Recipe - Spice up the Fish!

Ingredients:

Fish ( preferably the squared ones) – 2 pieces
Ginger – small piece
Garlic – 3
Pepper – 1 small spoon
Green chillies – 2
Lime juice – 1 table spoon
Corn flour – 1 table spoon
Turmeric powder – 1 pinch
Salt
Oil
Onion and Coriander leaves for garnishing

Preparation:

1. Wash the fish cubes well with water and keep it aside
2. Put ginger, garlic, pepper, green chillies in a mixer and make it a fine paste.
3. Make fine holes on the fish with a sharp knife.
4. Put the fish in a big bowl; Add the paste prepared, lime juice, turmeric powder, salt to it.
5. Marinate the ingredients all over the fish such that the paste spreads thoroughly inside the holes.
6. Spread corn flour in a plate. Apply the flour thoroughly over the fish.
7. Put oil in a pan and once the oil is heated put the fish on the pan and heat it for 3-4 minutes.

8. Let the fish fry properly on both sides.
9. Remove the fish pieces from the pan and garnish it with the finely chopped onions and coriander leaves.

10. Serve it hot with mint sauce.

IT Speak - Had a break?

*non-ITians excuse
If I say ‘IT is growing everyday’, nothing new in it. But if I ask ‘where do you stand in the growth?’ are you going to take a thought about it?

If you relax for sometime closing your eyes; by the time you open your eyes the ‘world’ would have gone far away from you. The only possible way you could reach the ‘world’ would be to double your speed. ‘The rabbit and tortoise’ concept is not going to work out here. And I bet if you are not physically and mentally prepared to double your speed; then you are a loser!

Taking a long break from work, especially during your ‘crucial growth period’ is like inviting trouble with a ‘welcome drink’. Certain ‘breaks’ are unavoidable. But again be prepared to double your speed. Don’t imagine yourself as a tortoise, as the rabbits here are not fools to give you way.

The ingredients to reach the ‘world’ (that is to double your speed are); a whole you, with no worries, physically fit, mentally prepared, a good aim at the target, and of course a smile on your face(the last one is my personal suggestion everywhere)! If you feel you have them all then take the plunge – the second time! Else wait!

Shhh....No politics here!!!

I happened to visit a village near vellore where in few of the homes had no proper electricity, no proper food; water was contaminated, and more. But one thing which I could see in almost all the homes was a small television with "Tamil Nadu Arasal Vazhanga Pattadhu" written in blue. And every home had a cable connection with a few channels in which Kalaignar TV was compulsorily present.

A kind lady offered us tea as we came from far far away(from Chennai). As I was waiting for it, a small kid came home from school, threw his bag and grabbed the remote control. He tuned to 'Kalaignar Music' (am not sure about the name of the channel) and started dancing for Chimpoo's 'Kutti pisase' song. Heights!

I asked him when he will do his homework. He gave me a list of TV programs after which he said he will eat and sleep and will do homework the next day morning. This is 'India Tomorrow' (at least in villages) for us. But one appreciable aspect was every family had a 'TV' of their own and the ladies had some entertainment rather than gossipping with neighbours all time.

Struggle more and u will get.......

.......IT back!
Flash news today says "Ahmedabad, has registered a whopping Rs 1.44 crore salary offer, which is the highest in all the IIMs in India".

Heard about increasing 'dowry' for Software engineers(earning less than 10 L/annum) in AP...

How is it to be a mother of a girl child?

On the day of delivery,her prayers are to the maximum.As they say,its rebirth for a woman.But what actually is her prayer to god?Is it for a safe and non-problematic delivery or for a boy child?Well, people will definitely debate with me if I say that, as these days modern Mother-To-Be are 'OK' with any child, be it a boy or a girl.

Recently I had a chat with a woman who was a Mother-To-Be , she says her prayers are for a boy child.I was very curious in knowing the reason.She said, "I don't want my child to face the problems I faced in life".I replied back saying "Lady! come on, a child has to be either a girl or a guy.Why restrict one gender? It was Adam and Eve and destiny was, Eve had to face the consequences, no matter what." Am I right? I didn't want to disappoint her or to prove her prayers were wrong by talking more.But I felt bad thinking what if every woman thinks like this?

'Rear Window' experience

'Rear Window' directed by Alfred Hitchcock which was nominated for Oscars is a movie in which a man in wheelchair spies on his neighbour through his telescope and becomes convicted that one of them has committed murder. He enjoys being in the wheelchair as he is entertained by the various activities of his neighbours. Same way......

