Change is inevitable. Sure..! I can feel the change ... And its all because of the Lumala. My playlist has changed. My mp3 player is wearing itself off in my old jeans pocket playing more of punk, grunge, retro, popular rock. Fast, energetic songs. Afterall, 16 km of rides daily demand some music power too. Some of my bike favourites: Courtney Love - Sunset strip Selected Nirvana- Tourrettes, Serve the servants Jet- 3 fun favs - Are you gonna be my girl, Cold hard Bitch and Rollover DJ. Best bike songs! Oye Lucky Lucky Oye- Title song - what awesome wacky lyrics! and the beat!! Pearl Jam- MFC and Do the evolution Smash Mouth - All star! ;) this one's a total bike song! Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 album version (strictly while cruising around), and the acoustic version TAAQ- Hot Day! (oh yea! summer is here... and TAAQ = brilliant!) Khadki Junction blues- Chaturshrungi wavelength (total downhill cruise mode music!) The Kinks - A well respected man (full on retro rock n roll!) The Offspring- Original Prankster! Its a total wicked biking song! Punk!! builds up the tempo Wild miss Zippy - 'Cage of gold' and 'Hard year's end' absolute funky songs! WOLFMOTHER- Dimension, Joker and the thief... (ride fast and scream types!)
And so on... I might load some fast fatboy slim songs on it to...
I can't really forget the blues... so here are some selected blues-
Soulmate- I am, Blues is my soulmate Warren Mendonsa - The cat and the fiddle! total charge up! Chris Duarte- Letter to my girlfriend Howlin' wolf - Built for comfort! (just like my bike seat! Soooooo comfy!), Howlin' for my darlin'(!) Joe Bonamassa- your funeral and my trial! (Love this guy!), Bad Girls (sooo love this song!), Dixie peach (very much like one song from KK's Pal... or is it the other way around?!?) The Eric Jerardi Band- Always something... one hell of a song, this one...
Now I'm gonna add some more to the list soon. Funky tracks... fast paced... songs full of attitude for biking (cycling) ... two years back when i got my funky sony 'vial' mp3 player... i thought 1 gig was enough memory... how wrong i was! :(
So... I'm doing 16 kms everyday. To work and back... Karve nagar to Bavdhan... with the chandni chowk climb... I can feel my stamina improve considerably... So i say thank you for the MUSIC... for giving it to me!!
So I got the bike... I rode it from the shop in Kasba Peth to my house in Karve nagar across the river... that was 5 kms... and so much fun... Then the next day morning, Ankur, Sourabh, Gangu, Sameer and I went on a ride towards Pirangut. These guys had planned to go towards Temghar, but it was the first time in many years for me... and I'm still getting used to a geared cycle. So I thought I'll go till Chandni Chowk (Pune's chandni Chowk) and return... We started half an hour late, thanks to me... and off we were. I didn't have a problem till this climb, which was about a kilometer and half off chandani chowk on Paud road. I couldn't ride up CC because it was too steep for me... so i walked. Then the road was a cakewalk till a small patch of climb. Where i dragged along... Ankur was very kind and kept encouraging me to go further. The others went ahead. So we finally reached Manas lake. It was almost 8 AM. and near about 10 kilometers from home... so I decided to ride back alone from there... reached CCD CC at 8.30, Had a coffee, chilled out and rode downhill to Bavdhan to my office (yes... its a working weekend... ) Now... another terrible climb pn the cycle till CC, then a smooth glide home. I loved my first ever longish ride on a cycle! Approx 20 Km in a day... not bad for a first of many more longer rides to come... Wooohooohooohoo!
