Sight-seeing of the fittest

After a year and a half at Bangalore, we finally visited the very popular sight-seeing spot - Wayanad. This blog post isnt about the beauty of Wayanad (given that it is in Kerala, God's own country, it sure is gorgeous), its about the rules for sight-seeing. Unlike popular sight seeing spots in India, all places in Wayanad need you to trek to the spot! And mind you, its not some chuttu puttu trek you need to do, each of the treks are atleast 2km long. Infact, at one of the spots, not only did we have to trek, we also had to fight our way up against the people who were returning, since there were several one-way stair-cases! :) Overall it was a fun experience to visit a place where you have to deserve a sight of the natural beauty...

The Egg Factory

Watched Avatar last Saturday, and followed that up with a visit to a cake show (which was actually an exhibition in disguise). We were famished after the hectic day, and hence decided to eat at this place called Egg Factory, on St. Mark's road. There is more to this place than just the food (which btw is yummy!) The first thing you notice is the menu - which resembles a user manual. Infact the menu is so interesting that you (like me) maybe tempted to steal one copy for yourself :D Another interesting thing about the egg factory is their toilet :) Its a must visit, and something I cannot really describe :)
The food was awesome! The dishes were served one by one. And since we were a group of 8, we got to try out several of them. The Fritata's and bhurji were out of this world. All in all, I loved the egg factory, and if it were closer to home, I would probably be eating there everyday...

Meri Jung - one man army

I usually blog about films in my other blog, but this film is special in that it has so many non-filmi implications. It is the kind of film that you dont chance upon through the regular medium of tv, theatres, hoardings.. this one is a gem that can only be discovered in a tourist bus.
Last weekend Jatin and I visited Puri for a dear friends wedding. After the wedding, we were DEAD tired, and the plan was to sleep during the journey of our tour around Puri/Bhubaneshwar. But fate had other plans. The travel guide made it abundantly clear in the 'niyams' of the tour that 'humari company ne hume ek hi CD di hai, isliye aap movie ki farmaish nahi kar sakte'. Naturally I felt upset when I first saw the titles of this seemingly unknown film. How wrong could I have been?
The film stars Nagarjuna, whose name in the film is.. wait for it... MASS. Yeah, thats a name :). Mass is new to the city and asks an auto wala for accommodation. Auto-wala sees this as an opportunity to make an extra buck, and offers to share his room. Mass is thrilled. In the society (which really seems out-of-place for an auto-wala to be living in, since there is a police inspector staying there as well), mass is knocked down by local goons. To this mass responds by... wait for it.. STRIPPING OFF HIS SHIRT. Yeah, thats what is the right thing to do :). Oh yeah, he also follows that up with (lame) jokes and a smile. The local beauty (I forget her name, so lets call her) chammiya falls hopelessly in love with mass after he beats up another set of goons who were after the local goons for whom mass had previously stripped. Now local goons respect mass. There is a holi song, and lots of colours fly, and chammiya dances and Mass tries to. I doze off.. (in hindsight, how could i??) When I wake up the global goon (I forget his name so lets call him) bhayanak is terrorizing the town, and kills off the police officer who was supposed to give gawahi against him. Mass plans to take revenge and calls up Bhayanak's son (I forget his name, so lets call him ) Bhayankar, also a goon, and tells him that MASS is going to kill him on the 1st of next month. Mass also mentions other things he would be doing by the 15th and 20th of the current month. And he does them. Chammiya is loving mass more and more now. Finally mass reveals to her his ulterior motives behind killing bhayankar and bhayanak - they are the brother and father respectively of MASS's LAUVE played by Jyotika, (i forget her name so lets call her ) chammak challo. Flashback reveals their lauve story - chammak challo falls in lauve with mass when he beats himself up in front of her. Oh yes, and there is Adi, mass's landlords son, who is damn chummy with mass. And right there you know what his role in the film is - to get killed by bhayankar. That coupled with bhayankar's disapproval of mass as brother-in-law, is the motivating factor behind this ONE MAN ARMY!! :)
Lots of (lame) jokes, and (hilarious) touching moments later chammak challo is under house arrest, and Mass is fast approaching his deadline to kill of bhayankar. By now, bhayankar has figured out who 'mass' is, and abducts chammiya and police inspectors pregnant wife. He tells chammak challo (his sister) about this very proudly, saying that mass will now come begging to him.. BUT mass knows about this abduction trick from films, so he has a neat trick planned himself - he has abducted bhayanak!!! Yeah, this is the only film where hero has abducted the villain! :)
This is followed by a fight between mass and bhayankar, where bhayankar dies (on the 1st that too). Bhayanak announces that this is the first time he has met a true man, and shoots himself. w00t!
If you have read upto this para - awe-the-some! You should probably watch the film too!!!! :)
And what are the non-filmi implications you ask me - meeting deadlines (mass met every deadline he had set for himself) and exceeding expectations (not only did mass kill bhayankar, as promised, he also managed to get bhayanak killed; not only did mass romance chammak challo, he also danced around with chammiya, what with his limited dancing abilities). Yes, thats right, this one is a parable, not a film.
And yes, another thing it teaches you is to sit as far away from the tv in a tourist bus, as possible.

