Soldes...

Oh yeah... I have been on a little break from blogging... Its not that I have been upto anything phenomenal... But with school closing in a week and with my India trip down the drain... and with my hot plate burning the dear old mini fridge which then wreaked vengeance by flooding the floors, I can safely say that I have had a busy 2 weeks. Hmph.

Well coming to the title of the post... 'Soldes' in French is 'Sale'. When I first saw the word, I was bewildered as to why huge posters splashed across the entire glass windows of the shops would advertise the stuff they had sold out. Of course my translator husband to the rescue... But this was a good 5 months ago. Right now its the summer sale. The summer is welcomed by selling out the old fashions for almost upto 70% off the original price. Indeed when I went to one of the other stores I frequent, I found some of the very stuff I had bought previously on sale for ridiculously lower than what I bought it for. So why am I sitting and writing about this? Truthfully I don't know. I guess I missed blogging too much. Besides I noticed a pattern with the sales. They went all out to get rid of their winter fashions... something like selling crackers the day after Diwali or selling the golu bommais after Navarathri. And just as untempting as that is, is to buy sweaters and sweatshirts for measly 2-3€ equipped with the knowledge that you don't get to wear them for the next 7 months. But the deals are steals and as is my affection for sweatshirts, I ended up buying one that was not on sale. And really sales are finally a game that huge stores play with people's minds. I am sure that I am not the only person who has ended up buying something knowing entirely that I probably will never wear it... or at most wear it once... but bought it because it was just 3.99€. Know what I mean? And the ideas of having all those teeny-weeny trinkets near the checkout lines is sheer genius. Out of boredom, one tends to browse the bin for some precious trinket and in the end, precious or not, you've picked it up because it was really low-priced. I thought I'd outgrown my childish trend when I went yesterday to make the most of the lasting sales. I had to an extent... yet I did pick something up because it was cheap... more than entirely because I liked it. And I had set myself a budget to shop from... And just before going into checkout, I emptied my shopping bag and did a quick mental total... Of course I'd exceeded... Woefully I pulled out a couple of pieces... no brainers really... And there.. I'd met my budget... had a bagful of clothes... some gifts for the husband as well.. Thats what I am talking about.. Once a month, you need one fulfilling day of shopping... just to keep the sanity, maybe.

Happy Birthday Boo

My nephew Tarun turns 1 today. It's a mighty big deal. I remember this day last year. I was at Bioforce (on the way to work actually) and bcoz of my i-pod didn't hear the phone ring. I got a voicemail and I heard it in the sanctity of the coffee place at work. Tarun was born... My excitement had known no bounds and I was all jumping to plan my first trip to see the little boy... the little Boo. And now, all of a sudden, the year has rushed by... I nomad-ed to more places and have finally found my footing with my husband here at Paris. Things have changed and yet a lot remains to be seen, especially for Baby Boo. Here's wishing Tarun a fantastically Happy Birthday and a lifetime more of joys to come.

Imagination @ work

If this won't make you want to work at Google, nothing will - http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/technology/7292600.stm

The culinary weekend.......

And so it was... I made puri n chole and aloo parathas n chutney.. And we were out entire Saturday to enjoy the fête de la musique in Paris.. and so we dined at Sher-e-Punjab and the fête de la musique was more like the fête de la bar as we bar-hopped and caught snatches of some of the phenomenal quarter final lineups of the Euro Cup... The chole backed up as a spread for the baguette as well and all in all, I just spent a delightful weekend.. Back to the grind now.

Bruises

Well I suppose if it happened to inanimate objects, you would call them dents or scratches... But I've always considered My Darling Notebook as a living thing... I speak to him, coax him, chide him, cajole him and at times scream curses at him... Before you start imagining a vividly sad life for me, let me clarify that speaking to my computer makes me feel like it'll make him boot faster. For the unitiated, here's who we're talking about- http://jollyjaya.blogspot.com/search?q=my+darling+notebook. The beauty of this whole thing is that he responds just like a living thing would. I discovered this sad piece of truth when one day he accidentally fell off from a chair while I was cleaning around the dining table. I gingerly picked him up and hit the power button half expecting no lights to turn on. Surprisingly all seemed well... till I took a closer look that is. The upper row of lights were swelled up and elevated, almost like a real person's bruise. And try as I might, I couldn't push the bulge back in... Not just that.. Some particles had gotten under some keys and were creating havoc. I had to individually pry out those keys and clean them. Talk about a fussy computer... But the real message? He's as human as its safe to be.

Touché

I truly didn't know what the fuss was about... not when I bought S the ipod touch... not when he used it and was fascinated and told me so.. not until I found it in the dresser drawer last night begging to be used. And I granted it it's wish and it granted me... pure fascination. It is something to see the device respond to the smallest touch... The pinching action to view photos bigger or read text better... the music is ofcourse ipod quality and definitely superior to my cute little shuffle... But what had me enraptured was the WiFi. I fussed about it for half an hour trying to get it detect our network at home. While it detected it, it didn't seem to have connected to it. Until S helped me out and had it connected. And then... the magic began. I didn't have to open the laptop just to check email. A flick and I could view it right there on my palm... I saw youtube videos, checked the weather... tried signing into IMs and what not. Throw in a phone and a camera and you know why the iPhone is soo popular. Its most definitely a complete system for travel entertainment or otherwise, though I know S secretly prefers his PSP which lets him play games as well (without the touch factor in every nuance of course).

Happy Feet - the sequel

Yes red shoes... yes they're a fashion statement in Paris and needless to say, they ooze comfort (and no color yet on the socks!)... The clincher? They cost 10% of what the boots did... But you know what? They can't be compared...

Childhood Dreams

I had the great fortune of finally getting down to it and watching this video of Randy Pausch that my friend Ram sent to me about 6 months ago. I know that a lot of you would have probably seen it. The ones that didn't, please set aside 1hr and 16 min of your time -its totally worth it. And all of you must be admiring him just the way I did. The sheer spirit he channelized throughout the talk was most important for more than just the basic bottom line of the talk of how to live one's life, but also for the fact that he tried to put a positive spin on his entire life by showing that he had mostly accomplished is dreams. I read in Wiki that the NFL had him come and play for the Pittsburgh Steelers for one day or something to fulfill that half-baked dream of his. What it importantly did was to ensure that I put my childhood dreams down in writing... for me, for my future reference. So what are they?

(In no particular order)
1. Find a cure for AIDS - I think I first heard about AIDS when I was about 10 and finding a cure for something as gargantuan as that meant only one thing - eternal glory. This dream is sort of akin to winning a Nobel Prize or something - As I grew older and in the last minute favored Engineering to Biology, I now realize that this at least is going to remain a pipe dream. Unless I interpret it bizarrely that I wanted to become a Scientist and with this PhD on its way, I am well on my way to fulfill that one... Heck, yeah.. since its my dream, am going to say that in some askew manner this one is getting fulfillment!

2. Visit the Louvre - When I was about 9, I had this encyclopedia-collecting phase. I bought this book called 'The Giant Book of Facts' and to date it remains one of my favorite references. It had a piece on the Mona Lisa and it mentioned that she was housed in the Louvre - The Louvre- so fascinatingly un-pronunciable... I thought to myself that I would anyway want to visit Paris in life... so the Louvre would totally make my to-see list. - I am happy to announce that this dream has been entirely fulfilled... I have been to the Louvre multiple times. Thank God for that!

3. Write a book(s) - I have many amateur efforts sitting at home in India, many of them neatly typed and printed and bound in folders... But what I am shooting for is an actual book with an actual spine... something that people actually buy. As of now, I am working on a manuscript. Though technically no publisher is going to be paying me, I can say this dream is far easier to fulfill with the current self-publishing options. Besides, who knows... with a moderate success, I maybe able to interest a publisher! (Fingers crossed!)

4. Live in the Europe - While people all around me raved about the USA, I was always a Europe girl. No doubt, I followed the gazillion footsteps into the land of opportunity with higher study in mind, fate had different plans for me. I currently live in Paris - Score!

5. Part II of No.4 - Go backpacking across the continent - It must've been a movie that affected this dream... I am yet to do it.. But with the ideal scenario on hand, I can only hope nothing goes wrong!

