Xpressions – Post 30

Tags

Abc Wednesday, Abc Wednesday Round 6, NaBloPoMo, picture, xpression

of joy and happiness in life 🙂

And with that we have accomplished what we started a month ago…. 🙂

For more X’s visit the ABC Wednesday home page

Rim Jhim Rim Jhim Rum Jhum Rum Jhum – Post 29

Tags

Delhi, food, ghaziabad, memories, music, NaBloPoMo, papdi chat, personal, rain, upsc

Rains make me happy…

Rains sometimes make me sad too…

Rains make me nostalgic…

Rains make me musical…

Rains bring out the romantic in me like no other times…

Rains also bring out the foodie in me like no other times…

Rains makes me love the smells that are around…

Rains make me want to dance…

Rains make me want to love…

I love rains…

They make me myself….

So when I saw this post my Pixie, I couldn’t help but whisking it away 😉

The earliest of my rain memory is not really a memory but a collection of the rain times when we were really small in school and if u were in Delhi than you would know that when it used to rain it use to rain like crazy… sometimes days all together… and we used to wait for that because that would mean no school and endless time making boats and letting them float in the endless water streams that would have come up in ever y corner…. because that would be mean the yummiest of pakoras and halwas made by granny… the freshly roasted bhutas but lots of lemon and masala we would eat…. endless getting wet in rain and then catching a cold and later in the night getting a scolding from mom along with the yummy besan seera served in bed to cure the cold… those were the days

We grew old, school turned into college and with that started our regular travel in DTC buses… gosh anyone in delhi would agree to how horrible they are… but ok I am digressing once again… so on the way from our college was a chat-wallah a very famous chat wallah… the one who sits outside UPSC… yes I see all delihities nodding here 😉 so one afternoon it was raining and some 5 of us decided to get down from a direct bus to eat that chat… and there we stood getting drenched in rain and eating papdi-chat, gol-gappas and what not and then we decided to walk upto India Gate all the while getting wet in the rain…What fun was had and when we finished admiring India Gate and chatting we were so soaked that even auto wallah’s refused to take us home 😉

Then when I went ahead to do my PG from a college in Ghaziabad, we were located outside the city and I used to daily up-down from delhi to Ghaziabad in those ALT buses… and then take those 8-wheeler fatfatatis if anyone knows what I am taking about and just when u were reaching the outskirts of the city was our college with nothing but a small shack selling tea, bread pakoras and samosas to us every hungry souls and like all shacks it had a tin roof… and every time I would rain our gang would bunk class and have tea and bread pakoras endlessly there… the soft splutter of the rain on tin would be visible… with a high tea we would keep on playing some stupid game or the other or just chat away… what fun college days are….

Phew I don’t know whether I should put this one up here, its a memory I have with ex but than just because they have become ex now doesn’t make the memory any less dearer isn’t it? or just because they have become an ex the memory doesn’t get wiped away from the brain… So the ex and me used to work in same office and one day he had brought his bike to work, and we were going back home together and it started raining most unexpectedly… and raining really heavy, we were drenched in like 2-3 minutes and then we took refuge in one road side dhabha and hot cup of steaming chai all the time lost in that butterflies in the stomach feeling… the feeling that only a person in love can understand, we were there in that place for abour 45 minutes till the rain slowed down, we drank some 4 cups of tea and by the time we went to pay the bill… the dhabha owner in very filmi style told us “are bachon sahi hai romance chalo rakho… tum logon ko dhekh ke hamein meri jawani yaad gayee… tumse main paise nahin loonga”… we had to really force him to take money for those cup of teas really…

And after some time I moved to blore and rains became a regular affair but still so dear… I remember me and N had just started going around and I was going to meet some of his friends for the first time and that evening it was raining really heavily just as it does in june-july in bangalore…. N had come to pick me up in his car but it was parked a little far away and I had just one umbrella at home… I still remember the way we walked together under one umbrella…N’s arm around me tightly to give me a hold and make me feel better… lovers under one umbrella is not over-rated trust me on that 😉

Another rainy day which is going to stay with me for a long long time now is the wet sunday we had recently… introducing Ojas to paper boats was so much fun…

Gosh I have so many memories with rain I could go on and on and on… like the one with Iya recently where we had calcutta rolls in a rain, or with a friend P when we had ice cream in rain, or here when we had besan chillas on a lovely evening after rains… so what are your favorite rain memories? and did u notice that every memory of me has the mention of some food in it 😉

PS: u need proof of my love on rains see I did a post on rain songs last time I did NaBloPoMo too… and search rain on my blog to see how many posts come up 😉

Bleeding Hearts – Post 28

Tags

flowers, garden stories, NaBloPoMo, picture

Its that time of the year again when one wall of my house is full of these lovely lovely flowers called bleeding hearts….

