Akash...

The rain god delivered the most beautiful gift to my family exactly a year back and life has never been the same ever since ! Our conversations start and end with Akash. He lives upto his name, where literally, sky is the limit and life is full of endless possibilities.This is for you little imp...

(Modified from the Sound of Music :D)

How do you solve a problem like Akash?

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

How do you find a word that means Akash?

A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!



Many a thing you know you'd like to tell him

Many a thing he ought to understand

But how do you make him stay

And listen to all you say

How do you keep a wave upon the sand



Oh, how do you solve a problem like Akash?

How do you hold a moonbeam, a piece of the sky in your hand?



 

From Appa-Amma to Appu and Aishu

This is a poem written by dearest sis R for Patti. I take the liberty of publishing it here for two amazingly strong girls.

Is the left shoulder that she sits on?

Whispering words of courage into my ear.

"How can I ever be gone,

When you are right here?

I am your guardian angel,

More now than you ever knew.

I am still praying and fighting

To make all your dreams come true.

You are my best child

No one can better be

I am immortal because of you

Because you love me, dont you see?

I can never be gone,

For you are but a reflection of me

I am always around,

By living you sustain me.

Dont despair my lovely child

Take in the light, the wind and the sea.

I am you and everything around you,

I could not closer to you be.

With all our love today and always,

Affectionately Amma-Appa

Tu Kahan Chupa hai hame ye bata!

I never imagined the worst nightmares could come true.Never thought that hope could vanish in a second. There is one thing that I blindly held on to, Faith. Seems like it does not exist. Or it has chosen to ignore us. I am losing my ability to pray because I fear that there is no one listening.

Noor e khuda
Aaj kal tu kahan hai ye bataa
Kya ye sach hai ke tu hai humse khafa

Mowgli

I have just heard of the experience from my Mom. She says it was the happiest feeling . I have heard endless stories of her priceless moments with her first bundle of joy . How she took her in her arms when she was a day old, how she invented games for her , how everyone in the family has that one special pic with her in the 1980 Tshirt , how she is still the first child for each one in the family and the rest of us a distant second ! Today as I stand at the threshold of the same event , I can barely contain my excitement and love.

Welcome to the Ramachandran Family little Mowgli and I'm sure you are going to snatch away the most loved child title from your Mom!!

Low Calorie Cooking - Recipe 1- Soya Granules Aloo tikki

Now the common misconception is potato is fattening and soya is healthy. This is just partly right. Boiled Potato has zero fat while Soya has quite a bit of fat. Infact my trainer made me have a boiled potato every morning in my good old days of gymming.Soya has protein and Potato has only carbohydrates. So I thought of making a perfect meal of protein,fat and carbs . So here goes the recipe

Ingredients:

1) Soya Granules(Ruchi) : 1 cup

2) Boiled Potato(with salt) :2

3) Ginger Garlic paste : 1 tsp

4) Cumin(Jeera) Powder : 1 tsp

5) Chaat Masala : 1 tsp

6) Green Chillies: 1 finely chopped

7) Lemon Juice : 2 tsp

8) Salt,Pepper and Sugar : as per taste

9) Cream (Optional) : 1 Teaspoon

10) Bread : 2 Slices

11) Bread Crumbs/ Rava(Semolina)

12) Boiled Green peas/cabbage/carrot (with salt)

13) Oil : 1/2 tsp

Method

1) Boil 4 cups of water and bring to boil. Add salt to the water so as to just about flavour the granules.This should be approximately 1 teaspoon.Put in Soya granules into the boiling water and cook for 5min. Remove from fire drain excess water and wash with cold water. Squeeze out all excess water and keep aside

2) In a wide bowl mash together the boiled potatoes,boiled peasand/or carrot and/or cabbage, soya granules,ginger garlic paste,cumin powder,chaat powder,chillies,lemon juice,salt,sugar,pepper and cream.

3) Soak the bread slices in water , squeeze out water and mash them along with the soya-potato mixture. This binds the mixture.Check all seasoning again at this stage and add as desired.

4) Make palm size tikkis/flat cylinders and roll them over the rava/breadcrumbs. You can make bread crumbs by toasting bread pieces and grinding them in a mixer.

5)Now since this is a low calorie dish, get a non stick pan on the stove and add 1/2 tsp oil to it. Take a half cut onion and use the flat end to spread the oil evenly on the pan. Now cook the tikki in this pan on a low flame with a cover. Flip till both sides have browned well.

6) Serve hot with green chutney

PS : Please ignore the shape of my tikkis :)

Shaadi Chronicles - 2

On the Gtalk window at 11 am when both of us are usually busy cribbing about long meetings

R : Love You

Me:???

R : Sorry Wrong Window

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As I land on a Friday night on the much awaited weekly flyback to meet R after a week

Me: Hi Sweetie, Missed you and am so glad to be back!

R: You know Ismail got eliminated,Thank God Tanaaz and Bakhtiyaar are saved !!!

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After shopping for loads of low calorie stuff

R : You know right both of us are like super fat now

Me: Yeah.. I am going back to my low carb diet, no sweets , no fried stuff and am doing the Jillian Michael 30 day fat shred

10 min later

R : Can I taste the Belgian chocolate flavour ?

Me : I think I'll have the blueberry cheesecake flavor

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Outcast(e)

Navratri has a special place in my heart . Being the women lib types, nine days dedicated to the female form has to be one of my favourites . Married into an Assamese family this festival now has greater importance and this Navratri was spent with the in-laws.I thoroughly enjoyed the pampering,was thrilled at the gifts waiting for me and loved getting decked up to attend the durga pujo mandals!

Coming back to the title of the blog; On the 9th day Tamilians celebrate Saraswati Puja. This day has people getting all their academic books out ,praying to the goddess to give them 'buddhi' and calling the neighbours home for 'vetla pak'.

So FIL and MIL were called by a Tamilian family in the building for vetla pak . They innocently informed the neighbour that they too had a Tamil speaking member in the family , Neighbour gets excited and forces Husband and me out of our evening beauty sleep to come home and take vetla pak.

As I enter their house, the neighbour-wife pounces on me and starts a continuous chatter in Tamil. I try escaping with the excuse of washing my hands.She follows me quickly to the wash basin and asks me in hushed whispers:

Neighbor Wife(inquisitive look): " Iyer or Iyengar?

Me ( wondering how that matters) : " Ehh .. Iyer"

Neighbor Wife ( concerned look) : How do you manage with the food? Who cooks at home? Must be difficult na with non veg and all? Whenever you are here visit our place, you can have the food you really like.

Me ( Smile Feebly) : Thanks

I shouldn't have just smiled . I wanted to tell her that I love the food at the in-laws place. First, cos MIL is a great cook and she makes everything with great love . Second I really like Bong/Assamese food specially the non vegetarian fare. I do not miss the Tam food cos I never liked it much.

And most importantly however innocent her question might have been, how does it matter if I an Iyer or Iyengar and is that the question you want to ask someone who has come to your home for the first time! What if I wasn't from either of the sub castes? I sometimes marvel at the fact that 60 years post independence such definitions that have lead to continuous division of our society, still matter.