6. Take an award-winning photograph - Pictures have been a huge part of my family and my growing up. Indeed you can find pictures of my childhood aplenty were you to visit my family home. Thanks to my dad, I have always been camera-savvy and my brother gifted my first digicam. From that Cybershot of 2.1MP to the current Canon EOS Rebel SLR, I have come a long way in digital photography. Though my shot of the Eiffel Tower just won a special mention at K, this isn't the kind of 'award' that I am expecting to win. I am thinking more in terms of National Geographic, etc. - Good luck to me, I know! At least I am on the right track!!

7. Win soft-toys at funfairs- I actually share this one with Randy Pausch - Childish as it may seem, I have always wanted to win the cuddlies.... I haven't succeeded in winning a whole lot... or anything BIG, but I have won many small ones (check this blog) - So yeaay... partly done!

8. Act in something - something on TV!! - Good luck to me for that one too.. hahahha

Thats all I can recollect at this point of time... I may consider adding more eventually. But as I was telling S about al of this, I suddenly remembered an inspiring childhood moment. I must've been around 9-10 at the time... And because I was going to be singing on stage with a bunch of classmates, I was looking for a specific kind of bindi - yes, apparently it was that important. I dragged my mom up and down many potti kadais in TNagar with no success... So I decided to make them myself... After actually finding biocompatible glue (yes, I was that particular and that aware), I fashioned my own bindis. And they turned out great... or so they seemed to the child's eye. And so, I proceeded to make 2 whole packets of these bindis. And then guess what? I actually walked to the parallel road to the Rani Fancy Store and offered them to the owner for sale. He didn't laugh me away or chide me off... instead he actually bought them at Rs 5 each... the going rate for the fancy bindis. I am grateful for that. It was indeed a sparkling experience. Thankfully, I didn't make anymore bindis to maybe be eventually turned away and hence heartbroken. So... my hope to accomplish the rest of my childhood dreams lives on...

I take this opportunity to invite all you readers to share a few of your own childhood dreams and where you stand at at accomplishing them. Cheers!

Sex and the City - Review

*************Spoiler Alert***************

So, I finally got to seeing SATC -the movie. Having been a total fan of the entire series, my expectations were pretty high for the movie version. Having intially assumed that it was going to be a synopsis of the entire 6 seasons, I was pleasantly surprised to see the trailer where it became obvious that the movie took off where the series left, i.e with Carrie n Big still together and a with a wedding plan, nonetheless. Watch the trailer here.

The movie begins with Carrie at her apartment as usual typing away on her Mac. And she gives a very rapid gist of the 6 seasons, basically how each gal ended up with her current beau... so she rapidly summarizes Charlotte's 2 marriages and an adoption, Miranda's 'lawyer' role (seldom shown and hard to believe), her having Brady with Steve and marrying him finally and Samantha's trillion sex positions before settling (almost) with actor Smith Jerrad.

The plot for most part is simple and begins with Big and Carrie looking for an apartment to move into, settling for a gorgeous penthouse (with a teensy closet and a promise from Big to remodel it for her). The scene where he reveals her brand new closet to her almost takes everyone's breath away at the theatre. And Carrie marks her territory by symbolically placing her brand-new Manolo Blahniks on the shoe-rack. And soon they decide to get married. The small-scale wedding planned at first blows out of proportion and scares the groom away breaking Carrie's heart once more. How she recuperates and how they get together forms the main plot of the movie. However it is sidelined by new events surrounding it... Charlotte gets pregnant against all odds, Steve cheats on Miranda (just the once) and loses her trust for a better part of the movie, and Samantha now lives in Hollywood with Smith. Bored out of her wits, eating to satisfy her sexual craving, she packs away some pounds and does the noble thing of not cheating on Smith. The rest of the movie has the SATC typicals - tonnes of brand names strewn around, a photo-shoot, a fashion show, the girls brunches, etc. The scenes of Carrie with her new assistant, Louise are particularly good too.

The movie is long (2 hr and 20 min) but makes up for it by being fast-paced. For the fans, it was a treat just to see the four gals back in action. Indeed most people in the theatre were a band of girlfriends (and I sorely missed my own). For the others, it is still enjoyable, providing laughs, unnecessary nudity and time-pass. Mr Big's role is vastly reduced and though his scenes with Carrie are great, there's a little too few of them. Being a big star has its perks as is seen by the disproportionally large screen time that Kim Catrall (Samantha) gets in favour of the others other than SJP (Carrie).

All in all, a definite must-watch for the fans and not a total waste for the rest.

Fan rating- ****

The others- **1/2

Happy Feet

Brown.... beautiful... brilliant. I finally found my pair of boots. And branded, nonetheless :)

For all about the search of my perfect pair, read this.

Choppu Time

This is strictly not the choppu set that we were given as kids... But this is what's available in the market for kids of these days. For me, choppu means those colorful wooden toys which came in this special handwoven bamboo leaf carton. The toys were all made to match the south-indian kitchen and were the typical Chennapatna handiwork. I remember there used to be this cool ammi the grinding tool of the olden days, pots n pans, plates and ladles, a whole young girl's dream, all wrapped into that cute bamboo box. This choppu set was the quintessential cooking set that every south indian girl in India must have gotten as a child. Look what they have these days - a microwave, a coffee machine... all evidence of everything having gone hi-fi. The reason I am writing about this all of a sudden is that I dreamt about it last night... About the times we girls sat under the lift room on the terrace in Sai Dharshan, all equipped with out respective choppu samaan... Some girls had it in steel... some in plastic, complete with a mixi... But I loved mine best and we would always buy it when we went to Tirupathi and such... We would play house-house and sometimes our moms used to fill our pots with a few grains of daal and rice to make it feel more real. Indeed during Navarathri, these were the vessels we kept in front of the Chettiar-Chettichi bommais as if these were the goods they sold.

With generations changing... with new and more technologically advanced games for children, its a little surprise that the kids these days seem to do things either way faster than we did or way slower. With PS3s and Wiis haunting every household, I hope some of them pick up the Wii Fitness too... something that seems a refreshing change from the mundane sit-down brainlessly violent games that have become common for preteen kids as well. The best bet? Everyone go out to play.

The business trip

Laptop? -- Check
Notebook? -- Check
USB key, blah? -- Check

Having never been on a business trip before, I really had no idea what to expect from our meeting with the partners of the project. The train was at 7:24 am and that meant I had to get up atleast at 5:30 am if I had any chance of having my wake-up chai and make it in ample time to the station (I had better get there coz I had my professor's tickets as well). And after what seemed like eons (15 months since the defense), I stepped into formals and made my way to the station.

7:00am - Paris Gare du Nord. Yup, I was there. The train wasn't. They hadn't announced the platform yet. That meant I had enough time to grab a croissant at the Bonne Journee downstairs and yet, there was no sign of the professor. He and I had decided to meet there at 10 past 7. So he still had time to show up. Having munched my croissant and whiled away time just idling & looking around (I'd forgotten the Ipod - no 'check' for that one!), I glanced up at the DEPARTURES board again. And sure enough the 7:24 Lyon Parrache had Voie 3 (Platform 3)next to it... A quick glance later, I figured Voie 3 was right there and I wouldn't have to walk at all...

7:15am - No sign of the professor. I did have his phone number but I didn't want to bother him. Maybe he was waiting on the platform for me. I waded past the crowds upstairs and located our coach number. No. 5. Surely he had no idea it was no. 5 because I had the tickets. I flipped out my cell phone and called him.

7:18am - He's at the station somewhere at a coffee shop having coffee.
"There's time but I'll join you", he tells me...
Really? There's 6 minutes for the train to leave. There's time? I see him come by in about 3 minutes and I had just started to get really nervous and was contemplating a second phone call. We swiftly wave our tickets at the checking people. And no sooner had we located our seats, hung our coats and put away the luggage, the train glides off away from the station.

Now its my professor's turn to be shocked.
"It was this close?", he asks me in disbelief.
Hmm... I guess its the Indians that have the habit of making the train stations at least an hour before departure. Hmph

Foire du Trone

My earliest memory of going to a fun fair was when I was a kid when my dad took the family to the Ram Leela mela around Navrathri in some huge grounds in Bombay. I remember eating a lot of junk chaat, chewing on those ice candies and buying plastic bows n arrows with which my bro n I would play for days. And of course we went on the Giant Wheels (for everyone who calls it the Ferris Wheel... sorry, to us Indians its always the Giant Wheel). In fact I was a big fan of the giant wheels... maybe because I was sat on them from a very young age... On the miniature versions near Rajawadi Gardens or even the ones near Lions Park in Ghatkoper. I somehow attribute these childhood experiences as the reason for my love of rides.

