Tol Mol Ke Bol

Tags

discrimination, fat, insensitivity, obese, personal, society

Just 5 minutes back I was reading a post by Starry, the post stuck a chord. Now the readers here know I have been battling with weighty issues for a long time now. Due to health problems etc etc I am what they call in common language FAT or even obese…Well now I know it and u can see it too but does it help when u call me that in face? I have posted before on how I was bullied through the school on being fat. Let me tell you what happened with me sometime back actually quite sometime back about a year or so…

Me and N had both decided that we seriously wanted to give yoga a try and inquired around a bit and got to know of this yoga instructor who came to our society to teach some people. People said he is good and called him Guruji… so I took the number and fixed a time for about 6am in the morning for the first class where he will teach just N and me… now I am not a morning person but still got up at 5:30 in the morning, did the routine morning tasks and reported for the class at sharp 5:55 am in the club house.

A middle aged  fit man walked in at around 6 and introduced him as Guruji…We all sat down and he started asking us why we want to do yoga… N went ahead and told him the usual – holistic exercise treatment, stress reliever etc. He turned to me and before I could say anything he said “I can see you are obese, what else is your problem” The statement irked my already irritated self in the morning. But I decided to ignore that statement thinking he just might be wanting to be technically correct and told him about my other health problems and that what I want to achieve from yoga is feel healthy and yes losing weight is one part of it, he gave me a look which was like what losing weight is just a part of it? anyways he started teaching me and what would happen would be as follows

Guruji : Take your hand like up…… …… …. (turns to me) its ok if you can’t do this. U are obese no…

Guruji : Bend down, lift ur leg up…. ….. …. …. (turns to me) its ok u dont do, U are obese no….

and  this became his way of talking, with every time he used the word I was drawn away from any respect one can have for a GURUJI…

The second day of the practice he came up to me and said.

U must detox your body, be on a liquid diet for as long as possible. Atleast 1 week to 10 days. And take Isabgol and clean your system. You must have loose motions. You are obese no…

I was like what??????????? Anyways I still tried to listen to him thinking that he is the guru after all

and than after 2 days a lady came inquiring to him that can he teach her at the same time he is teaching us, though we had paid through our nose for a private class we didnt really have a problem because there is hardly any difference in 2 or 3 and plus the lady was our neighbour but man guruji had some other thoughts and thak before even checking with us he replied…

No I can’t teach you with them, u see if it was only this gentleman it would not have been a problem but here we have her also, as you can see she is obese and I need to deal with her differently. So please I can’t teach you with them.

And I was like WTF????And that was the last day I did any yoga with him… Now in all possibilities I don’t think he meant me any harm or wanted to really insult me. But he was really insensitive about the way he spoke and that hurt me infact hurt a lot and I was put off yoga for a very long time.

I really fail to understand that why a simplest thing like being sensitive to people’s physical or any other problems is so difficult for us

I have a very very close childhood friend who had a birthmark near her eye, the veins in one of her lower eyelid were swollen since birth and hence protruding out. This left a huge scar on her self esteem. As if battling with that was not often she would have to deal with all kind of things from people. I have myself shouted back at people who came up to her and asked her “so you are kani (can’t seen from one eye)” one person even told her to make use of handicapped qouta to get admission somewhere as she can understand aakhn ke wagah se padh nahin paate hoge (due to the eye u might not be able to sudy well)???? and this when she actually had a perfect sight….

I don’t understand why it’s so important for us to judge and slot people. fat or slim? fair or dark?  adopted or not? tall or short? Why can’t we just let people be people? I loved what starry said (and dear I am quoting u here word to word)

I have friends who are overweight or even obese. I will not call them fat. Not because I feel pity for them, nor do I think it’s bad to have excess weight, nor do I have contempt for them. It’s because I know what they are put through for having a body shape that many people look down on, have a problem and judgments about, and how they have numerous traumatic and super-challenging experiences as a result of the discrimination. My friend is my friend, she’s not her weight…to me.

