Thepla Central..

The theplas I made :D

Pappi Bhelwali

That's what my dad called me when he learned I'd made bhel puri for the husband... Here.. take a look.

The ingredients (including the teekha /meeta chutnies) -

The end product (phenomenally yummy - ask S if you want)

And... I made theplas for dinner today. Pictures later!

Gymmu-Gimmu

Its a Tamil habit, I think, to rhyme one word with another that makes no sense most of the time. The exceptions are aadu-maadu (goat-cow), veedu-kaadu (house-forest), etc. But usually its really senseless things like paalu-geelu (milk-senseless_word), kaapi-geepi (coffee-senseless_word), or dressu-gissu (Dress-senseless_word)... Ok you get my point. Actually I don't know why the senseless word usually is a rhyme of the original but with a 'g'.

Anyhoo, coming to the point of the post, I joined the gym finally today. And they have a lot of interesting things going on... There are dance aerobics, even salsa lessons and all over at the gym. This seems to be a great way to melt away time (and weight, I hope) over the vacations. And on other days. I've taken an annual membership. And my Patti asked me over the phone, "Gymmu-gimmu poitu vandhiya?" (Did you go the gym-gim?)

Hence the title of the post. :)

Citysnoozers awakens...

And finally, here is the long-awaited post on Bruges on Citystalkers. Lets hope that the Kumbakarna phase for that blog is finally over.. Fingers crossed.

Happy Friendships Day

For what it's worth, Happy Friendships Day to you all... Well yeah, I believe in Friendships but not Friendship Days... Not now at any rate. Yes, I was one of the naïve ones that jumped the bandwagon and bought dozens of colourful bands to adorn the wrists of my closest friends, pledging my friendship to them and in turn flaunted a wristfull of my own. The irony of everything is that this phase was most popular when we were back in our undergraduate days or school. When you actually tied bands on your friends that you spent the entire day with... and went home and made calls and spoke to for hours on the end. People who you had with you all the time, yet felt the need to 'make you own' by brandishing a band on them. How things have changed over the past 10 years. Now we are all miles apart, talk once in a few months at most and yet, we are secure in our bond of friendship. A few years after college, the gestures dwindled to emails at most and nowadays - nothing. Even still, the friendship burns strong, a warm glow that ignites you from the inside when you think of those people and the times spent with them. And now I see these 'days' and the rest of them (V-Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, blah blah) for what they are... business tactics to lure the insecure into buying tonnes of junk that gets discarded anyways. Isn't it more special when you do something out of the expected? Like buy someone something for no reason other than that you thought they might like it... make a call to those friends on random days, not because of birthdays or anniversaries or emergencies... It feels so much better that way and definitely means a lot more.

However, K, M, S, G, NK, SO, VR, PT - I miss you all. Happy Friendships Day.

Cinema Cinema

Disclaimer: There is no doubt about Kamal Hassan's genius... Fewer movies have made as much an impact on me as Michael Madana Kamarajan. But did he have to do these 10 roles?

So out of sheer boredom and fueled by the summer vacations, I ended up buying an account with one of the Tamil movie online sites. I chose Tamil thinking S and I could see a lot of dinner time favorites. I don't know about that but the first choice of the movie was also the most obvious, Dasavatharam. This Kamal Hassan movie has made headlines all over the world for a variety of reasons from budget to plot and obviously the most important being the fact the Kamal, the lead in the movie has played 10 different roles. Having heard terrifically rave reviews about the movie from tabloids to reliable friends, we were very excited to watch the movie.... for about 15 minutes. At the end of the movie, I was left gawking... and not in the good sense. It became very obvious that the script was tailored to somehow accomodate the 10 different roles that the lead man wanted to play and create history. And in that sense, he did. I don't think anyone is going to attempt anything like this for a long long time. But the worst part was that none of those getups were really required. He could've been content with just playing 2-3 of the main roles and hiring accomplished actors for the rest. Instead they spent a whole lot of cash, time and effort in creating 10 distinct personalities, 7 of whom were totally uncritical to the plot and a couple ended up resembling one another! Some of the get-ups actually looked like the human version of Shrek in Shrek II. And chaos theory as the central theme turned out to be too chaotic and the tsunami scene that people raved about was total disappointment. It was crazy. And Kamal Hassan taking up the screenplay as a 11th role was probably the big damper in the whole fiasco..

On a totally unrelated note, I acquired a DVD of Dhoom II and decided it was well worth a wasted afternoon to gawk at Hrithik. So subconsciously as I watched it, I counted him wear 8 different disguises - all of which looked convincing and looked great on him. While I reached no.8, my heart beat a little faster. What a humungous disappointment it would've been to Kamal Hassan had Hrithik equalled 10 in a totally unintended and unassuming manner. Lol!

Burgers at Bruges

A conversation last night reminded me about this incident when we'd been to Bruges recently... and I thought I had to share it with you guys... So, S had this incredible craving for a veggie burger the day after we reached Bruges. And all through our sightseeing, he checked out no less than 5 restaurants (read roadside joints) to verify if they stocked a veggie burger with a veggie patty... There is a serious dearth of this 'delicacy' in Paris where meat rules.. And though Indiana Café, one of his favorite joints here in Paris stocks them and he has that every time we go there, he just had to have it. So, back from the beaches of Oostende and after a day in Brussels, we reached Bruges well after 10:00PM. Having safely stashed the car away in one of the parking spaces, we went on foot (not a big achievement considering that it takes about 30 minutes to walk the longer part of Bruges) hunting for at least one of the places he'd checked out to be open. And we all remembered a different one and each of us led the way to a different part of the city centre. Finally we zeroed in on one that was tiny, seemingly shabby, but open nonetheless. With none of us having any other motivation after a long day of sightseeing and driving, we all settled in for burgers.