This weekend, I had the chance to experience a fun fair all over again. Here its called the Foire du Trone (the Fair of Trone) and comes for a couple of months every Spring. It was a prime location quite in the center of Paris and indeed from atop the Giant Wheels, one could see the Eiffel Tower and other merry sights often associated with the Parisian skyline.


First things first, we got ourselves giant ice creams as we explored the length of the fair... There were quite a few rides, water and heights and all the works. There were also these fun stalls with the shooting games, the bow n arrow thingies, each with an enticing selection of prizes, mainly soft toys and sometimes electronic goods to be won. S being the boy, of course played out for the electronics and I as always for the cuddlies... There was also bungee jumping and some other utterly crazy rides for those who desired more than just a little thrill.. So, S, SK and I explored and played game after game, grabbed a bite of some yummy thing I can't pronounce and proceeded to win a whole bunch of toys... Here's my favorite one -


Recognize him? He's the dude from Ice Age scrambling behind the infinite acorns... It was total fun, I tell you... But at the end of the day, we were quite exhausted, having walked loops around the fair and quite broke (each of those games cost 4€ each types) and we'd ended up playing quite a lot. In fact we didn't realize just how much we'd played till we went to one stall and all of us emptied our pockets and still couldn't get enough change to pay for the game... and this given that we'd all made ATM withdrawals an hour ago. But you got to do what you got to do!!

Self Indulgence

Once in a while, not only is it forgivable to self-indulge, but its a requirement to... Self pampering is one of the best ways to all of a sudden feel good about oneself... I really didn't need an extra boost.. but while many others may have chosen to indulge in new accessories or clothes, I decided to indulge in my longest standing passion - books... I just finished ordering a bunch of books from Amazon for myself... half due to almost going crazy about not finding english books at bookstores out here and half out of longing to fill my half-empty bookshelf and do my bit for the wall of books fantasy. You may call me a nerd... But I can hardly get through a meal without having something to read or watch on TV. And guess whats the weirder part? I actually ordered them from Amazon USA and had them shipped to me international, rather than buying them at wee bit more extravagant Euro prices... Ah the considerations one must make before self-indulging! Good gracious me...

Tasty Tidbits III

I did it again!! I made Pav Bhaji on the husband's request and here's how it looked...

It tasted fantastic... had the perfect color, the perfect flavour n what not... The difference is my recipe... Its Pav Bhaji with a twist, with a few more additional steps than what conventional recipes tell you. But the extra effort is totally worth it. Its mouthwatering and beats any hotel Pav Bhaji you've ever had... If you want the recipe, all you need to do is ask!

Ooh by the way, the recipe to the paruppu usili is posted as a comment on its post. Check it out.. try it out and lemme know how you churned it out.

Tasty tidbits II

Ah... So I was making paruppu usili to go with the mor kozhambu that I made for dinner today. Usually, paruppu usili is made with beans or kovakkai (tindora), but I made it today with capsicum, the way my mom makes it. And it tastes as great as it looks... Wanna see?

If you like what you see and wanna know the recipe, leave me a comment.

Tasty tidbits

No no... I am not into food blogging.. But somethings I can't help. I usually fix this up when I am hungry and have to make do with leftovers. I just take a slice of bread, put it on the pan, sprinkle cheese on it and top it with anything I can find in my fridge - spread, chutney or subzi and it makes for a quick hunger fix. But yesterday at Franprix I found mini-canapes.. And they were sooo cute I just bought them. And so today I put that together today and here it is...

Isn't that appetizing? Bite-sized bread is cool and cute. I had topped it with the masala from yesterday's masala dosa and some tomato chutney. Was crazy tasty especially with the bread crusting n the other side. Here's another shot -

Help!!!

If you're the type that reads the news, you must be knowing about the devastating Myanmar cyclones. Read all about it here if you don't have a clue. Most of us are well-enough to do and definitely mean well. I made a donation through google. Remember- every penny counts. Here is the website - http://www.google.com/myanmarcyclone/. I urge everyone who can to please make a donation to help the survivors from succumbing to death.

Reality Check

So... I got down to making those dosas from that batter... And if I can say so myself, they turned out fantastic. But thats not precisely what this post is about. I had only 2 of us, S & I to make dosas for... Even so, I was taken back to those days in India where dosa invariably formed dinner for more than once a week sometimes. And my Chittipatti remains the master at the dosas and her dosas are paper-thin, tremendously crisp and with very little oil - its the ultimate combination all of us strive for while making dosas. And she's sooo good at it that people from all corners come home and request her speciality to savour. This post is about my Chittipatti, and occassionally Patti and definitely all Ammas in the world. An ode to them. How they unflinchingly make 30-50 dosas for the huge family/friends without so much a word of protest. In fact the more one ate, the happier they were... In fact my Chittipatti sits on the kitchen counter and amid the heat of cooking dosas sometimes, for well over 2 hours. Hats off!

I have done this a couple of times in the US.. A dosa dinner for the North Indian friends who were pretty enraptured with the dosa (they always called it DO(like TOE)-SA; never got the "Dh"). And as usual, after making about 20-25 dosas, I was pretty much full from the smell. But I had VR there to help me out and we used to make them together and she would make them for me when we had finished serving everyone else and vice versa. Here, I turned down S's chivalrous offer to make me my dosas once he'd completed dinner. And I had to make myself barely 3 dosas before I could appreciate what all our moms did for us. By the time the second dosa was being made, I realized that the first one was going cold. And everyone knows cold dosas are about as much fun as a damp sponge. So I ate it as the second one cooked. Following this pattern, I even had time to do the dishes while the third was cooking. With this discontinuity, its hardly a wonder that my Chittipatti after making those 50 odd dosas for everyone barely managed to eat the 2 that my mom made for her.

The next time I am in India and being pampered with "Innum onnavadhu saapdu" (Eat atleast one more), this reality is going to hit me and I swear I will try to partake their efforts in the making (though I doubt the people in question will ever choose my dosa over the Master Chef's!) But ther's no harm in trying. After all, S can vouch that my dosas were crisp and yummy too...

Sweater Dosa

I did title this right... The husband and I had this immense craving for dosa a couple of days back... And with a brand new mixi sitting at home, there is barely an excuse not to go about making it! So, I soaked the rice n urad dal last night and like a good girl, I arachified it this morning... And all I had to do after that was to let it ferment a bit before spreading out those crispy hot dosas for dinner tonight.

Problem: The vessel I poured the batter into is this saucepan of sorts (I don't have smaller handle-less vessels). The weather though dramatically improved, isn't warm enough for ideal fermenting, especially not with closed windows and shutters.
Usual solution: I leave stuff in the microwave when I want them protected and at a temperature a little higher than normal.

Today's problem: The microwave is too small to accomodate a 3 litre saucepan.
Today's solution: Batter kept inside the vessel cabinet snugly wrapped with my warmest sweatshirt.

Problems foreseen: The batter ferments soo much that it outspills the saucepan and ruins my sweatshirt.
Solution: The husband can buy me a new one in return for yummy dosas.

Ah.. there's a solution to everything in this world, isn't it?

A French Wedding

It was a long weekend this past weekend and we were out to celebrate the weather and a wedding - that of S's boss. So it took us to the north of France... We saw the beautiful beaches of Normandy before heading out to the rustic St Dizier near which the wedding was... But while the pretty part of this experience will feature on Citystalkers shortly, I take this time to write about the wedding itself. The card said 4:OO PM to past midnight... I couldn't imagine what we would possibly do for 8 hours.. Until we did and I found out..

4:00 PM: Signing in -So the couple arrived fully dressed exactly at 4:00 to the registrar office where by 4:05, the minister had confirmed that they were not forced into saying oui to one another and they'd signed their contract of marriage.

4:15PM - The ceremony - A few handshakes, a lot of pictures later, the couple and indeed the whole bunch of invitees waded over to the church across the street where the ceremony began. There were a lot of songs and they'd given us each a Program book in which one could find the lyrics of the songs. I took immense pleasure in loudly singing off-key, invoking a few engaging and other mutinous smiles from surrounding people. Within the hour, the vows were taken, the
rings exchanged, the kisses, the flowers, the Wedding March, et al. It was an exercise of sorts for the witnessing public.. The Father made us rise and sit at will and indeed I started debating my decision of wearing the heels that i'd bought for my own big day. And already. The night was yet to unfold.