.....few weeks it was a great experience for me who had sprained my leg due to a minor accident at home.Sitting sedentary with a remote on my hand at one place(my bed) made me discover thousands of new ideas.Food, water, paper, books,junk all to my place. I can say I enjoyed this.Doctor advised me not to move for few days.There were in fact talks of buying a mobile commode.God saved me from that worser situation.For the first time I spent weekday afternoons at home, discovering what neighbours do. Same as what happened in the movie, I heard and saw a lot of fights,romances,chatting,cooking etc. I was not eavesdropping, but had no choice but to hear it, as my room window was on a corner of the plot closer to my neighbours respective windows.

In one window, a young girl was seen always on her mobile, I assumed she was engaged with a guy and was staying at home. The other window where a boy was yelling (a+b)^2=(a^2+2ab+b^2), and stuff. Probably his maths exam the next day(You guessed it right! I wrote this post during Half-Yearly exam time but forgot to post it then).Third window was a kitchen window where the magic of spices were disturbing me so much while I should be on diet. When I got bored with the windows I would pick my remote. Thanks to the sprain! It kept me away from so many things!

Last minute rush-up (December month)

2008-My first post this year! Let it be about 'the last few days'!

Do you postpone things to the 11Th hour and struggle at that moment? Well, I do! I do a lot of postponement and I admit I do multitasking in the 11Th hour. A lot of time goes waste thinking whether to do it or not, how to do it, what will be the consequences etc (merely speaking planning consumes a lot of time while actual implementation has to be rushed up).One good example is I never eat the whole day and finally stuff a lot of food compensating for the whole day! (I know you never expected such an example :-)).

If we give it a serious thought and look at the events (exclusively bad) that had taken place in the last week of December, that's called real postponement or last minute rush-up. No one expected Benazir's death during the year end. What about Tsunami? Well, that's god's postponement. Maybe god decided of a Tsunami in 2004 and kept postponing it till last week of the year.

The Thread!

//It denotes that one who wear the sacred thread should be pure in his thought, word and deed.//

A person I know replied for this saying, absolutely not necessary; and removed his thread. The explanation he gave for this was, "A person who wears it is not all that great. Why should a thread differentiate me from others? Let the world consider me equally from now on..."

Three cheers for him (for thinking uniquely and rightly) on behalf of me and my blog!!!

Wine shop!

The intensity of crowd at various shops fluctuate for various seasons...

Diwali/Festivals-Cracker shop, Saree houses are overloaded.

Start of academic year-Book and stationary stores are fully packed.

Religious occasions/auspicious days- Flower business go up. Valentine's day-Crowd at 'Gift' shops.

But if there is one shop which is always packed with people at any season and for no reason at any time of a day is the Wine shop (at least here in Chennai).

Are so many people addicted to alcohol? Occasionally consuming it sounds OK, but getting addicted to it needs a second thought. A man under poverty line becoming irresponsible and getting addicted to alcohol will lose a lot.

A search from a website says...

• Advantages: Better cardiovascular health, Improved blood vessel function, Value in religious systems, Social interactions at low to moderate use levels

• Disadvantages: Fetal alcohol syndrome, Driving related problems and violence, Alcoholism, Increased risk for various diseases (Many types of cancer), Interaction with several medications, even OTC drugs

Sedentary men!

Year 2007, booming or rather bloomed IT has a lot of men working for it. Long long ago, men went to the fields to earn some money for living while their counter-parts acted home-makers. Man is different from a woman by what means - physical appearance and the physical strength? That is the reason why men went out for hunting a little later while women still continued to stay at home. Years went, civilizations changed, culture bloomed; still men were stronger by body and mind and they volunteered the 'outside' job while the ladies took over the 'family-shaping' job.

But now as we see men working sedentary in front of the monitors, are they still stronger by mind and body? Ages back women at home used to send their sons to the battle field to fight for her country. Now every mom wants her son be a 'Software Engineer' instead and earn lakhs of money sitting at one place. Even now there are people who join the army and navy but are they recognized when compared to the ones working at 'Infosys' or 'Wipro' or 'TCS'?

Sometime back a bus in which I was travelling was full of IT janta and accidentally it hit a two-wheeler.Fortunately nothing had happened to the person on it. The angry two-wheeler guy came inside the bus and started hitting the bus driver wildly, as the fault was on the bus-driver's side. The whole scene took place for at least two full minutes and during that time none of the 'software men' in the bus went forward to stop the fight. Either they were busy shuffling songs in their i-pod or enjoying their sleep. My thought here is, how quickly will these sedentary men react to any critical situations?

Also, getting a girl is not so difficult these days. Girls easily fall for a corporate tag or for a visa stamping. Reminds me of 'Suyamvara' ritual during olden days or the traditional 'Jalli-Kattu' (cow-chasing) where a guy has to prove his braveness to get the girl's heart.

A good 'Song'!