Once upon a time, in a magical land full of smog and pollution, there was a little city surrounded by hills on all three sides, the highest point within the city being the Vetaal tekdi. On this vetal tekdi a group of youngsters met and started a little organisation to save the hills and environment of Pune from the rapacious mongrels in our society who thrive on mindless development and helplessness of ordinary citizens in extraordinary situations. The organisation gained momentum in the years that followed. They gained respect of the ordinary citizens- children, youth and the elders, the countless other NGOs and environmentalists who together were actively propagating a more environmentally friendly development and lifestyle for the residents of Pune. They encouraged walking, climbing hills, planting trees, cycling and standing up against unnecessary deforestation in the name of unnecessary development. It was these young activists who made everyone hear the plea of nature of the city and the surroundings. As years grew by, they diversified into conducting nature trails, and treks, along with their regular activities. The group matured, and started running as a full fledged organisation… their treks were much sought after, and some of the popular ones had to be conducted more often that they initially thought they would. The word spread to certain Mumbaikars
And then one fine premature summer morning, the organisation circulated their events update with a unique concept. Many inboxes were opened and the mail read… and re read with disbelief… They had come up with an entirely new programme that time! It was a 3 day bike trek to the sea forts of the Konkan region. And many were thrilled! As many were eager to participate… They would be covering six forts, two caves and several scenic beaches on the way, along with the best of the Konkani food… Lodging at Dapoli, route map and information brochure, a leader with safety equipment and food were included in the package… What was not included was extra food and soft drinks, break down costs and petrol costs… That’s where it was re read… not including petrol (?!?!) costs.
It was a motorcycle trip not a bicycle trip… And I stared in disbelief…
Is like a mild feeling of euphoria amidst a mix of the damp forest aroma and salty sea breeze, sitting on a creaking windmill all night from dusk to dawn.
This blog is after all about experimentation. And improvisation… so this is a blog entry that deserves to be here: my trials and improvisations with food… cooked.
I have never really had to think about cooking this seriously. Neither am I really thrilled about it. But mothers on vacation are the absolute inventors of necessities. I don’t like to eat out all the time, so I decided to go against all odds, and decided to fend for myself for a full 10 days.
The condition suited me fine. There was no one else really to be experimenting on with food, other than an occasional customary lunch for the best friend… the best friend that incidentally, is one of the better and intuitive cooks I have known.
For these few days, my reading matter has a latest addition. Print outs of Sanjeev Kapoor’s recipies that my mum has been collecting, and the little book of Indian cooking presented to me by the best friend who, I believe I mentioned earlier is a wonderful cook.
Till date, whatever little I have done on my own has been a bit disastrous. Not the final result… that’s not all that bad. It’s just the massive trail of destruction and devastation that I leave all across the kitchen, and in the process I get many things wrong. And I totally cook by the book. Well, at least I used to…
Now, I can say that I’m getting better, my speed’s increasing. And I’m quite enjoying myself… Now I know why Philipp considered cooking the ultimate stress buster.
So here I go… my experiments (rather successful) with intuitive and improvised cooking. The last few days saw two wonderful improvisations:
Pepper chicken.
Ingredients:
Boneless chicken
Roughly ground pepper
Salt
A tomato – chopped
Turmeric powder
A few cloves
Some butter
Cumin seeds
Onion – chopped
Ginger paste
Garlic finely chopped or paste
Vegetables of your choice (mine being capsicum)
Maybe some saunf powder. I love it in anything.
Preparation:
Mix pepper powder, salt and turmeric powder and apply it over the boneless chicken pieces, just enough to cover them all, keep for half an hour.
Heat a wee bit butter in a pan, and add some cloves to it and the chopped onion and cook till they turn golden brown ( I wonder who coined that term? The onions never do that!) Add the chopped tomatoes, ginger and garlic and the marinated chicken that has been now turned yellow and waiting to get cooked. Add some water – maybe half a cup, and some nice helping of the saunf powder! Mmm … let the aroma spread…
Cook till the chicken is truly cooked, and add more water if wanted. Add salt.
Just a few minuted before the chicken is totally cooked, add the capsicum. I like it to be a little raw and crisp, hence add during the last few minutes over the fire, otherwise it gets all soggy and limp, and not as much fun…
Viola… you have a lovely aroma spreading all around the house… smelling of Cloves and saunf… its tastes awesome too. And I have a happy best friend…
Cooking for just one person – self- is a little perplexing. How much is too much? Is it worth all the effort? What exactly do I make for myself? That was the dilemma I was in when I started wondering what to make for dinner for myself tonight.