5:00 PM - Mini party - At the hall of the registrar, was a mini greeting party where people like me who didn't have an inkling as to who the bride and groom were, could be introduced to them. And then came the champagne and the mini-appetizers... things that looked like those things on the Monaco biscuit ads back in India. Having nothing to do makes you hungry and we all eagerly devoured whatever we could lay hands on (whatever veggie in my case) and set out for taking pictures.

We idled... we chatted and we gossipped.. but the time was barely 6:10PM. It was too long to just wait around drinking more n more champagne after all. We decided to explore the countryside. The husband found out about a bar called Moulin Rouge about 10km away and so A, SK, V, S and I set off to 'explore'. As beautiful as it was deserted, we enjoyed a coffee/beer at the bar and then decided to make best of our 1 hour before the formal dinner to take pictures at the mustard fields, near unsuspecting cows and a tiny brook and became one with the nature out there.

8:00 PM - Back at the dinner - The dinner was at a community hall close to the earlier venue and featured beautifully arranged round tables with place names as souveniers. We seated ourselves there and were soon served the first course in our 6+ course menu. And that was the only thing to be served early. Every course following that literally came an hour later in between which there were silly games, a slideshow of the couple's pictures, a few karaoke songs, the couple's first dance soon joined by many other couples. All went great until S decided this was as good a place as any to embarass me... and offered the groom that I would sing for all of them. He then convinced me that singing in front of 30 people was a piece of cake and that I would manage blah blah... Well, if I was going down, so was everyone else. I smoothly convinced all the Indians on our table that we would all sing together. And so what do you know? There we were... rendering It's the time to disco to tumultous applause. Thats not all... guess what happens next? They play the song again and now want to be taught dance steps to it. Put in the centre of the happenings, unable to refuse the 25 odd eager people who'd formed a circle around me to follow my dance steps, I wildly invented. But that wasn't half as strange as seeing everyone repeat the steps I taught. It was crazy. Everyone had a blast... and the DJ proceeded to play Mahi Ve next and off we went inventing steps once more. Bollywood music was a raving hit and the DJ actually ripped our songs to play at other functions. S and I danced for a long while before returning famished for each course after almost an hour. But before long, everything had become a little too much to take. It is especially taboo to leave a party before the bride and groom have cut the cake. And the cake wasn't cut till 1:30 am. And after that came the champagne and the toast and then coffee!

By the time everything was over, I don't know what time it was... because we excused ourselves at 2:30 am. Then we had a long winding drive of 33km in pitch dark to get back to the hotel.

One hell of an experience. And to think that I had unsuspectingly asked S, 'Can't we leave around 10?', we would've not even have made it past the two appetizers. Lol.

The outlet power

Ah... This phrase can have sooo many meanings... But I am quite sure very few really guessed what I intend to write about here... I was watching an episode of Frasier and something that happened in it set off a train of thought... The need to have an outlet... for anything... from drainage to a volcano.. I know it sounds dramatic.... but its requirement in one's life is just that - dramatic. It makes a lot of difference to be able to vent one's feelings to another. And in Frasier, neither Frasier nor his brother Niles are the variety to make too much of their emotions in public. In retrospect, I am not a fan of public bawling either... but some emotions need to be vented... anger, tears, laughter.... I take that back... It is better to vent every feeling but in the right situations... in the privacy of your friend's circle, in the heart of your relationships, all the walls should be able to come down. Thats the mark of security. And anything is better out than in...

I for one have the distinct record of having bawled to my closest friends, sometimes for the stupidest reasons (SM knows what I'm talking about), but usually my tears are those of anger/frustration and I am not flattered by them being mistaken for me being a weak person. Of course when my hormones are sitting on the top shelf, I can weep for stupid TV shows like Sex and the City's last episode. And I literally walk away from brooding/tense situations. A walk and fresh air calms me down like nothing else.. and it helps me see things clearly. Often, the issue is not about making peace with the other person at all... its about making peace with myself. I am less forgiving about myself than about anyone else. I guess thats a Scorpion trait. And everyone deals with things differently. My dad has this really effective yet annoying way of dealing with things. He just stops talking to you. And believe me, its a very harsh punishment. I have barely been at the receiving end... but the once I have been was bad enough. I have tried to be like that.. but have failed miserably. I can't stay 5 minutes without saying something provocative to fuel the argument on... My brother on the other hand has this amazing ability to keep his voice down and controlled even in the tensest situations. For him, its all about the tone and not the pitch. I haven't managed that with any panache either. Gosh, and all this from one episode of Frasier.. They don't say for nothing not to have too much time on your hands. Happy May Day.

Iruvili Kozhambu

This has been my all-time favorite kozhambu of my mom's. And I have never yearned to learn the secret recipe... Until I became a wife and had to think up of new exciting dishes to make everyday. In my defense, I love cooking and experimenting too... And I asked my mom for it and she gave me the recipe. But having the recipe is an entirely different thing than having the final dish made to perfection. I gave it a shot... and it was almost as good as mommy dearest's. So I thought I would be magnanimous and share this simple yet delectable recipe with you all to lend some difference to your taste buds. Its yumm... This pic here doesn't do any justice to the taste of the dish.. but I thought I'd post one anyways...



So here's what you need - (This recipe is for 4 people... adjust accordingly)

For the aracha vizhudhu or the grinding -
1. 1 teaspoon of white rice
2. 2 teaspoons of channa dal (kadalai paruppu)
3. 1/4 teaspoon of methi seeds (vendhiyam)
4. 4-6 dry red chillis
5. 1/2 cup of powdered coconut
6. 1 spoon of oil to fry 1-5 and 1 spoon more to fry 10.
7. 1 cup of buttermilk
For the kozhambu
8. 2 bowls of tamarind juice from squeezed from tamarind roughly the size of a lemon
9. 1/2 cup of chopped tomatoes/ brinjal/ ladies finger/ use your imagination for the thaan (the veggies that go into it)
For the seasoning
10. 1 teaspoon of mustard seeds (kadugu)
11. A pinch of turmeric
12. A pinch of asfoetida
13. 4-5 curry leaves (kadi patha)
and salt to taste.

So how do you go about it?

1. Fry 1-5 using oil and allow it to cool before grinding it in a mixer using sufficient quantity of water for the mixing.
2. Mix the ground paste in the cup of buttermilk and set aside.
3. Meanwhile, start boiling the tamarind juice with the thaan in it.
4. Once it starts boiling, add the turmeric and the asfoetida and let it boil another few seconds.
5. Add in the ground mixture while stirring and let it boil for just a minute before turning the gas off. Additional boiling may result in curdling of the buttermilk.
6. Fry the mustard seeds and the curry leaves separately and add to the kozhambu.

And serve with steamed rice and beans curry....... Delicious! Thanks Amma.

Back to the Basics

I relapsed into many old habits this weekend... I started watching Hell's Kitchen again (on youtube) and I renewed my pledge to the many free TV show links online... And I also got to conference with my best friends from UC... a 3 continent 2 hour conference that left me with a big smile on my face. I also started soaking in on many other TV shows that I had developed a taste for in my last months in the US... Gossip Girl, How I met your mother and some old ones like House and Grey's Anatomy. So apart from the fact that I was glued to the computer for many reasons like TV shows and IPL, I also got to go out quite a bit. The weather was absolutely brilliant and demanded nothing less.. And I also made adai for the first time from scratch and it was a big hit! All in all... not a bad weekend at all! And this week's a short week... Meaning that we are all off from Thursday.. With a trip to look forward to, the flu getting better, everything promises to be great! Happy week, everyone!