Usually ARR songs will become hot favorites amongst many, but after listening to it for a repeated number of times. ARR songs are very reliable. Recently I heard a song 'Maduraiku Pogadhe' in one of the many 'FM' channels. Way different from the usual numbers this one created a curiosity in me to know who was the music director and which movie it is from. Unfortunately the 'RJ' did not announce that. According to me a song and its composition becomes good only when the listeners get the 'feel' of it and search for its details. Obviously, for any good job done don't we ask 'Who did this?'

While browsing through the channels, I violently came back to the channel where I heard this song again; just to know who has scored the music. A perfect folk song or a 'Kuthu' paatu or a 'Masth' song or whatever you mention; this one is from ATM (Now for people in Tamil Nadu ATM is no more Automated Teller Machine but Azhagiya Tamilmagan). I basically(and acidically ;-))don't like actor Vijay but ARR has proved that his fans will never be cheated! After knowing this song was a Rehman's product I felt 'No wonder'! Rehman rocks!

Experience with Mrs Manirathnam-fame is not everything!

Money, fame, status, power will definitely change a person's behaviour or will definitely put in some kind of weight-to-the-head is my friend's notion after this incident happened. But i strongly disagreed to his point saying I can prove that there are people who throw away their 'everything' when it comes to maintaining a good 'attitude'. Dr.Abdul Kalam is a very down-to-earth person though he has his own international status; is what i heard and saw. But there are people who are not like that.

This incident happened when I met Suhasini Manirathnam(actor and wife of popular director Manirathnam)this week at a shopping mall when I was shopping with my friend. I initially saw her and shouted 'Hey hey, look. Its Suhasini.' My friend was astonished looking at her thinking, a big shot coming out to public places so comfortably as he said, 'Hey come lets talk to her. I want to tell her that my dad is one of her crazy fans.' I said 'OK, lets take a snap with her', as we ran towards her. She was busy taking a snap with a foreigner after which she started moving. My friend stopped her shouting her name. At least she had some courtesy in responding our call by turning back. Once my friend said what he wanted to, she(Mrs Manirathnam) did not even respond to it, and she left the place with a not-so-interested smile.

The immediate statement i got from my friend was 'We made a mistake talking to her.Good that we did not take a photo with her'. Of course, we understand it is difficult to meet hundreds of fans everyday; but a smile with a 'thank you' is not going to charge her anything is all what we concluded!

Rat-a-too-ee

What a movie! A must watch!

Worth the money and time. A brilliant animation work full of laughter and fun.Its all about rats and cooking!Its not that someone cooks and the rat eats it, but in 'Ratatouille'(this is how its spelt) the rat cooks!!!

Best animation movie I have ever watched!!!

Recipe - Vegetable Crunch!

Vegetable Crunch

Ingredients:

Carrot - 2

Beans - 10

Cabbage

Coriander leaves

Curry Leaves

Oil - 2 tbsp

Salt

Chilly powder

Corn flour

Directions:

• Boil carrot, beans and cabbage with half a cup of water in a pan for 5 mins
• Cut the boiled vegetables into bigger pieces
• Mix the vegetables with chilly powder, salt and corn flour
• Heat oil in a pan
• Put the mixed vegetables in the oil and fry them till they turn golden brown or approximately for 10 mins
• Serve hot with sauce

*can be consumed as starters or can be had as a side dish for rice and roti.

Look at that!!!

My first look at this female on a movie poster gave me serious thoughts that 'Are they planning to make a Devdas remake in Tamil where she will play Vikram's pair?'. That's because she looks so gorgeous ,very much equivalent to Madhuri Dixit in 'Dola re(Devdas)'.

I never had a slightest thought this was 'Kenny-anna' (that's how a friend of mine calls Chiyan Vikram who is her family friend).

Observe the picture. What I feel is the main motto of the whole 'Kandasamy' team about this particular role of Vikram would be that any guy who looks at this picture should fall for 'her'. Every single aspect from the accessories to the nose-ring looks so perfect. The only flaw i feel about the make-up is Vikram's eyes-which resembles more of a drunkard's, the lens somehow manages to cover up the flaw.

I don't think feminine make-up would have suited any other actor as this one!

Cricket-Pak-Dhoni-Cup-Mumbai-Bus!

Chennai feels jealous thinking,'If I were Mumbai.....' for that lucky bus to go around.Dhoni and men have proved at last that India is 'capable', after all those previous 'beaten-ups'. 'Time' never gave me time to write about our master-blasters for their marvelous show this week. Finally caught hold of this page and not going to leave it till I convey my thoughts about the victory.

