I have a thing against libraries. I always imagined that books are to be bought, wrapped in neat clear sheets, read diligently and then stacked high up in the home bookshelf for the next generation. You may disagree but there is a feminine fascination in owning stuff that is hard to deny. As a result, a large portion of my petty paycheck would be spent at Crosswords or Landmark monthly.... to an extent that it got fairly large. I also have a very bad habit of running through a book, as one would gobble up a piece of cake, so much that it takes me three to four days to devour a Salman Rushdie masterpiece.

A week ago I stumbled across a new age library - Just Books. I call it new age for a reason - it does not have issue cards, it does not smell of paper, it does not have books with yellow pages, it does not even have table and chairs to sit down and study and it certainly does not have a sixty year old librarian with a perpetual frown and hanging spectacles.

It does not house your science fiction and pulp classics. However, it does have the top of the charts flicks and the occasional Calvin and Tintin - so yes, it does serve the purpose! I am milking my Rs. 150 per month membership for all it is worth. I have already devored an Amitav Ghosh, a Tintin, a Dan Brown and a basics of accounting book.

Moonrakers

There are coastal cuisine restaurants and then there is Moonrakers!

Tucked in deep inside Mammallapuram, Moonrakers offers the most chilly, juicey, lip-smacking coastal cuisine. We went there a year back and we came out with charred tongues & satisfied souls. This year, I scheduled our annual vacation at Mahabs JUST SO THAT WE COULD GO AND EAT AT MOONRAKERS. And, eat we did! All meals for 2 whole days! And just when you are visualizing a varied cusine that will tantalize every taste bud that you possess hear this - they cook every dish in ONE DRAGON HOT RED CURRY!!

You can order squids, giant prawn, live lobster, snapper, mackerel, blue crab... just about anything.. You will get it smothered and fried in that same yummy brilliant red curry. And what a curry that is... Its sight is enough to get your stomach rumbling, fresh out of the frying pan as it splatters all around the table. You eat a morsel and you would be gulping down jugs of cold beer next (which they server in steel glasses since they do not have a alchocol license yet AND you need to hide the beer bottles under your chairs!). You would say out loud "Oh this is my last bite", licking those finger tips clean and then reach out for the snapper with it's eyes still embedded in it's sockets. An hour later you would be sweating and panting and thats when the waiter would come and ask "Ayoo Madam, Neutela pancake?".

Aha! and that brings me to the second reason why we go to Moonrakers. To be quite honest that neutela pancake is nothing to boast about. But, when you have just devoured a platter of squids, followed by a giant whole fish the neutela pancake is nothing short of genius. To bring things in persective here is a 'Before' and 'After' pic at Moonrakers.

Arghhhhhhhhhh!! This sick business is really getting to me. I have been down and out for the past 4 days. The thermometer is refusing to come down below 100 and the doctor is refusing to let me go to work. I tried feebly to work from home today. I failed miserably. And that is not even what I am angry about. I am completely frustrated with the pharmaceutical industry. #$%^&@#**%%$!
I mean these guys can create wonder pills then why not one that tastes atleast like boiled brocolli? The least repulsive one that I have tasted recently reminded me of my first experiment with cooking.

'nuff said! Alright, I am a jobless person today. Here is how i spent the day:
1) 1 cup steaming hot coffee with extra spoonfull of milk powder
2) half a soggy vada that i had attempted for breakfast
3) searched for the betty crocker chocolate brownie cake mix i had stashed away last month
4) logged on to check emails. replied. period.
5) saw the movie 'rat race'. Ok, i need to say something here. I could have forgiven the director for hanging a cow by its leg from a hot air balloon and squeezing milk out of its udders into the villians face... but then he had to get 'feed the earth' org in the end to lap up the prize money... just sleezy guys!
6) tried to do steaming with eucalyptus oil. apparently it opens up the nose. well, i don't know about that but the oily black heads seem less!
7) tried to sing and then laughed at the pain it inflicted on my throat
8) switched on mtv since the voices were far better than mine
9) typed on the keyoard with mt ees closed.
10) took a nap
11) googled for the price of necker island
12) perfected (a little more) my secret language
13) drank water (the doc said to do so)
14) searched again for the chocolate brownie mix
15) made a list of shopping items
16) contemplated what to cook for dinner and was surprised at 6:35pm by a chicken biryani from my neighbour. mwah! they are really nice people.
17) was alerted by a wheezing sound in my chest and called my doctor to find out if I finally got the swine flu. he said to call back if it gets any worse. does it mean i have it? huh? doc?

So, necker is still way.............out of line. I think i will e-mail richard branson and claim i won't stop until he calls me and invites me for a private vacation on his island.

Sick!

I have never been this sick for a long, long time! I have caught up with all Star Plus soaps in the past few days. Facebooked every friend I have... Yes, even the ones you would have spent a lifetime avoiding!
Hot chocolate and dal/chawal are keeping me company all day through but I am sorely missing my C&H collection. :(

The butterfly effect

The butterfly effect is a concept that talks about how simple decisions create a chain reaction much later in life.
Yesterday, I was going through my facebook link and I noticed that all my friends who choose commerce in class 11 have atleast one kid by now.
None my friends from 11 science have a kid. Some not even married.
I never assumed the difference would be so stark!

Papa's retirement plans!

A couple of days ago I was having a heated discussion with my parents about retirement and coming back home to India. They are now eligible for senior citizen travel discounts back home and there is no reason why they should continue to work at Malaysia.

Today, I was looking through a family album and I found this -

This picture was taken on a lazy sunday morning at Chempadak beach close to our house. Thats when I realized, sitting at work and rushing through program milestones, that they are leading a retired life!

One of the nicer things taking up the web space - The Random Kitten Generator

Gangetic plains

It is the new year already. It does not seem so. At the stroke of mid-might this new year, I was chugging along in a train across the country to be with my family. There were no shouts of 'Happy New Year'... only condolences to be shared and tears to be wiped. It was a homecoming of sorts.. I do not imagine that all of us have been in the house together for more than a decade. The train journey also added to the nostalgia. Wind swept plains, bone racking bitter cold, countless cups of tea devoured to soothe an aching throat and 3 advertisements on the walls lining the railway tracks: sex consultants, underwear & plywood veneers.

I know this landscape all too well. But, I have missed it sorely too. Endless sarson fields that paint the earth yellow! I wonder how they look from high up in the sky.. Human caricatures propped against gnarled tree stumps with the all too familiar (and grossly) painted matka for a face & ragged inners for clothes. The yellow fields seem to be making up for the sun's absence but only so. Here and there i can see the villagers wrapped up in warm woollen shawls and mufflers walking fast to finish their ablutions. They know that the day will end early and they dare not waste minutes of precious daylight. Cakes of cow dung have been stacked neatly besides the fields to be used for 'smokeless' heating during the night. The mist from the Ganga still shrouds the plains and brings life to a standstill as it did aeons ago.

But some things have changed. For the first time today I witnessed village boys playing volleyball on a barren patch in the field. The clothing too seems to have undergone a drastic change. While earlier it was common place to see farmers in their traditional white dhoti, banyan & a turban (to protect their head from the cold), today I can see them in pyjamas and even jeans. Brightly designed shirts and multicolored mufflers complete the ensemble. Bullock carts have been replaced by modern day machinery and the easy farmers' walk is replaced by a steady pace.

I wonder when will I come back next. The plains seem to be locked by time unto eternity at each sparsely spaced marriage or death visit in the family. I wonder whether I will still call it home years later when all whom I know there have perished?