Winter Pockets

I have this habit of lapsing into the comfort zone with the winter jackets. I bet I have most of you very confused by now. What I mean is that I tend to dump a lot of my stuff in the usually large pockets of the winter jackets/coats. And because of what they carry, I am reluctant to change jackets till I absolutely need to. Today was one of those days... It was 17 C and sunny and warm and there was no way I could carry off a jacket used for sub-zero temperatures. So I rummaged my closet and pulled out one of my favorite sweaters. But that was the easy part. Then I started emptying the pockets of my erstwhile coat. An assortment of things poured out - coins, ipod, keys, monthly metro card, more loose change, cell phone, bills of a million things bought, grocery list, printout of directions to the post office, student ID card, a pen, and a credit card to name most of them. No wonder the coat weighed a ton and I had assumed it was because of the layers to keep me warm! Gaping at everything, I sorted them out and was left with the tickets, the cell phone and the keys to stuff in my jeans pockets and oh, the ipod. Bulging pockets, a lighter jacket and I was out in the sun to enjoy the brilliant Spring in Paris. Now all I have to do is find dumping ground to lighten my jeans.

Amayadha Naal

I am sure most of us have experienced this phenomenon. Its a vague twist of Murphy's Law. You go out shopping.. you have the money, the mood and the time. But nothing fits. Either the color is wrong or the size is wrong or the style is wrong and just about nothing is perfect. SM used to say this back when we were in San Diego that "love didn't happen". That roughly meant that -"Yeah it fits... yeah its ok.. but is it so great that I need to buy it?" Along the way, I noticed another phenomenon - the adaptation to the prices. Noticed how when you check out something in a new place for the first time you almost always never think its priced right? Either its exorbitant (which is my feeling 99% of the time) or its soo inexpensive that its got to be cheap (that's happened a couple of times too, believe it or not!). But eventually as you settle down to a place, you adapt to the price. And so 40€ boots sound perfectly reasonable. That's what happened to me yesterday. It was evening time... I was done with the cooking and I had about 2 hours before the husband returned. What better time than to visit the nearby shopping strip and take a look? So I went. The prices were reasonable.. the choices plenty but NOTHING fit for the exact same reasons I mentioned above. This was the AMAYADHA NAAL( tamil for the day that doesn't fit right). After 2 hours... 8 pairs of boots.. 2 dresses... 3 skirts and 2 tops later, I left the store.. with nothing.

My star cricketer

Nope... No one from any team on the IPL or anything. This one's reserved for my all time favorite player in whats called the Barclay's National League. Thats the team that my husband plays for here in the weekends. And they take their cricket pretty seriously. All practice and league games and all... So, this match was taking place a little out of the city and so I wasn't joining him for the game. But it turns out that I should've. S turned out to be the star player of the match! So his team, the Indian team scored 189 in a 30 over match which was a decent total. They were up against the Pakistani team in the league. And the Pakistan team got off to a blitzkreig and scored 97 for no loss at the end of 10 overs. S was keeper last season and I thought he still was... my bad. Turns out he was asked to bowl part-time. And guess what? He had them reduced to 130/4 in 20 overs.. all four wickets to S, all caught in the outfield. What seemed like a walk in the park was a game at hand. However the Pakistani team did manage to scrape a victory.. but my man was Man of Match with figures of 5/18 off 6 overs. And looks like the Indian team has now figured out what needs to be done to overcome their counterparts. Good luck to them. But oh, hey S came home with a souvenier too... the ball that won him those wickets. Here's the jubiliant picture...



Am sooo proud of you, my dear! And next match, I am coming :)

Friday Morning Blues

Everyone's heard of Monday Morning Blues... But I think everyone's exaggerating. I think that Friday Morning blues are far harder to get past than the monday counterpart. On Monday, its better if you don't have the blues because you have 5 gruelling days ahead of you whereas its much harder not to have them on Fridays when you know that in afew short hours comes the joy of the weekend. And so, here I am, an hour into work hoping the day just melts away and brings in the ravishing evening ahead. No wonder I am blogging away already...

Cooker Thrills

For anyone who hasn't used the traditional Indian pressure cooker, the tragedies of having a malfunctioning one can't mean much. Especially, if you wasted 4kg of your allowed 20kg into carrying this one piece (alright really 3-4 pieces including the gaskets and the whistle n all) of kitchen utility anticipating it to cook all your dals and chawals just the way it should. But tragedy struck pretty early in our relationship, the cooker and mine. For the cooker just didn't know how to whistle. Neither would he whistle (it had to be a he) nor would he give any warning as he gleefully spewed froth from all directions messing up not just my freshly scrubbed gas... but the walls around it and the minuscule cutting area as well. Not just that, he would slop water all down himself and it would hit the hot plate and burn. It was a mess beyond a mess and it warranted the requirement for a neat round of aluminum foil all around it so that the worst case would be that I took off the dirty foil and put in a fresh one. But this never really worked that great for something would happen to jeaporadize it... and I found myself replacing foil after foil. Especially painful coz I would have to cut openings for the hot plates themselves. It was here that I wistfully recollected that P's pressure pan never once gave us trouble back in Cincinnati. Sick and tried of our ever dwindling relationship and with the rice cooker unable to fulfill any other duty than that of cooking rice (hence the name I guess... duh), I complained to my folks that they'd been tricked ino buying a defective cooker. And instead of sending me replacement gaskets/whistles or valves, they prudently sent me a replacement cooker... which arrived yesterday, complete with spare gaskets, whistles and valves. I tried it out immediately and I have never been happier in our association than when he hissed shrilly and burned nothing.

Next experiment: Put in a new valve/whistle/gasket in the old cooker and try to coax him to function just as well. That way I'll be the only person in the whole of Ile de France with 2 functioning pressure cookers (on a person to cooker ratio)

PS: There's a new entry on the other blog. Check it out if you will.

Bootwatch

Being in Paris and not owning boots seems to be a crime. I have noticed over the past couple of months that everyone (women) and I mean everyone wears boots... With skirts, with jeans, with dresses, with shorts with stockings, without stockings... They are less likely to be wearing a proper jacket/shirt than a pair of boots. They come in all sizes and all lengths and all colours and all sorts of heels with ot without stuff dangling from them. Its fascinating the multipurpose usage that they are put through and finally with the weather warming up a little, I decided I would get myself a pair of boots too that would go fabulously with all my skirts that I soon planned on wearing. But first, I needed to decide what type I was going to get... And hence the bootwatch. I have been observing the women on the street... But the variety is soooo large that all I have been able to decide is that my boots should probably be black (will go with all colors and types of clothes), should not have any heels (flats are the best for your back) and should not be made of leather (poor cows/crocodiles or anything else that they kill to make 'fabric' these days). And I plan on going shopping for them over this week... Of course the main thing I haven't decided is how much of a hole I am going to let this fancy of mine burn my hubby's pocket... Some things are better decided by him I guess. :)

My Travel Blog

I just reinaugrated my new travel blog. It has more pictures than any useful information about THIS place maybe because I live here. :D Visit it here. And do let me know what you think about it..

French Shopping

One more insight into daily life in this country... So, we've all seen shopping carts in stores...

The French stores have these carts as well.. But most people (me included now), tag along a modification of this cart in varied colors, designs, sizes but quintessentially the same...

These are very handy considering that most people here use the public transportation to get across... Not just that... even when the grocery is a few blocks away, carrying back heavy stuff like water or milk cans can be quite a pain. So instead, people tag these along on their shopping trips and stow away stuff while shopping into it and out for checkout and back in to carry home. It really is handy. At first it sort of felt like everyone was lugging a golf club cart or cricket gear but soon you get used to it and once you've realized its convenience, you know that every household in France probably has one/ two of these. Not just that... its more important coz these carts double up as laundry carts, and as carry-anything-heavy carts. It was of big help when we moved into our apartment last month just from a few blocks up... There was no point in getting a moving truck.

Besides another major motivation is that most stores in Paris at least charge you for a sturdy plastic bag, something of the order of 30 cents. thats not much but it does strike you as ridiculous, doesn't it? So after yesterday when I had paid my 3rd 30 cents of the week to lug back stuff home, I finally had the much-awaited clever idea of stashing away 1-2 of these plastic bags in the bag I carry everyday. Some other stores sell you real sturdy bags but at a higher price... And the fact of the matter is that one never remembers to carry along one of those bags especially on impromptu shopping trips when you most need it. Guess the shopping cart wasn't made without reason, huh? Makes me wonder why such a thing wouldn't flourish in a student locality in places like the US where students can't afford cars or don't want to take taxis for the measliest trips. I for one would've been really happy if this had been an option in the pre-SO-car-days when we had to take taxis from Kroger for every grocery trip... This would've definitely been the practical option. Business ideas, anyone? And if it does start appearing in the US, I claim royalty for having made the suggestion first!!