That last over was full of tension at my home apart from the lakh homes in India. My dad kept his fingers crossed though he was confident about India's win. Me like a spoil-sport, kept discouraging him by saying 'anything might happen in the last minute'- I was not wrong though! Misbah-ul-Haq(did i spell that right?) almost taught a new style of batting for that last ball, i got reminded by 'Lagaan-village players'. If Sreesanth had not caught that ball, if Misbah had sent the next ball to boundary; the cup would have travelled to Islamabad. Pakistani transport would have had to arrange a bus for the players to go around the city to celebrate their victory, Pakistani politicians would have been in top news to push the players to the back rows in their felicitation ceremony, Pakistani hockey players would have gone on hunger strike as they were not given enough attention. Fortunately or unfortunately that did not happen.

Future India would never forget that 'We' won the World Cup in the first 20-20 series. Dhoni has made history for future India, as Kapil had made for us. After gifting his shirt to one of his fans, somehow he decided to wear that sleeveless alternative for the prize distribution ceremony. Prize money keep flooding into the players pockets as wee see the Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra governments praise 'their' respective players. And can't forget that huge flower garland around rich Dhoni's neck during the felicitation ceremony which I ideally felt should have been around the 11 of them. This reminds me of the stone-attack at poor Dhoni's house sometime back when he didn't perform that well.This is India for us!

Yuvraj Singh's young girls fan club seems to be on the raise after his '6-out-of-6' treat. Oops, did we forget our dada's of cricket - Sachin, Rahul and Sourav? Or did they forget to greet the 11 of them in public as King-Khan did? India won the world cup, and I didn't come across any pictures of these big-shots with the 'Cup' or with the players.This reminded me of 'head-weight-Patashala-Gurus' heard from ancient epics who never appreciate the 'good work' of the youth.

Critics apart, India won! Chak Diya India!

*Pics Courtesy- ICC World Twenty20

Ahem Ahem! Our men are great!

Related to my previous post (September 19Th 20-20 - Dhoni and Men!)

//This time the Kiwis showed their stamina levels as the ball was raising heights. The same attempts for Indians went in vain as they could only raise it to certain extent and gift it to the Kiwis.//

Yesterday's match with the Englishmen has brought in a small correction in my perception towards our men-in-blue. We can't keep complaining them. Yuvi's six sixes in one go clearly proves our men are unpredictable. Party time for Yuvraj! Yet another record! Kudos, Yuvi!

I was actually thinking about the sixth six, what was running in his mind after he hit the fifth ball beyond the boundary line.

20-20 - Dhoni and Men!

I have never seen a match so 'fully'. I have never had patience to sit and watch a 6-7 hour match continuously listening to Mandira Bedi yapping in between, with her little knowledge about the game. This 20-20 series seems to be a nice idea for people like me who prefer everything short and sweet. I was glued to my seat last Sunday watching India play New Zealand. I have heard from most of my friends who believe superficially that; if they watch the match, India loses; if they move away from their seat, a wicket goes; if they utter a word, the ball goes to the boundary. I am not going to blame me for watching the match as India lost. I enjoyed watching it especially when the whole burden was on poor Sreesanth. Precisely a sportive spectator, I am.

Be it India or the opponent team, I enjoy watching the ball fly beyond the boundary line. This time the Kiwis showed their stamina levels as the ball was raising heights. The same attempts for Indians went in vain as they could only raise it to certain extent and gift it to the Kiwis. I thought our men's energy level could not match their meat and pork built stamina. As I was watching I discovered; that when it comes to fielding their men don't hesitate to fall on the ground to stop a ball going to boundary; whereas our men watch the ball go or to the maximum they run behind it. Cricket lovers reading this post don't search for me, I am a crazy cricket fan too! This guy Dhoni has got a lovely smile apart from his silky hair which attracted General Parvez and many others like me.

Good to know that 20-20 series might get included in Asian games and Olympics where Indian Cricket will get more popularity all over the world! While few of them feel importance to other games in Olympics might reduce once cricket is in.

Frustration!

When you know you are right; when you are confident about your capabilities; when your journey has been smooth and successful till date; when you had planned to implement a proper strategy in your near future; when you are all set to attain your goals; when you have put up ways to balance your personal, official and social lives together; when you actually feel you are growing - suddenly, when you come across certain slight tremors deteriorating your performance; what would you do ideally?

Reach the heights of frustration spoiling your in and out of everything? Face a miserable period in life?

As I am migrating.....

SMS alert said 'Tsunami warning. Do not go to beaches. Avoid coastal areas'. I replied back saying 'I live in coastal area(with a sarcastic smiley)'. Again got a reply saying 'very funny!'. After all that happened, my legs mildly started shivering thinking 'what if?'. When the same Tsunami happened in 2004, I got the news at around 5 in the morning when I was coming back from work. We people moved like nomads to safer zones. I remember, the next day was a holiday declared by the company!

Now, a little later, made up my mind and started to think about my important assets to be taken along with me; just in case of emergency. Immediately a flash in my mind 'Will I get a leave tomorrow?' and what reason will I mention for taking a leave? Tsunami Migration?