life is cruel ....(not a Benigni movie) !!

the following happened between 14:00 hours and 23:00 hours on Thanksgiving Day - year 2009......

chicken kabob with cilantro mint chutney -

kabob recipe - weak points of a dead chicken (redundant .... yet so true)
chutney recipe - frozen section of the local Indian store (owned by annoying accent guy)
marination time - extravagance of disproportionate amounts (maximum time allowed ....15 minutes??)
cooking time - uncool necessity (this is a total bottleneck..."fire" this step in the process)
serving time - zero, to be accosted directly from the grill (....keep cold water handy)

white string pasta .......Bangalore specialty

name - clearly out of my league (did not care to investigate too much)
taste - gulp (sorry ...cannot type with mouth full)
look - awesome....(white kurta ....concealing ...size "O for obese" jeans)
comments - passed ...(about the neighbours' impossible hair style)

mutton in green (mint look alike) sauce

landscape - big kadai (pot) doing thumka (pelvic gyrations for no apparent reason) on small fold able table (define : equilibrium)
reaction - repetitive action (work done = force of jaws multiplied by mass of meat)

dum biriyani - like the ones they make in Hyderabad

quality test - lets just say ...the chicken turned out to be in lust with the oven ..."mooh kala karke aayi" (lost her innocence...in a bad way)
launch - total success ....(no weather delays on the oesophagus highway)

other places of interest.....

rice - white ....like Manisha Koirala's dress in 1942 - A Love Story
rasam - spicy .....like Bipasha Basu in a fairly big pot of rasam
ginger ale - welcome..... like Dr.Singh at the White House dinner

At this point, the occupants of the leased space decided to ......"not eat anymore"......which did not happen .....soon after ....

lets take it slow ....or all at once...

masala chai - can cause havoc with your day time napping habits ...(16 spoons of sugar please .... am cutting down on sweets ..you see)
appetizer stuffed with chicken sausage - please accept...I rock ....(and "crescent roll')
corn - soondal style (chick pea recipe from Chennai) ..kinda like the ones we needed with Old Monk over mosquitoes and Thums Up

and finally the star of the evening ....

another dead chicken (scene or time of crime unknown) ...was religiously basted with generous coatings of LDL..... stuffed without mercy .... and roasted over crazy filaments at 350 F. ...for what seemed like forever...(the time between a six pack ...burp ...of Killian's Reds)

another round of rasam + rice...... ( you see ... it helps with your digestion)

yet another indecent proposal ......

that was promptly accepted - sugar free (we are a health conscious friend's circle of obese people ... you see) vanilla ice cream over warm pineapple cake that Her Highness had built from ground up. ....literally ... (all the flour was on the kitchen floor .... courtesy:Onga)

The following should have happened a couple of hours back ....

"I think we should head out now. Black Friday sales begin in about 4 hours and you guys need to stand in line to buy the Dirt Devil Dynamite Vaccum Cleaner from ..."WaaMaa"...(Walmart for the audio effect challenged)." ....we said ...as we got ready to get home. Eventually we did get home.....after spending over nine hours with friends and some members from different families (if you know what I mean ...wink wink)

The following happened a couple days ago....

"Look... a South Asian newsletter". We picked it up from the local library and .....it landed smoothly on the kitchen counter top ....pretty certain to be discarded once we had finished doing ... "nothing" with it !!

The following happened .....like ... right now .....when I was looking for something to "drink" up the beer froth from the counter..... and read this !!



What do ya know .... life is cruel !! I need to down some .....ENO ...like right now !!

Image Courtesy:South Asian Newsletter and an efficient scanner

one(more) year warranty..... !!

Sunday afternoon is bad timing ...for any kind of activity . That is ....if you are a recovering lethargy addict, who needs to take it easy.....which I believe mean the same thing."tomar phone" ....(it is a phone call for you) heard him drag the Bata® flip flops across the mosaic floor. He retired into the corner, .....where the red receiver lay waiting to be spoken at. That was the first time ...she had called to speak to him. Purely academics. But to him, it was the best phone call ever. That was the phone call that would change their lives .... (how dramatic is that..??)

From that day on...(for the next few months). .....at the same time every evening.... he would Super Glue® his left ear to that red receiver, tapping away on the redial button .......until some very amused junior (student) at the dorm would giggle out her name...loud!! They had about three minutes to speak .....about "nothing really".They never spoke in public. It was a secret world, that they had grown for themselves. A world of nods and blinks ....of paused glances as they crossed paths like strangers in vicinity !!

And then one day ......they finally met !! This is the part which Kukunoor narrates as.... "boy meets girl....(if you have not made the connection ....please watch Hyderabad Blues ... Parts I and II). When she told him about the free counseling thrust upon her ..."stay away from him..he is no good" .......his heart beat ....to a silent pride.... !! Wah Taj !! After that ....their lives took some superfluous ......and some welcome .......exits and entries...kinda like the effects of too much Haldiram® and cola...... while watching KKHH...(...yikes !!)

A few Sundays later ..... he is still a recovering slob ... she still has an apetite for books ..... and they still talk about .....nothing really !! The glances are now .....(for lack of better metaphor or incorrect usage of the English language) ....focussed ... on their respective laptops !! Only and only after ....every "one" else is asleep ....PG -14 "months" !! And yes ..... he can still hear ....his heart beat .... (actually ....no) ....he is now used to a loud bang from the kitchen ......as the two feet "piece of chocolate"....... hurls the cake mix bowl onto the fake mosaic of cheap (not a figure of speech...literally) apartment flooring.

Here is my personal one (more) year warranty to Her Highness ....."complete insanity"... guaranteed!! I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mr.Mani Ratnam and ARR ......for sourcing music and "reel" situations .......for our real moments of rendezvous...from several Sundays ago !!


Photo Courtesy :here