The practical guide to being vegetarian at a French Cafetaria

Carry your own lunch. Just get the bread n extras at the cafetaria. For those who don't understand what am talking about, read this.

i-tune?

I have an ipod shuffle that hubby dearest got me before our wedding. It works for me... I don't see myself watch music videos or any videos at the gym or in transit.. ever. So, this is all I need.. some music in my ears as I hum along, sing along, run along... or whatever. (The husband thinks I should take the PSP - I soooo see myself concentrating on Prince of Persia while train-hopping). In any case, I have noticed a pattern with the ipod... I likely hit FF/Next and jump to the next track on atleast 15 of the 100-odd songs in it. Sometimes its as if the ipod knows.. It plays all those songs I don't want to hear in quick succession. You may ask - why have those songs if you are not going to listen to them... Its a valid question and yet I have no answer... Everytime I repopulate the ipod with songs, invariably I retain most of the unheards as well... I think its a mood-based thing... Like you don't wanna listen to Enigma when you are waiting for the train - time seems to drag (or maybe its just me) and similarly I have explanations like this for every song that I skip. Unbreak my heart makes my mood pensive as does Yevano Oruvan... I can't listen to Say shava shava because its too bric-a-brac - what I mean is that its tune falls into tooo regular a pattern - I know it doesn't make as much sense to anyone but me... Yet I can't bring myself to delete them. And then again, there are those songs which I have heard literally millions of times and still can't bring myself to skip them - most Alaiypayuthey songs are like that. Saaki is like that as is Ipanema. Totally and completely weird, isn't it?

The gift

Getting gifts is always fun... Whether just another trinket or something fabulous... I have always loved getting presents... the more surprise in it, the better. So when my hubby called me yesterday and told me we'd gotten a belated wedding present from his friend, he dropped a subtle hint saying - "This will be a big surprise for you." And my overactive imagination prepared an extensive list of things... But nothing had prepared me for what it really was..

I was waiting for him of course with the wifely instinct blended in with excessive proportions of dying curiosity. And when he placed the package in front of me, my mouth literally dropped open. Getting an SLR camera has been in my plans for ageeeeees... and amongst my hubby n I, I am the more camera-crazy one (and the more behind-the-scenes person). That explained why it would be a BIG surprise for me. Of course, for all that wanting the SLR camera bit, I don't know a thing about using it. But thats something I started figuring out last evening.

Praneeth, I truly wanted to write a glowing blog thanking you for this gift.. but I am soo overwhelmed that this is it for now... And I can thank you more by covering you all play cricket... after all a picture is worth a 1000 words. :)

Of snowfall and slipping tongues...

It snowed in Paris!! Here.. check out a shot of the school's railway station...

I thought I'd seen enough snow to last me a lifetime through my three chilly winters at Cincinnati... But I was mistaken. I was unduly thrilled when I threw open the front door this morning and saw a sheet of white over everything around. And the feel of the snow crunching under my shoes was nice as well... Yeah, you probably think I'm crazy. But snow sort of became a part of my life abroad and it was unnatural without it. The air was as always crisp... that goes with the territory when it has snowed and there was no wind... And as usual, I scooped a palmful of fresh snow and compacted it delighting in its texture and showing my husband who no doubt thinks I have lost it (he's already called me to find out if I reached college safely!)

But thats not all... You'd think with snowfall came accidents of people slipping or falling. Only in my case, my tongue totally compensated for me saving grace. In a fantastically good mood for a Monday morning, all thanks to the snow, I was humming to my Ipod and snaking my way through the monday morning rush to the other side of the train station to get on to my second train to get to school. As is customary, I bumped over someone and instead of mumbling "Pardon" or "Desolé", which would've been more appropriate meaning Excuse me or Sorry, I actually said "Merci", which is Thank You. Its probably because Merci sounds like Mercy (in English, sort of like - have mercy) or I don't know what but I reacted off the amusement on the guy's face. And I hastily corrected myself... "I mean sorry.. Pardon." His face cleared a bit and as we hurried up the steps, he said -"Tu parle anglais..." I nodded furiously, "Je parle anglais" I said claiming complete allegiance to the only European language I could. And then I lost sight of him... I suppose it could've been worse.

I leave you with one more shot of this snow all captured by my hubby's compact camera (which I now carry always in case of such emergencies). I bet the people on the street who saw me clicking away probably thought it was my first ever snow sighting. Little do they know....

Flash memory

I mean here, a flash of memory... and not the storage device. As is habitual when the hubby is out playing cricket, I do the household chores and watch reruns of some of my favorite shows. After a long long time, I decided to revisit Sex and the City. I didn't so much as watch it as I did relive my Cincinnatian memories with them. It was one of those shows that we caught late at night on Fox19 or WB64 while working on our theses... In fact we had a girls night out with the whole Season 1 on one of my bday weekends. I think another show that was "Roommate Special" was Medium... It took us a couple of episodes to even understand what was about but once we did, we were hooked. Ah... as much as life's taken a turn for the better, I miss my girls!

Branded~

I bet this has happened to most of you if not all... You tend to visit a restaurant/cafe/bar often and after having tried a bunch of stuff(or not), you develop a favorite and knowingly or not end up ordering the same combo day after day... And of course after a while, the waiter/waitress catches on and nods along even before you have completed ordering. Apparently, I develop favorites at most places... I think that has been derived from the fact that being vegetarian gives me few options in other countries and its easy to deveop a favorite among say, 2 choices.

It happened in Subway back in Cinci.. It wasn't the sub that got branded as my taste... But the way I prepared it. For instance, I was probably one-in-a-million who had the weird request of wanting her sub toasted after the veggies were in. After the first few quizzical glances, they started doing it by themselves whenever they saw me. Goldstar Chili was my next joint-of-choice. I used to order the café salad with extra olives and tomatoes and light on cheese. After 3 times, they started making the salad when they saw me in the vicinity. Most of the time, this stuff makes you feel special... like you are their regular and they know that and want to please you. But sometimes, its annoying. I always feel like they think they have me figured out. Now I can't exactly say why that matters to me.

It happened here again. So there's this really handy café downstairs that serves the typical coffees, juices and a bunch of breakfast baked foods apart from sandwiches and salads. Many mornings when I have heroinically skipped breakfast, I find my tummy grumbling in response to the delicious smell of fresh-baked croissants that wafts in to me from the café as I head upstairs to my office. And my order usually goes -"Bonjour... Café Créme Grand la porte et un croissant si'l vous plait" (Goodmorning... A large coffee with milk in a take-away cup and one croissant please). I think it happened fairly enough for her to brand me large-coffee-in-portable-cup-and-croissants-in-the-morning girl. Usually she hears me out even though she knows whats coming and then proceeds to complete my order. Today, she heard me again but she didn't listen. And I said petit - small cup.. But no, there arrived my large steaming cup of coffee and 1 freshly baked croissant. So much for feeling special. Nobody listens. Hmph.

Diana - the warrior princess

No no... This isn't a post about how ironical it is that Princess 'Diana was named after the Goddess of War and yet she was the most hunted person on the earth' as quoted by her brother Earl Spencer at her eulogy. Instead its about something far more trivial - PlayStation 3!!

S and I got a PS3 to go with our fabulous TV and we've been hooked ever since. We've been playing this game called 'Drake's Fortune' which for all its dramatic intros and interspersed dialogue boils down to a simple point n shoot with your gun game. It does have splendid graphics though. So all through my free time, I get to hear dialogues like "He's over here" and then bang bang of the guns and a "Son of a bitch.." or a "You've got to be kidding me" as our hero catches sight of the villains he needs to overcome. So to cut a long story short, my overimaginative brain decided to create its own night-time entertainment for me... in my dreams! And so I was Diana, this bimboistically realistic heroine who is hunting for her crown which gives her the authority to rule La-La Land... Whatever! If it wasn't enough that I hear everything through the day... I had to be fighting people all night and assuring my 'subjects' of 'good times to come'. Considering the amount of money that the papparazzi and newspapers have reeled in from the poor Princess Diana, I bet such a game probably exists in some other form in the market. As for me.. I should probably try to read and then fall asleep so that I can fuel my dreams in a different direction.

Happy Fool's Day

Here's Orkuts gag on Fool's Day - calling themselves "Yogurt"...

In case you want it see it fresh, log in to your Orkut Page.

