we compelled him to!
Fortunately, most of the experiments I started off with this new cook were not so horrible and also there hasn’t been any explosion which inspires and promotes myself to go further with my experiments.
Microwave is dominantly designed for Videshi Khana. A lot has been written and said for indian delicacies too. but, I would suggest to first understand the functions available in the oven and adjust them with Indian cooking. Like, you would find the cookbook stating to apply some water on papad heat it in microwave for 30 secs with a tissue paper down under, but it doesn state that the water needs to be applied only on the upper side of the pappad. Nor, it states that instead of water, one can enjoy it by also applying very little oil or ghee which gives feel of a fried pappad!
So, my experiments with the oven started up with desi pasta, pizza and pappad will continue till my mind gets exhausted of thinking further….