P.S. Due to a variety of thoughts going on in my mind as I watched the film, I may have missed out parts of the story that the director wanted to convey. You could refer to other reviews of the film to get the directors version like this one.

I'll call, email is not good enough

Some of my closest friendships' predate the email/chat/Orkut/FB era. With those friends, email communication mostly meant spamming with fwds. And that feeling persists! Dropping them an email (or receiving one from them) seems so unfriendly. Its better to say - hey, couldn't reach your cell on your birthday, hence the delay in wishing you; instead of sending them a very thoughtful happy bday email on time.
But this feeling has to go. What with half of them in US, and half of them married off, I always end up getting the feeling - would I be disturbing him/her at this time of day/night?
After having missed so many birthdays now, heres a mental note - Email is atleast good enough to say - happy bday, will call u soon, and I have not forgotten its your birthday! :)

Best flowers shop vs best grocery shop

A colleague of mine asked me today if I knew of a good flowers shop near office. I was stumped. Yeah, I recall one in Indiranagar, but what is its name? When did I last purchase/receive flowers from there? So I look the type who buys/receives flowers, but I don't know of any good flowers shop??
Back in college, I could name good flowers shops near my house (on DP road), near college (on JM road/FC road), and even near random places of interest (MG road, Deccan). But nobody asked me such questions back then - obviously because I didn't look the type who would purchase/receive flowers (read didn't look the type who had a boyfriend). And now, I am married to my special someone - and I don't know of ANY good flowers shops, ANYWHERE in Bangalore!
But hey - ask me about the best deals on grocery near office, I know them!!!

I don't know exactly when this transition happened - from subconsciously keeping track of places of interest to people who 'have-a-life', to keeping track of places of interest to someone who needs to 'get-a-life'. It probably happened sometime when I finally did 'get-a-life'.

And though I miss romanticizing (flowers/chocolates and the like), I'm loving the romance in the regular grocery-shopping-outings.

I recently found out that atleast 6 of my classmates from school are into the films and television - from singer, to model, to channel producer, to asst director to anurag kashyap, to asst director to ekta kapoor, to winner of awards for short films in indian film festivals... Wow! Its so awesome to look at their pictures in news and go - I know this girl!!! And its even more awesome to think how well they have done for themselves :)
I always cribbed about the ICSE English paper format - of a 40 marks essay, 20 marks letter-writing, 10 marks precis writing & 30 marks comprehension. HOW on earth can we write 40 marks worth of an essay, no longer than 2 sides of a fullscape sheet? And WHY?? Well, now atleast I know why - to let the creative geniuses amongst us discover their hidden talent, while the rest of us unimaginative ones, instead, invested our energies in calculating the probability of scoring an 85%+ even with the lousiest score in English :)

On becoming fearless - by Arianna Huffington

I read this book on Pradnya's recommendation. And boy, am I glad I did :)

"Fearlessness is not absence of fear" - so damn true. She talks about not conforming to societal cliche's like being 'nice'. She encourages every woman to be a go-getter, to be aggressive, and ofcourse, to be fearless.

Absolutely loved it!

Parle rocks!

Did anyone ever imagine that the same company that gave us Parle G, would ever give us Milano??