The guy at the counter was apparently the owner and he boasted pictures with celebrities who visited Bruges and his latest conquest was one with Colin Farrel who unsurprisingly starred 'In Bruges'. This substantially cheered me for the part that the decor did not. I assumed that if stars visited this place, the burgers had to pretty darned good. Even as S stood at the counter waiting to order, we witnessed the eccentric owner piss off a few potential customers into leaving the store. I, for one assumed that we'd probably not witnessed the part that they'd played in ticking him off. Soon it became apparent that they probably hadn't done anything. We saw a party of 8 enter and they all ordered 'Menus', which is a whole meal with fries and drinks and all. While 7 of them crowded merrily around the counter, one tired soul rested his eyes at the corner table, only to be awakened by the owner in a loud tone and to be informed that this was no 'hotel' where he could sleep. I thanked my stars for not having been discovered at the same compromising position barely a few minutes earlier before I got my Iced Tea. The friends of the offended guy explained that he was 'with them' and they were ordering for him too. But that didn't soothe our owner, who repeated that he had no 'hotel' and that he had to leave. One of the guys cheerily mentioned that if his friend was sent out, the rest of them would walk out too. And they were shown the door. Out walked 100€ of business. I watched in shock... hopefully assuming that the mask of disbelief was not obvious on my face. Presumably the guy wasn't up for making 8 menu meals at close to 11 in the night on a Sunday... but wouldn't it have been kinder to just say so rather than have them leave for what seemed very petty? And soon we were to witness another 4 parties of varying strengths being shown the door for offenses ranging from staring hard at the drinks refirgerator to choose a drink, to screaming out an order before it was their turn.

Amazingly though, he seemed pro-Asian and treated us and a Chinese couple with atmost respect. He even offered to play mild music in order to create a soothing ambience for us to eat in, even though we ate in silence and gulped down the food, lest we be kicked out as well. Maybe it was just that he knew how good his burgers were and that he was in no danger of losing any regulars, but just the tourists in that part of Bruges or maybe he was just trying to show everyone who the boss was or maybe he was just plain tired. But the burgers were absolutely phenomenal.

Tribute to Pausch

Not so long ago, I wrote about Childhood dreams, inspired by a professor at Carnegie Mellon, Dr. Randy Pausch. He passed away today. Click here for the news item. Many people touch lives in many different ways. Dr Pausch's wasn't totally unique but will absolutely stand out for his spirit and his message. If you don't know what I am talking about, go to this post. May his soul rest in peace.

Happy Holidays

Wow... July's been a drab month and there's absolutely nothing to write about... Of course you may wonder if that ever stopped me in the past where I have written about everything from the honeybees at my house in India to the dog across the street. Right now though, I am on vacation... And surprisingly that gives me even less to write. I don't commute so often, don't see anything different and this past week all that I have been doing is cleaning the house, arranging the cupboards, restocking the kitchen and the likes of the house-wifey things I wasn't too regular with over the school semester. Having played the role for a week, I am fast developing different interests. As a quest for the vacation though, I was out hunting a gym. Having had the convenience of apartment complexes in the US and the major REC center at school, I found it unsettling that people paid huge amounts of money to go to exercise facilities. My school gym here has only basketball courts and rock climbing.. There's no equipment! With physical activity threatening to die, I had to find action fast. And so I hunted my city for the gyms and found their rates. Shocking.. I'll add. So, there's this gym, lets call it, umm.. LF. They charge a membership fee and then a monthly fee, all totalling to about 1000€ a year... and here's the best part - They want you to come in for 30 minutes every alternate day only. No, you cannot go to use the equipment at any time you desire. You can pick your 30 minute slot of choice and land up there once in every 2 days. I was completely flabbergasted. They rip you off and they rip you off!! I consulted with a few regulars, some of S's friends as to what their solution was. Seems like there are lesser expensive options in Paris... but not really inexpensive ones. I have sort of narrowed it down to a yearly 700€ thing which allows me to go at will, take any of their classes offered (from dance to aerobics to swimming). It's still mighty expensive... Makes me wonder if I should just take the tennis club membership which amounts to about the same... but also entail depending on a partner for games. It's like Sophie's Choice.

Apart from the gym bit too, I have been thinking I should go out into the city and see Paris as a Parisian... experience the nooks and corners of this beautiful city while I have the time and the means. I discovered a few English book thriftstores... which are well into my agenda of visiting. Oh, and yeah, S and I with a couple of his friends were at Belgium last weekend, Bruges in particular... and I must mention what a gorgeous place it is... More about it in CityStalkers (right now its CitySnoozers having had no posts in eons).

For now, I hope I keep the blog rolling... There's so little going on!

The brand new wrinkle

So... I was creaming my face after a shower and suddenly I saw it... high up on my forehead - a demarkation... a distinct line. I stopped stunned... Was it a wrinkle??? I wasn't old enough to have one. In panic, I rubbed cream vigorously on it, trying to smooth it away... It didn't go.. I was devastated... Having prided myself on the jet-black mane of hair, was I going to lose it all to a stupid wrinkle on my forehead? And then I looked closer... at the line... it was crinkly... and went all the way from one side of my hair to the other..; Wait a minute... Wrinkles didn't do that... and certainly not the first one... And then it dawned on me. It was the line from the elastic of the shower cap. Phew!

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.