My voracious appetite for cooking is eating into most of my weekends these days. Some of my chef-in-the-making mantras,…
Keep it fresh and natural; the less processed the better. Stop being so lazy. Use real garlic and real tomatos instead of paste or puree from a can. The flavour is so much better. And don’t drown the food in oil. Greasy food makes my skin prickle..
More foods updates soon.
The last two books I read, Mistress and Chocolate, had a similar ending.
The protagonists who are both women make torrid love to some man they met along the way of life. A seed of passion is sown. They decide to have the love-child.
They will be single mothers. The father will never know.
It’s amazing how one all-India competitive exam can send the nation, its media, aspirants, trainers and more into a tizzy.
I feel for those who don’t make the cut. Their self-esteem could plummet, they may feel suicidal, they might carry a deep-rooted sense of meaninglessness for the rest of their lives.
Saw a ‘play’ yesterday. The production was called ‘Imps’ and was directed by Divya Palat(who earlier misdirected The Graduate).
It was supposedly improv theatre, but when it unfolded, I felt a sense of de ja vous creeping in. It was ’Who’s Line Is It Anyway?’, repackaged.
The performance was severely amateur, but nonetheless good for laughs courtesy the shenanigans of the actors, some of whom were indeed extremely funny. They looked like a bunch of college students.
It isn’t easy for amateur actors to go on stage and attempt to make people laugh, impromptu. So, claps there and some good potential, too.
Dissapointingly, lots of laughter stemmed from ’toilet’ humour. Isn’t it so easy, so tempting to dabble with this variety? ( I must say this, even though I laughed myself silly watching Austen Powers)
The real challenge would be to steer clear and keep the humour going sans references to subjects like sex, underwear, etc.
Because it is so cliched.
I am a sucker for romance. Waves, thunder, Pablo Neruda. Sigh.
Sonnet XVII
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
– Pablo Neruda
New development: have joined a band called ‘Tequila’.
Jammed with them once at Not Just Jazz By The Bay, a cool little joint along Marine drive. It was a nice feeling, singing live before an audience once again.
Also, caught up with an old friend Jagganathan who popped down from film school in Calcutta. We drifted apart at some point of time due to this and that. He’s one of the funniest people I know — one can laugh at him and with him, so that’s like having a double expresso coffee. And both these veins are equally important; I know tons of people who can be witty, but can’t take it when the jokes on them, so there.
The first 10 minutes were kind of odd, as post work I sounded like an ‘automated machine’, in Jaggi’s own words. When that happens, I interject conversation with words like ‘interesting’, ‘totally’, ‘of course’. In his usual blatant style, he told me to knock it off. I did and then we started have ‘real’ conversation.
Anyways, he has a girlfriend and that’s weird cause Jaggi never had one, ever.
I think it’s because he isn’t conventional ‘boyfriend material’. He looks and is slightly odd — rake thin, wisps of grey hair, black lips (lots of smoking), cluttered mind etc.
I think his mind is less cluttered now. We shared a lot of laughs like old times, compared notes on disastrous blind/regular dates ( read woes), current crushes etc. It was refreshing.
Dropped into Soul Fry for Karaoke night. The place was like a hen coop, with lots of cackling hens showcasing their voices. Great fun. Was supposed to meet a buddy of mine there. But when I got there, a little birdie told me he was furiously making out with his GF, somewhere. Lots of retro and rock favourites did the rounds, with interludes of kajrare and other filmy/Indo-pop music. It didn’t seem to matter; people seemed ready to gyrate to just about anything.
The German choir recital was worth a listen. I fell asleep mid-way, because the music was so soft and soothing to the ears. It was mostly by European composers from the 1800’s. The choir was made up of 40 tenors and sopranos all in the age group of 16 to 21, I think. Such sweet sounds and tender voices.
Besides the divine music, what caught my (bitchy) buddy Alan’s eyes, was their heifer-cow sized fleshy calves. He tried making eye contact with a pixie-haired brunette (also with heifer-cow sized calves), but in vain.
The Indian choir in comparison (or even sans) was droning on pathetically. Would attribute it to lackluster arrangements by the conductor as well possibly, bad conducting. Hopefully they sound better on other days.
Ultimately the choir is the conductor. A brilliant conductor with mediocre singers can sound far superior to a poor conductor with mediocre singing.
I felt a little sad for the Indian choir, because obviously all the kids had good voices on an individual level. Ironically, the conductor’s little girl is deaf and can’t speak either.
At the end of the performance, the two choirs sang in unison, and some of them walked around in concentric circles amongst the audience. This was not a very smart thing to do, as some of them bumped into each other and also, were concentrating more on not bumping into the other than singing. With better choreography and practice, this might have been a good experiment.
Anyways, it was worth it for a few moments of divine music and absolute peace.
written with alot of passion