Other gags - CNN IBN actually had a totally fake 'Rakhi Sawant assaults reporter' video. It was fake from the first microsecond and anyone who'd not guessed as much has some serious disorder.

Rediff had the headline - "Sorry Ranbir.. But Deepika weds Yuvi" - again it was soooo fake you could smell it. And then there have been the usual Jolie-Pitt wedding rumors. People should grow up and post believable April Fool's gags... Google usually does a great job.. In fact their ever-increasing mailbox storage was introduced 2 years ago on April 1... which led many people to believe that it was joke.. With the storage still increasing, we all know now who the joke's on. They also had a great one on some pigeon-flying search method or something similar...

Check out this year's Google Gag here.

Traditionally though, for me... April Fool's Day in India at least as long as my brother and I were there held the charm of fooling all my really naive family members. Mostly my brother and I would fold an 'Inland' Letter (remember those blue-coloured one and a half page paper which would fold into an envelope and had a printed stamp?) in which we wrote nonsense in Tamil, fold it, stick it and address it to our Chittipatti (Granny's younger sis who lives with us). Then we'd take turns in going out the door and ringing the bell. The other would open it announce loudly, "Babu letter." She'd come over expectantly before we screamed "April Fooooooooool" at her.

Soon, everyone else caught on... making fake calls from the mobile phones to the landlines, saying they cooked something else as opposed to reality and what not, and everything got the April Fool's tag with it. Now I suppose the charm has slightly faded on me... Or I would probably have attempted a gag post on my blog. That would've been fun... Lol.

Wool-Static

No, this is not a state like say, ec-static. Those of us who've stayed in cold countries have experienced this some time or the other. I remember in Cincinnati how we used to make sure to touch something wood before touching anything from the door knob to the microwave to the taps on the sink in winters. Everything used to give off that brief static electricity that crackled uncomfortably in your fingers for a microsecond. In fact VV and I have experienced worse static.. almost like a minor shock from our crackling hair. But the point is.. That was all ONE static jolt. Yesterday I had the opportunity to witness something different yet fascinating. I wore a sweatshirt over my shirt last night before sleeping. Half asleep I had gotten warm under the comforter and was uncomfortable with the extra layer. As I peeled away my sweatshirt, I actually saw hundreds of crackling little sparks, whitish-yellow in colour in the dark even as the sweatshirt separated from the shirt. It was like a bunch of tiny little glow worms moving along with a sputtering noise. I actually awoke my hubby to witness the spectacle. And I woke him up remarking "Sparks!" Jolted by the possiblity of sparking electric wires, I can't say he was truly amused at my discovery. :)

The beginner's guide to being vegetarian at a French Cafetaria

Alright... Its almost taboo to be vegetarian in this country... much worse than the United States. There's so much collective disbelief that you don't eat anything that once lived that you almost feel bad to disappoint them. My first few lunches here at the ESIEE canteen were sponsored by my professors and I didn't pay much attention to what I threw on to my tray. Later I realized I was hungry in no time and of course that was because I had barely eaten anything. When I started coming here full-time, over the first week I was perpetually hungry even an hour after a seemingly long lunch. I was doing it wrong. Here's what I really have to do have a tummy that lasts without grumbling atleast till 3:00 pm.

1. Stock up on the salad - The salad bar comes first in the scheme of things. And usually I tended to take measly portions of the salad. This is the crux of the meal and it is important to take healthy portions.

2. Check out the desserts enroute - Usually there's some chocolate/caramel cake or something for the sweet tooth.. If you're trying to be healthy, pick up a bowl of fruit.

3. Pick up a carton of yogurt or a can of juice.

4. Main course: There's probably ONE dish you could take. Its probably boiled potatoes/beans/peas which is just that.. The veggies have been dumped into boiling water and taken out. Do not expect any salt/pepper or other flavours. These are just meant to serve as a side to some form of sizzling meat which will also feature on the main course

5. Sometimes you also have legumes (dal) and riz (rice), both undercooked and not very recommended.

6. Ask for some frite (French fries).. and a fresh fruit (apples, banana, oranges, whatever you want), you are done!

Now pay for it (it probably cost you under 2€ no matter how much you took) and a carafe of water and ooh yeah.. how could I forget the bread?? At least 3 varieties are available to choose from, and are free and unlimited. I prefer taking the mini baguette, scooping the soft inside and eating it, forming a shell into which I stuff about half my salad and voila, I have a stuffed baguette. You can always spice up your boring salad/rice or whatever at the condiments table with everything from paprika to olives.

Thats the best you can do here.. Bon Appetit!

Heavy on TV

I've realized that when S is out of town and when its vacation day, like Monday was... I can spend 10 straight mindless hours watching TV. This for someone who barely watched TV in India (I would choose a book over the Idiot box anyday). I donno if its coz we've gotten this gloriously huge, flat screen LCD monitor which makes you wanna watch just about anything or because there are NO english books sold here (I should've stocked up in England - damn!) or maybe I just had it in me.

I had seen 2 whole discs of F-R-I-E-N-D-S and 1.5 movies! I cook with the TV on.. I eat with the TV on.. I clean with the TV on. Or maybe its because we don't have our internet connection yet. Whatever the reason, the madness has got to stop!

Memory Rush

We visited S's college here this last weekend. We'd driven up there with a bunch of friends, with me doing the driving - something I am proud of. It was a manual car with a left wheel drive - a combination I hadn't tried before. Ok.. but the point is that we were at INT (Institut Nationale d'Telecommunication) - Pardon me if the spellings are screwed.. thats the limit of my French so far. Its a tiny little campus in a place called Evry outside of Paris. And going there... seeing how S and his friends recollected a flood of memories made me recollect my own. And suddenly I missed Cincinnati and my days there with my own band sourly. Here they were showing off their Forum (my TUC) where they had weekendly parties, their cafetaria which constituted millions of meals, their main building where the classes were held.. and all I could do was to compare it with Baldwin Hall. UC is a small campus, smaller than most other US University campuses which are spread across miles and have towns built around them. But INT is smaller than UC... but just as self-content.. It had its own stuff - large hostels, huge administrative buildings, its own hill (which reminded me of the tiny hill with the winding path in front of Morgens @ UC), tennis courts, et al. Gosh, I miss Cincinnati!

S, we've got to go back so I can show you UC and much more..

French kisses

Nope.. This is not any spicy blog about what you may have thought its going to be from the title.. This is about the French way of greeting people (or saying goodbye to them). I believe it is called faire la bise.. La Bise means kiss in French.. So this is the action you might've caught on TV somewhere where 2 people exchange kisses (to the air) on alternating cheeks. It seems that 2 kisses is the norm.

I was at a party yesterday.. It was a birthday party for an Indo-French kid hosted by his family, an entire bundle of Indo-French folks... They spoke fluent Tamil and French and halting English.. It was my first time at any such gathering and I was observing the customs quite amusedly. Initially when I met the first 2 people, I enthusiastically followed along kissing the air ( I realized that these people exchanged 4 kisses - it seems its a custom for people in Nantes) But my interest waned when I met another whole bunch and I saw more of the surrounding people than the one was meeting while kissing the air around me 4 times!! Gosh!! It was a pretty long drawn process and started to get to me a bit.

That apart, at the time of cake cutting (there were 2 huge cakes to accomodate servings for the number of guests), each one flanked by a flowerpot cracker. There were 2 bottles of champagne and we were each given sparklers (mathaappu) which we were to light when the birthday boy was about to blow out the candles.

And once we were done, we got started with the goodbye kisses. Some customs just require getting used to.

I need to know NOW

Ever had that experience? Where if you didnt't find out about something right at that instant, your head will explode? I am in that situation NOW and I have been chewing my nails away.. And I still have a few hours to go.. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

My 6 arai koodai

Here's one of my favorite purchases... No wonder I feel like cooking everyday, huh?

Email tales

Reading old emails is like opening one of my diaries for me... Its a potpourri of stuff that keeps me ever enchanted and wakes me up from the dreariest of days..