Last year when I had posted the pictures of this lovely flower along with other the romantic soul and my favorite girl hass claimed this as the flowers she loved most… So Indyeah this post is for you, full with snaps of the flowers you loved 😀

and this one is my favourite view… from top to bottom…

My latest Love – Post 27

Tags

fifa, hello tune, NaBloPoMo, shakira, waka waka

I dont see football… there I said it, u can throw as many brickbats as u want at me… Its just that I am just not a sports person… I would rather sit at my laptop, go for shopping 😉 , read a book, cook rather than watch a sport…

But there is something about FIFA which I have totally fallen in love with… its Waka Waka… shakira rocks… I play it in loop these days and both me and ojas end up dancing to it… What a song… and what a video it has

I want it as my hello tune NOW…. anyone who has it please send it to me… NOW

The story of Contacts Retrieval – Post 26

Tags

cellphone, contacts, how-to, NaBloPoMo, nokia, perl, script, sony

Yes I managed to finally move my Sony Ericson backup contacts to Nokia 😀 😀 😀

I did it but damn it was so painful…. a long tedious process but I was hell bent on doing it because I knew that however many times I ask I can never fully make that contact list again 😦

As I mentioned in my previous post the problem is that Sony Ericson stores its backup file as .dbk and a Nokia PC Suite wants a .nbu file…

So I went berserk searching the internet to find a converter and couldnt find anything… floated it around twitter asking people about ideas and input, some of them responded saying that .dbk file could be opened with winzip or winrar and there started something positive… I changed the name of the file from x.dbk to x.zip opened it with winzip and when I opened it I saw a .vcf file there inside, I had this huge grin on my face… once we have a .vcf file it should be easy right, read it in outlook and sync up ur phone with outlook… bingo 😀 but that’s not where the tale ends… the thing is Sony stores all its contacts in a single .vcf file wheres both outlook and nokia accept it to be like one contact/.vcf file… so when I open the retrieved .vcf I was able to read only one contact (which was BTW of the lovely lady aaroo :D)

The grin that was there on the face just vanished and I became sad again… Searched the internet again in find of a tool which will help me extract all the contacts from the file and again couldn’t find anything 😦 and that is when a friend came to my rescue… the brilliant techie and a perl expert that he is, he wrote a script to extract all the contacts when by one, then normalise (i.e remove 0, add +91 everywhere etc) them using excel and then remove the duplicates and store them as individual .vcf’s and once that was done as I mentioned before it was all a matter of snyc up and bingo I have all the contacts on my new phone

God Bless u J… really 🙂 may be she should post this tool online and make some money, after all there are many people making the switch that can use this tool 😉

Comfort Food – Post 25

Tags

channa dal, fengureek, Friday Feast, indian, indian main course, main course, methi, NaBloPoMo, palak, pulses, recipe, spinach

Everyone has a comfort food isnt it… The food you crave when u have nothing else to do, when u wee bit down… when may be your mood is not uptight or may be the health is not the best… For N its rasam-rice…. and for me its dal-roti… seriously when nothing works Dal-Roti does…

And hence I love experimenting with dal, mixing various dal’s together, adding some veggies to it… the variations give dal a face lift and make it an all new dish which is yummy and healthy too…

So when after marriage I first eat this dal which is the favorite of my mil too, I fell in love with it… a dal which has all my fav elements – dal, methi and palak… But unfortunately toor dal doesn’t suit me too much these days… gives me terrible gas so I came up with my own version of this dal which now everyone in the house enjoys totally………

Ingredients

• A cup channa dal (use toor dal if u want to)
• 2 bunches of fresh methi (fengureek)
• 3 bunches of fresh palak (spinach)
• 8-10 shallots or baby onions (I love their flavour and the crunch in the mouth they leave, however mil uses normal onions so feel free to use them if u don’t have baby onions)
• 1 large tomato chopped
• 1 tsp urad dal
• 1 tsp channa dal
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp jeera seeds
• 2-3 green chillies
• 2-3 dry red chillies
• 1 medium sized tamarind ball
• 7-8 curry leaves
• 1 tsp sambhar powder (optional)
• 1 tsp corriander powder
• 1/2 tsp garam masala powder
• 1 tsp turmeric

