Saturday, November 14, 2009

Craving for good food!

Random musings:

-Lately, I have been craving for good indian food and maggi. Somehow, this term I have not been cooking as much as I did in the other terms. I wonder why. Maybe because I don't feel like spending so much time in the kitchen just cooking for myself. Or sometimes I feel its such a waste of time. Anyway, so yeah I am craving for good food.

-I am looking forward to meeting P next month...a much-awaited and much-needed reunion after 3 years! I am so excited and I am sure P feels the same way too.

-Oh by the way, I am almost done with my Masters. Precisely, I will be done with my exams on December 7th. Yay! Last 2 assignments and last 2 exams. I don't think I want to go back to school ever again. Or atleast, so far, no such plans!

Anyways, I better get back to work now. It's a nice rainy day and all I want to do is curl up in my bed with a book, and a bowl of popcorn, or maybe watch a movie...sigh...I am back to dreaming about food. Somebody please send me some maggi!!!

Monday, November 9, 2009

A Simple Life

Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing - Jerome K. Jerome

The above quote precisely states what I want in my life right now. Except that I am not too keen on getting a cat or a pipe. A drink - Orange juice will do :)

Friday, September 25, 2009

I am back!

I am done with 390...yay! High five!!

So those of you who don't know what 390 is, it is the course code for the M.E.M project. Basically you need to do a project at a company and then present it later at school in front of a review board. And as soon as you land here for this program, you start looking for a 390 project. This year, getting an internship turned out to be a bit more tough than last year, thanks to the economic downturn! But all's well that ends well - all of us did end up getting one.

So once you find the internship, you have to obviously work at the company and finish your project. Typically, everybody does this over the summer term. And then we present it to the review board at school in the Fall term. So this whole cycle takes almost a year and now you know why I am so glad to be done with it. Everybody say yay! :)

Anyhoo, after my presentation, I finally made my first trip to the grocery store this term and got lots of veggies and fruits. All healthy food, but ended up burning a hole in my pocket too...*guilty face*

After that I ate, I cooked ... and that's pretty much it! Hopefully, I will continue to regularly update my blog. I will try my best, but I don't promise!

Please visit the blog regularly for more updates.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Breaking the blogging fast on a happy note!

Hello guys!

Sorry about the brief (actually not so brief) pause! I am sure many of you would have decided that I am dead by now. Maybe I was, but anyhoo I have sprung back to life now - with renewed enthusiasm! And the reason behind this uber enthusiastic spirit you ask? It’s simple! I am going home in two days. TWO DAYS! yaaaayyy! :D
I have been doing a happy dance in the shower for a week now, smiling everywhere I go and generally sharing my happiness with everybody around! Ten weeks of loneliness has finally come to an end...
Every experience teaches you something and the last ten weeks has made me appreciate my family and friends all the more. Sniff sniff! I am getting very emotional now.
Anyhoo, here's a quick update of what’s been happening at my end:

* Roommate visited me one of the weekends. Had an awesome time with her. Went to Statue of Liberty and Empire State building, Central Park, Wall Street, Times Square. And this time I did go into Tiffany's! Clicked 216 pictures in 17 hours. So that translates to approximately 12 pictures/hour! :D Those interested in seeing the pictures, let me know - I will send you the link.
** The next weekend was spent entirely on shopping. Bought tons of stuff for myself. Wheee!
*** Wrapped up my internship projects. High five!
So those have been the highlights of the last few weeks. You didn't miss much, did you?

Alrighty guys, I am signing off now - next post will be from Kolkata! Woohoo!!

Sunday, August 9, 2009

The one in which I blog for the sake of blogging

Have blog. Will post.

P.S This was posted on popular demand only!

Monday, July 27, 2009

M's day out in the city

Finally! So finally I did some touristy stuff after being in NYC for 7 weeks. I could have done it earlier, but I thought it would be best to wait for my camera to arrive so that I could click pictures. Yes dear readers, yours truly is finally the proud owner of her very own digital camera! And this is after months of browsing for deals and talking to a zillion people for advice. Click here for the specs.