And it’s not just about the weight it’s about everything (read her post which talks about Adoption and many more things). I think we need to learn to be sensitive towards people, chose our words with care and sensitivity and say them with empathy…

In short Tol Mol Ke Bol

Books that I have read

Tags

books, tag

Uma tagged me with this one on FB and I did it there and later I saw Ritu and Prats doing it on the blog and I thought why not… so here it is 🙂

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare

15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk

18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20.  Middlemarch – George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

27. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

28. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

29. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

30. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

31. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

32. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

33. Emma -Jane Austen

34. Persuasion – Jane Austen

35. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis

36. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

37. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres

38. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

39. Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne

40. Animal Farm – George Orwell

41. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

42. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

44. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

45. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

46. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

47. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

48. Lord of the Flies – William Golding

49. Atonement – Ian McEwan

50. Life of Pi – Yann Martel

51. Dune – Frank Herbert

52. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

53. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

54. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth – CURRENTLY READING

55. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

56. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

57. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

59. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

60. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

61. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

62. The Secret History – Donna Tartt

63. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

64. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

65. On The Road – Jack Kerouac

66. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

67. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

68. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

69. Moby Dick – Herman Melville

70. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

71. Dracula – Bram Stoker

72. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

73. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

74. Ulysses – James Joyce

75. The Inferno – Dante

76. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

77. Germinal – Emile Zola

78. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

79. Possession – AS Byatt

80. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

81. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

82. The Color Purple – Alice Walker

83. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

84. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

85. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

86. Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White

87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

89. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

90. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

91. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

92. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

93. Watership Down – Richard Adams

94. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

95. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

96. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

97. Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

And that makes it 48, must do better? but does BBC seriously believe that a average person has read only 6????

Anyone who loves to read please consider yourself tag, leave a note in my comments and would love to read urs

And on a aside Sin-A-Mon is hosting its first ever event… Microwave Savory Snacks, so folsk please to see and participate

Give me Some Sunshine

Tags

blogging, Friday Feast, new venture, sin-a-mon

After the clouds and the rains we saw yesterday its time for some sunshine now… but not here on the new blog 🙂

So ladies and gentlemen, dear blog readers… presenting to u my all new food blog

Sin-A-Mon

I know I know what are u all thinking, this was supposed to be the name of the catering venture I was supposed to start, well which I did start but not in a full-fledged way… I did deliver about 5-6 orders and mostly people were happy with what I delivered.. especially the snacks and the quality of the cakes. I got excellent feedback about the same. But while I was at it last few months I also realised a couple of things…

First and foremost a business like this means being very busy in the weekends which is something that I am not sure I wanna do

Though I did deliver 5-6 orders but the orders were not flowing as I expected them too… and also its not easy to cook up 5 dishes for 25 people all by yourself…

Why am I am telling u all this? because my dear readers u have been extremely supportive of me all through… and I think I should let u know that I have failed… should I call it failed not sure… but I am not too sad… I tried what I wanted to and in the process learnt a lot… baking skills have surely gone up so much and I am might proud of that. Yes what I tried didn’t work as well as I wanted to… could be multiple reasons… may be I wasnt as good as I thought I was, may be I didn’t put in full effort (I think I did) but if u ask me the one thing why I didn’t succeed is one thing – I don’t think I have an entrepreneur in me… Yes I admit it… I find it strange to go about telling people to give me orders.. infact I feel embarresed…

So folks the catering idea is an idea which is more or less dead in my mind… though Sin-a-mon tales is something still close to my heart and hence I decided why not start a food blog with that name, anyways the amount of recipes I want to post these days it surely does deserve a blog in itself…

So presenting to u my food blog… Go subscribe to it, add it to ur reader and continue to show me your love 🙂

And when u have a blog u have to have a fan page too right…

so follow the blog

And like the FB page

Yeh Mausam ka Jadoo hai Mitwa

Tags

chikmagalur, clouds, goa, pictures, rain, thursday photo challenge

The topic for todays Thursday’s Challenge is

WEATHER (Snow, Sun, Cloudy, Rain, Lightening, Rainbow, Tornado,…)