Method

• Wash and chop methi and palak leaves finely.
• Boil together with dal, chopped tomato, slit green chillies, salt and turmeric in a pressure cooker
• Let the steam escape.
• Soak tamarind in warm water
• Heat oil in a pan and add mustard jeera seeds to it
• After they turn brown and start spluttering add the urad dal, channa dal, curry leaves and dry red chillies.
• Fry for 2-3 minutes till the dal browns a little
• Add onions to the same and fry them till golden brown
• Add all dry masalas, fry for another minute
• Add the dal, mash a bit along with the tamarind water.
• Let it simmer for about 5 minutes or so
• Serve hot with rotis or rice

Sluuurp

Happy Hours Forever – Post 24

Happy Hours is a phrase that is very close to my heart…. every person who drinks would know how much saving of money it means 😉 what it was supposed to mean something else too? someone’s blog name… aaah? whose? ok ok that girl who is always looking for happy hours herself 😉 that sweet cute and a bundle of warmth Meira 😀

And today is that girl’s birthday… I really don’t remember when I started reading but whenever I did what really drew me to her blog was it felt like myself flash backed 5 years… newly married, carefree… all that we wanted to do was party ofcourse the part I didn’t relate to was not cooking one 😉 Once I started reading I was hooked and Happy hours became my regular haunting place as expected…. And she surprised me totally when I went to met her last time I went to Delhi… the girl is a bundle of warmth and love, with the yummiest pastries for everyone in hand she was the first to arrive for the meet and was so so so easy to get along with… Meira I hope to meet be able to meet u and chill over Happy Hours more often… u better move to Bangalore NOW and thats an order…

And before I forget this post is to wish her Happy Hours Forever…. Happy Birthday Girl… May you always be smiling and your life full of love.

And what else could a baker offer on this occasion but a cake and what is a birthday without a cake…

So ladies and gentleman join me in singing the birthday song for her as she cuts her cake

And please head over to Pixieland where the party has just started with unlimited drinks of your choice and incase you are wondering how can their be a birthday without gift… dont worry dear friends, Swaram and Iya have that in control… So as of now its time to celebrate …..

May the Happy Hours Last Forever…

W is also for Wordless Wednesday – Post 23

Tags

Abc Wednesday, Abc Wednesday Round 6, NaBloPoMo, wordless wednesday

Crazy Day – Post 22

Tags

blabber, NaBloPoMo, new phone

Its been a crazy day today…. both me and ojas have been down since friday and I caught it on sunday evening too, so things have been rather down in our household.

Ojas missed school yesterday but since he was feeling better today I was in no mood to have another chutti for him since he is just about adjusting, so N dropped us to school and we went there and I had to like sit outside for 2 hours and by the time I came back home I was dead tired….

But I had to buy a phone today…. I have been using this very very basic standby phone since past week or so and it was irritating me beyond measure…  the thing is that once u are used to being connected and using these high tech phones the basic ones bloody irritate u…. So on the way back from school we went and bought a phone… My first choice was sony xperia mini pro but its not yet launched and will probably be launched only next month end so I settled on my second choice… the sleek black Nokia X6 😀

And all you techies and gizmo freaks out there please help me, I have my contacts backup taken via Sony PC Suite and now I want to restore it to Nokia… help how to do it? The sony file is created as .dbk and Nokia Ovi Suite needs a .nbu file… I tried and searched for a converter but couldnt find any… help I dont want to type all the contacts……. 😦 😦

PS: for some reason WP is not allowing me to post pic and I am dangerously close to 12 in the night to I will hit the publish button and post the phone pic tomorrow… if u happen to see the post before that please click on the link to see how nice it looks 😉

May the warmth live long – Post 21

Tags

blogging, friends, love, NaBloPoMo, warmth

I actually had another post almost written for today but as Uma says every NaBloPoMoite has done a post wishing Swaram… so why shouldn’t I?

Happy Birthday to the most bubbly and cheerful girl in blog samaj….

Lots of hugs and wishes swaram

Our blog samaj is amazing with the love that is passed around isn’t it? the way we are all excited about her birthday and celebrating it shows.. and come to think of it… most of us haven’t met her… I have and I can tell u she is even more nicer and charming in person…. 🙂

A little offtrack but today morning I had the same warmth in my heart about the blog world when I woke up reading this post by Avanti I was totally touched… hugs lady… I also remember that day clearly and will always do… who could say we were meeting for the first time… 🙂