I wanted to have soup, then I decided I wanted to make Dal shorba… I had no idea how shorba was made. So I checked out the set of printouts… I needed moong dal for it, but I was out of moong dal, so decided to chuck it and make an improvised version of the dal shorba with Masoor ki dal!
Meghana’s Improvised Masoor ki dal ka tasty shorba
Ingredients:
Take some masoor dal 50 – 100 grams will serve two people with two mid sized helpings.
Chop a small onion. ‘Small’ being an onion of roughly the diameter of about 5 cms.
Some grated ginger
some chopped garlic
one chopped green chilly that’s about 10 cm in length.
A wee bit butter again
Cumin seeds
Turmeric
And salt.
Preparation:
Take the dal, ginger, garlic, chilly, onion, turmeric and salt and add a lot of water to it, and cook it till the dal is cooked. Make sure theres enough water so that some remains till the dal is cooked to verrrry soft! Strain this dal. And keep it aside till you heat the wee bit butter and ad some cumin seeds in it till they crackle. Add the cooked and strained mixture of dal, onion, ginger, garlic and turmeric to the butter and cumin, and some water, till you get the consistency you desire… it will not really be a colloidal liquid, and the water dal and the water will not homogenise properly… but hey… its shorba after all, not dal….
So bring to a boil, add some more salt, and hey presto! You have wonderful tasting Meghana’s improvised dal shorba made out of masoor dal…
I loved it, and had it with 2 slices of kadak toast… what a pity I didn't click pictures of these two recipes...
Wow… maybe I’m soon going to become the next best thing since sanjeev Kapoor after all … Hah! And I’ve only just begun…
I have a habit of taking a walk on my terrace at night before i go to bed. so at 12.15 AM 28th January 2009, I was walking on the terrace when I saw a bright fireball in the sky! It was HUGE! bigger than the 5 I had seen on 14th December 2007 as a part of the Geminid meteor showers! It was greenish blue with a little bit of red, and lit up the terrace twice as much as a full moon would! Today the day started off with not a very positive note, but as it went by, it was quite nice... and at the end of it, I was pretty okay. I clicked a pic of Vivek in office holding his 'A Portrait of Ray' LP cover in front of his face... I am hoping it will come out well... leseee ... Thats the thing with film... I have to wait till I finish the roll. If I'm using digital, I can click 36 pictures in the space of 2 hrs, but if i'm using a roll, lord knows I take days to finish it!
I was just browsing through my notebook today afternoon. And I found my 'Love thing.' My 'Love thing' is a little piece of black paper with a heart shaped cutout for bokeh shapes through camera lenses. This term 'Love thing' - was coined by my flickr contact Sneha (beatnikbug) when she saw me making this shape for another flickr contact Vinod, during e P@P exphibition on the 27th of Dec '08. She said - 'Whats that...? oh... it's your "love thing"'
My mother loves to sing. and she sings much better than I do. Tonight, I was casually strumming my guitar, when my mother came by and started singing 'Maa' from taare zameen par. And I suddenly stopped playing. She asked me if i was playing the same song... so I resumed playing and asked her to sing. Both of us didn't know the lyrics completely, but we sang for our respective mothers. we finished, smiled at each other and our amazing timing, and she walked away. All this happened in the space of three minutes. And I'm still wondering where those few moments came from. It was easier as a kid to express my affection for her. I'm not as little now, and its difficult to express it in words, or deeds. So I will always wish for more such subtle moments with mum. and just to end with a lighter note, I was tuning my guitar as she walked out of the room,... and she remarked - 'there... you started playing your favourite tune again' ... (i said ...'wha...?')
Wednesday, 12|11|08 Mid week crisis hits hard. Terrible bout of depression. Things just not happening my way. Hence decided to try something else. And I thought of switching off my mobile for a week. Seven calender days. It will help me to know how much people (don't) want to talk to me. I think the sooner I realise this the better. Another upside of this is that I'll get rid of all the unwanted promotional calls and texts. I'll get a lot of time to think too... So first day today...