So here are todays pictures clouds and rains to make your day and mine 😀

Early Morning clouds in Chikmagalur - If one wakes up to this view life is bliss

 

Goa Rains which welcomed us, view from the room balcony

 

WW18

Tags

fountain, picture, water, wordless wednesday

LRP – 4

Tags

LRP

Dear Pretending to be very Close Aunt of N,

I know that you think that you are the best and kindest person in this whole world because you counsel two or three poor women about their children but dear aunt that doesn’t really give u an authority to pass a judgement on any and every child

Yes my child goes to a Montessori called XXX and no it wasn’t started FOR mentally challenged kids ONLY and thanks for showing your concern and asking that is everything fine with my child

Next time please be careful I might tell you what is not fine WITH YOU at ur face

Yours obedient daughter in law,

Monika

Edited to Add : people not to misunderstand the post, I have absolutely nothing against special kids infact they hold a special place in my heart I have worked with them for almost 3 years in a school and each class in Ojas’s school has a special kid a fact which I am very proud of but I have a problem with the whole attitude of the lady and the fact that she was so rude without even knowing the facts

By The Water Cooler

Tags

book review, books, by the water cooler, chicklit, indian authors, parul sharma

I was mighty excited when the book arrived and I laid my hand on it 4 days ago… for one Parul is a dear friend and two I had enjoyed her previous book Bringing up Vasu throughly

Though unfortunately the book had to wait two days before I could pick it up, I was in a middle of another very interesting book Keep the Change (but that is another post my dear), so it was yesterday morning I started reading the book and I was up till about 3 in the night finishing the book (Parul if I am groggy today and hit someone while driving u are to be blamed :P)

It’s essentially a book about two friends Tanya and Mini who join a new company together and get a rude shock on their day 1 of work when they come to know that the person who hired them is fired because the CEO is a jerk and calls him all kinds of name… And thus starts the journey of madness… while Mini has to deal with an evil boss along with the evil CEO, get the project completed, Tanya is forgotten about and made to sit near tha cafe where she plans out her dream wedding

The book is funny really funny and there were times when I was laughing out loud, ofcourse the characters seem very exaggerated, in 10 yrs of working I have good bosses and bad bosses but the boss in this novel makes the worst boss I have ever had look like an angel 😛

Loved the wedding planning in the book and how planning her own wedding changes things for a lifetime for Tanya… Loved how Mini took the challenge of two evil bosses and deal with it… There is the one scene in the book where she blasts someone and goes and tells herself post that

Corporate bitches are not born overnight

ROFL how true, actually the book had me itching to go back to the corporate world yes yes even after evil bosses 😀

The only complaint I have with the book is the a little over animated and exaggerated characters but I think thats parul’s style of writing I guess. I had the same complaint with Bringing Up Vasu too..

But on the whole a totally fun read

Last words : a chicklit yes, a chicklit I loved about office politics, love and wedding planning… what is not there to love 🙂 go grab your copy now

Rating 3.5/5

Book By the Water Cooler

Authors Parul Sharma

Price Rs 250/- (available for Rs 203/-  on flipkart, oh no now its available at only 188 )

 

Life in Bullets

Tags

personal, random

Whoever said (and if no one did than I am doing it now 😉 ) that when you have so much to say that you dont know where to begin, try talking in bullet points. So that is what I am going to do now.