Today was the 4th installment of cleaning up my overcluttered Inbox and out poured a huuuge collection of memories - mostly good and some bad.. Mostly, I tend to read the good stuff.. Like a few days back I was reading some of the first emails my now hubby had sent me and they all brought a smile to my face. Today I was reading a lot of stuff I had "Starred". And I noticed a pattern... I had either "Starred" the important stuff like career/study related, the ones I needed to respond to or surprisingly, the ones about which I wanted to remember and forget at the same time.. Maybe its a Scorpion trait.. I wanted to forget the incident(s) - many petty and a few grave- but remember who had done it.. And the very subject of the email brought up fleeting memories - It soured my mood a bit. Has that ever happened to you?

I unstarred them all... time to grow up... Atleast the next time I read something, it would be all sweet.

Scientists everywhere..

The quad where my college is located has been aptly named.. On one side is Boulevard Newton, then there is Rue Copernicus and the third side is Boulevard Archimedes flanked by Pascal Boulevard and indeed the entire place is called Cité Descartès.

I was just joking to a friend that if I did something worth mentioning, there would be a street somewhere that read "Rue de la Jaya". As I said that aloud, it sounded like "Rude la Jaya?" (Jaya's rude, right? - in Tamil)

I wonder how many agree...

A 6 course meal

Today I have achieved what I believed impossible. Well its both what you think and what you don't know. I lasted a 6 course meal - you got that from the title of the post. But I also lasted an entire day of presentations in... FRENCH. Congratulations to me! I never thought it was possible. When my professor suggested that it would be "good for me" to attend the presentations given by the senior members and partners of the project and get introduced to them as the new stellar PhD student, I was excited. Then he revealed that they would be in French. Thats when I mentally tuned out and willed myself not to sleep. I have slept in many classes in the past and A will vouch for that a 100%.. But in a teeny conference room with 6 senior members all waiting to see that spark of brilliance come from me, it wasn't the best of ideas. But this post is not about how I survived 6 gruelling hours of making out an odd phrase here... a number there and the parallels between French and English on the screen ahead of me (scientific is scientifiqué - there are many words like that). Its about lunch. The French like their food. That explains why the initially decided upon hour-long lunch stretched into twice that length.. It can also be explained by the fact that there were 6 courses.

Before today I had no idea how any meal could have more than 3 courses -appetizer, lunch and dessert, right? Wrong! The French start with what they love most - bread. Our choices today for Course 1 were wheat bread and baguette... And then the chef brought in Course 2 - plates of salad for each of us.. Thankfully he was forewarned about me being veggie and so while the others crunched on their chicken/pork/lamb or whatever, I grazed on my carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes. The salad was soo huge that I half suspected that that was it. Wrong again! Giving us ample time to finish (everyone had scraped their plates clean except me), the chef cleared the plates and brought in the main courses - Course 3... Boiled ripe Roma tomatoes and boiled beans with basmati rice for me as opposed to chicken tikka masala for them.. Its an unfair world. The boiled beans had no salt or any flavour and I couldn't take more than two of them. The tomatoes were yummy and thats all I ate.. what was I to eat the rice with anyways? I was sure dessert was next after the Basmati disaster - wrong again.. And in came Course 4 - Cheese. Seriously, I thought it was flan or something on my plate - but it turned out to be 3 ample portions of what I identified as blue cheese, goat cheese and ambiguous cheese.. with guess what? Bread of course! I was mortified by then and barely chewed anything while others munched away to glory. I was hoping we were done once and for all. Of course I was wrong. Course 5 - Dessert - a fried banana pie. This was yummy with a delectable crust and everyone cleaned up their plates, thank you very much. Now surely it was over? Who could get back to those meetings without that last course? Course 6- A shot of espresso!! My first ever and I needed it to wake me from the lull of the 2 hour lunch. The caffeine didn't as much as the bitterness did and I was grateful for the dark chocolate that accompanied it to remove the taste from my mouth.

Off we all trudged into the meeting room. Waiting for us was what we'd started with at breakfast- coffee, tea, orange juice, croissants and pain aù chocolat.

Home Sweet Home

Its such a new n refreshing (and fatiguing) experience to set up a new home all for yourself (and your husband of course!) Having never really bought furniture for a house, it was a brand new adventure... Me, S and a couple of friends went to a furniture super store, a certain brand name beginning with I. Having never been to the store before, we had no idea how it worked... For on the ground floor, we saw a vast expanse of warehousey space with stacks of furniture, all in boxes, arranged over expanses of shelves ready to be shipped we assumed. But we also saw a bunch of people refer something, pick the required boxes off the selves, load them on carts and head to checkout. Spare parts, we assumed. On enquiring, we found out that we didnt have to pick stuff off the racks this way. Instead we could go to the top floor and view the assembled furniture and pick what we desired. What a relief.. And so we went.. I went hyper seeing some of the stuff they had on display and S and I disagreed on almost every piece of furniture. So Day 1 turned out as a Disaster Day considering the store was closing early that too. We reached a consensus to go home, browse the website, make educated decisions and come back the next day to place the orders directly.

After a productive evening of finalizing all the furniture, we went back the next day... While waiting for S to arrive, me with my broken French and excellent charades managed to get most of the stuff listed for billing... The guy upstairs in his broken English told me that now we had to go downstairs and pay for everything and arrange for the shipping. Sounded fairly simple... To our horror though, later we discovered that the list that the upstairs guy was merely the reference paper we'd seen many poor souls refer and lunge huge stuff on carts. And sadly Day 2, it was just S and me. Panting and puffing we lunged all the damned furniture onto the carts with me actually putting my foot down (under the weight of was it the cupboard or the bed - bah who cares?) After the lengthy bill, the bank account depleted, we were still not done!! It so happened that the bed being huge wasn't kept out there with the rest of the stuff.. We had to wait an eon before they called our number and delivered the huge bed n mattress to us and another eon while we gave them back everything and paid them to have them deliver it home the next day.

Thought we were done? Not quite.. The delivery man appears a half hour after the hour stated and dumps all of the stuff from a truck right on the footpath in front of our house (I'd actually opened out the French windows in the hope of coaxing him to dump them into the house). Now me n a friend lunge back everything into the house and my foot gets caught once more, this time under the bed. Feet sore, all samaan in? Now we're done?? No baby, this is the beginning. For now, we had to fit everything together to make it look like the catalogue from mere cartons.

3 days hence..... a couple of more trips, a couple more stores... 90% done.. a bit more to go... the house is finally taking shape.. Yeaaaaay!!

A non-Hindy filmy experience

Hindi movies have spoiled us thoroughly. I realized the gravity of that yesterday evening. Me n the husband were going furniture shopping for our new home and were going to get there individually from our places of work. As usual, I got there first and was waiting in the partially deserted parking area in front of the entrance. It was raining in mild sprays and the sky was turning purple. Come on now, you know this scene from Hindi movies, don't you? This is when the heroine is looking in the completely opposite direction and suddenly feels a prick on her neck and she palats and there's the hero with widespread arms. The film bug bit me. I looked in the opposite direction too hoping to feel the prick announcing S's arrival... It must've been the 2 layers of clothing that pricked so much.. coz I turned about 30 times either to stare at strangers or the emptiness of space.. but No S. The rain had gotten steadier and my hands and the tip of my nose were numb from the cold. I palat-ed one last time in vein and then made it into the store in peals of laughter at my own filminess.

And then unexpectedly, as I pored over the kitchenware inside while smiling to myself, I did palat and there was S with his trademark half-widespread arms. :)

Note to self: Earth to J.

Back to School

Remember those days? When we were children and we started school after a 3 month summer vacation? New textbooks and notebooks... all wrapped smartly in brown paper. I remember how choosing labels was a big deal. We had crisp new uniforms, sometimes a new school bag we couldn't wait to show off and sharpened pencils and new ink pens. Plus meeting many friends after a whole 3 months (we weren't used to calling them over break). Thats what made school reopening very exciting... at least for the first week when we didn't have homework, classwork or assignments to do.

Guess what? I joined school today. After a whole 3 month wedding break. After 9 months of working. A year after completing my Masters. This time for a higher objective - a PhD. And no, I don't need to take classes or give exams. I just have to do what I like best - research. And so its begun. I have my new desk (though temporary), my computer access and I've started reading up on what I might be required to do... And now I realize the importance of the environment. While at home, I couldn't read 2 lines of a paper without distraction or without switching over to something else, here I've already read 3 papers in my 2 hours here (hence the break, hehe)... And whats more surprising - I'm excited about this. Its a different kind of rush. Maybe it has to do with the two little prefix letters these three years will earn me superceding the 2 letters behind my name currently.