The shy, cute little boy of Parle G

Has now grown up into the hunkman Hritik!

Kitchen tips

Almost every blogger worth his/her salt, has a blog that showcases his/her cooking talent. With this entry, my blog is about to become a complete blog! Only, I wont be sharing a recipe, but a fantastic tip, that I bet you have not heard/seen before!!

What do you do when:
- You feel hungry at 10 pm, and realize that you haven't had dinner
- You feel like eating, say, hypothetically, Poha
- You chop up onions, chillis, corriander and soak the poha
- You place the pan on the stove and realize that the gas is OVER!! (ofcourse its over, afterall its been over a year; even if you cook just 4 meals a week, the gas will run out after a year.. Predicting the parameters of the almost-annual change-the-gas-cylinder cycle merits a separate post)

So yes, what do you do now that it is 10.30 pm and it is almost impossible to order anythin, and you dont have any bread at home, no biscuits or other life-saving munchies either, and you are HUNGRY, and hungry for Poha in particular? (I strongly believe in the hungry-for-a-specific-food-item concept, especially since most of my "I am hungry" wails were answered by my mom with a (hatefully tall) glass of milk!)

What you do is, use the roti maker that you got in dahej (which, upon reflection, reflects how much confidence your parents have, not just in your roti-making skills, but also in your ability to predict when to change the gas cylinder)

Yes, for all disbelievers of the roti maker - it works great as a hot plate!
Ofcourse it wastes electricity, and the rotis may never turn out fine after this little experiment, but well, maybe by next year I will have a better solution for this problem.

Epiphany

Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy says that the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.
It was brought to my attention that I have it - i.e. the answer to life, the universe and everything AND more! Thanks to my hubby :)

Jatin = જતીન (in gujrati)
= 43 (જ = 4 in marathi, and તીન = 3)
= 42 + 1

Yeps, one of those PJs I enjoyed very much :)

Scuba diving at Maldives!

Jatin and I went for a trip to Maldives in Feb 2009. The place is gorgeous - sandy white beaches, beautiful blue water, a gorgeous reef, and so much more.

Some friends asked me to blog about the trip - in particular the diving. So here are some details about the best part of the trip - the scuba diving:

- If you can snorkel, you can most probably dive. So do give the 'beginners lesson for diving' a shot. They teach you some basics of diving for free, and you pay only if you are confident you want to dive.

- We went through Delphi's school of diving, and they charged us USD 75 for one dive. (The cost included equipment - oxygen tank, fins etc, but not the wet suit). PADI school of diving is cheaper, and better, so if your island has a PADI centre, go for it. They even give you a certificate after the dive :)

- You are charged separately for renting a digital camera. Delphi's charged us USD 45. PADI charges approximately USD 30. I would say renting a cam is completely worth it!

- You can dive only 24 hrs after you fly in, and 24 hrs before you fly out of the Maldives. This is to give enough time for your body cells to adjust to the changes in pressure due to flying and diving. Plan your dive accordingly. If you want to try snorkeling for a day before diving, plan accordingly.

- It was freakin cold in the water, especially at greater depths. If you wish, wear a tee to keep you warm, instead of wearing just a wet suit.

Diving is a wonderful experience. We went diving only upto a depth of 8m, but got to see many different types of fish, corals, oysters, and even a sea turtle :)

So, in a nutshell - if you go to the Maldives - definitely go diving!

Perks and quirks of working in the same office as your spouse

perk: You can travel home together
quirk: If your cab mate does not know that you 2 are married, it might just surprise him a bit when the 2 of you take a drop to the same house late at night.

perk: Any office outing is also a 'family' outing
quirk: Being the only 'couple' in the outing, you are teased to death if you try to steal some moments of time together.

perk: You get gifts even on your spouse's bday!
quirk: The gift is usually a 'parenting guide'

Will A R Rahman become the next Lata Mangeshkar?

This is not with reference to his singing skills, but with reference to award monopoly.
Lata Mangeshkar had taken voluntary retirement from the awards scene - to allow new talent to be recognized. There were other talented performers during her reign, but she was the most loved by the award committees, hence the monopoly.
Considering that A R Rahman is what he is (a magician), and (now more than ever before) the pride of India, would he end up like Lata Mangeshkar?