• We had a great diwali, first diwali after 5 years away from my own home. The home which me and N had built with so much love but it turned out fine, after all festivals are about friends and family and celebrations and all were the same. BTW does doing a diwali post this late still makes sense?
• I have so many reviews pending but I have been so lazy to write… damn I atleast wanted to write about ripples that I finished reading sometime back and enjoyed it too… must write must write, currently I am reading “Keep the change” and “Papplion”. What are u reading these days?
• I have been maid less for the last 15 days now, so I am the home bai currently… cooking food, washing utensils, washing clothes, putting them to dry, folding them… sigh the work list is endless and here I am not even attempting to try to talk about Ojas or my work… Someone please please please please send me a maid. I will bake a cake for u pukka… the brownie cheesecake?
• The knee has been playing up again.. I think its all the exertion and the load have been taking but yaar tell me how can u ignore everything and sit perched up on the bed with a laptop? haan?
• I finally started yoga… 2 classes done, so far so good.. I hope it does some good to me, both health wise and weight wise
• I desperately want to go see Abha’s little girl and I was all set to go on Saturday, had even made N ready to play the chauffeur but damn unannounced guests, Why can’t people have the basic courtesy to call before coming.. sigh
• I realised today that I havent done the Goa post nor the chickmangalur post, does it still make sense to do it? sigh… why I am being so lazy these days?
• Pamela Anderson is coming to Big Boss, may be I should start watching it now. This time I amazed myself for not watching a single episode till now but then thats because I can’t miss Masterchef Australia for anything. MasterChef India is a totally different matter though. What was Akshay Kumar thinking when he signed that show??? A short stint in the food industry years ago makes him capable for being a masterchef host?
• I went and saw Endhiran with N and some friends yesterday. God I found it a 3 rd degree 3 hour torture but then atleast N can’t tell me that I haven’t watched a single tamil movie with him in 7.5 yrs 😉
• 8 yrs (almost) sigh yes I almost know him since soooo long… this reminds me that its our 6th wedding anniversary on Wednesday 17th and there is nothing planned till now, how sad is that??? Tell me if you guys know of any place around Bangalore where we can go for a day trip/drive?

Ok I think thats all in bullets as of now… u tell me hows ur life in bullets these days?

Brownie Cheesecake Marble

Tags

baked, baking, brownie, cake, cheese, cheese cake, chocolate, dessert, Friday Feast, marble cake, recipe

I love marble cakes…. There is something about the pattern which takes my heart away… And hence when I saw this at nupur’s blog it was an instant love. and what is not there to love… there is a bake cheese cake, there is a brownie and they are marbled together… totak win situatio. So I had bookmarked this dish and waiting for something to happen so that I can bake it and than came Diwali when I decided to make the giveaway basket myself… It was one of the most treasured items of the basket for me… the texture brilliant and the brownie and the cheesecake perfectly complimenting each other. We loved this one and I am sure will make it again

What I used

For the cheesecake

• 170gms cream cheese – I actually used hung curd, hang curd in a musling cloth or put it in a sieve overnight so that all the whey can go away. Remember to keep this whole thing in fridge else the curd will turn sour
• 1 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 1 tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

For the brownie

• 7 tbsp. melted butter
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

How I made it

• In a bowl mix together all the cream cheese ingredients till blended
• In a another bowl beat all the brownie ingredients well.
• And now starts the layering… In a greased and dusted baking pan pour most of the brownie mixture, I poured about 2/3rds of the whole
• Pour the cream cheese portion on top of it
• Now pour some dollops of the brownie mixture on top of cream cheese and swril a knife or toothpick to get a nice pattern
• Bake in a preheated oven at 175C for about 30 mins till done

Serve hot and wait for it to get over in a jiffy… its abs yummmm

Mandy I know this leave with depressed but darling much love passed your away, I hoping that this will motivate you to buy a oven and we can see Baking Buddies back in action

and this is off to a event hosted at Nupur’s blog… off to Blog Bites : The Holiday Buffet

Lets do a happy Dance

Tags

announcment, baby girl, doula, happy

This is the post I have been waiting to write since so many days now. The excitement was so high when the baby shower was done, that I went to attend it inspite of my knee… As Abha says it was the day of much laughter and a few tears

And than started the countdown, the date was fixed as 12-11-10 as the father, the man with such a warm heart M has a thing for such dates… and as the date was nearing my excitement was building 10 fold. I think I was more excited than both of them and two days back N asked me that who is delivering, gosh u werent so excited when Ojas was born… ofcourse I was nervous that time 😉

Anyways the time has come to announce the arrival of my doula baby… and its a girl… a  girl we have all been waiting for…3.2 Kg and healthy… Abha is doing well too…

So please join us to bless the little soul that has just entered the world… bless the happy family, may they always be smiles…

Waitinf for the pic of the little angel to complete the above pic…