Anyhoo, so I took the downtown train straight to Wall Street. Now we imagine things to be in a certain way before we see them, or we imagine people to be of a certain kind before we actually meet them. I often form a mental perception of things. So I had imagined Wall Street to be a crowded, busy place where I would find investment bankers dressed in Armani suits strutting around. Instead what I saw was a narrow street swarming with tourists. Obviously because I went on a Saturday! So I found myself in the middle of Wall Street, with the Trump building and Tiffany’s on either side.





And with the Trump building on my right and Tiffany’s on my left, I caught a glimpse of Trinity Church:



I walked towards it and at the intersection of Wall Street and Broad Street I saw a huge United States flag looming in front of me. And that my friends is NYSE:



And at the intersection, on the left was the JP Morgan building:





And on the right was the Federal hall with a statue of George Washington in front:



I walked further down Wall Street towards Trinity Church on Broadway and I found myself on the other side of NYSE:



I went across Broadway and inside the Church. At the entrance of Trinity Church:



Here are a few pictures that I clicked inside the church:







And this was the cemetery on the side of the Church:



Here's how Wall Street looks from the entrance of the Church:



Doesn't it look really narrow? Sort of reminds me of Burra bazaar in Kolkata. Ok don't laugh. I couldn't help but notice the similarity! After all, both are business districts! :D

And then I marched towards the charging bull - the moment that I had waited for ever since I set my foot on NYC soil was finally here:



I walked towards the WTC site on the other side of Broadway and I saw this cube outside Brown brothers Harriman:



So I had to do this :D



After demonstrating my strength at the cube, I proceeded to the WTC site. I cannot even begin to imagine the kind of panic that would have set in on 9/11 when the two towers came crashing down in the financial hub. Construction of the new towers is in progress:



For a $5.00 student pass, I browsed through the gallery started as an initiative by WTC survivors and families.



Inside the WTC memorial gallery - two guns, both 357 Magnum revolvers, encrusted in melted concrete, were recovered from Federal evidence lockers at the World Trade Center



Photos and puppet salvaged from the home of a Battery Park City resident



An actual elevator sign board from one of the WTC towers



Names of people who died in the 9/11 attacks



Pictures of people who died in 9/11 attacks



This quilt was prepared by young children and became a means of emotional recovery for them and the firemen who received it post 9/11. It expresses their appreciation of things that are important to them in their daily lives. Pretty moving huh?

Oh I also saw the American Stock Exchange:



and World Financial Center:



Waterfront at Battery Park:





The sphere behind me used to be in the plaza between the WTC towers. It's deformed now.



Eternal flame that was lit on September 11, 2002



Then I proceeded to take the Staten Island ferry. It takes you from Manhattan to Staten Island and back for free! On the way I saw this:



That's a real man! He had painted himself. And was standing in that pose for hours. At least I saw him twice in 2 hours and he was in the same pose. And that's how he earns his daily bread. And we think we have a tough job!



Finally saw the Statue of Liberty, albeit at a distance! Here's a view of Manhattan from the ferry:



And one of Brooklyn bridge (Again, it reminds me of Kolkata's second Howrah Bridge!)



and when I got off the ferry, this man was still there in the same pose!



And thus came an end to M's day out in NYC. Oh I forgot to mention that I snacked on a burrito bowl at Chipotle. So at the end of the day, even though my feet ached for a massage, I was one happy soul! :)

Friday, July 24, 2009

The one in which I scold my readers

If you are one of the diligent readers of this blog who almost always leaves a comment, then you can safely ignore this post. Others read on…

I have observed something. The blog audience only likes funny posts. They do not enjoy anything that is remotely serious such as my post on divorce or even regular posts. So you are asking how I discovered this profound secret? And you think it’s from the number of comments on my posts? No way. It is obvious that most of you people who visit this blog do not bother to leave a comment despite all the subtle hints that I have dropped in my earlier posts. I wonder why. If you are taking the time out to read my posts in such detail, you might as well leave a comment to make me happy. You thought I would never know right? But I do. Thanks to my good old stat counter. The picture below shows my blog stats for the last week.



As you can clearly see I had 40 unique visitors on the day I published my post on IPR’s cats. On other days, number of visitors has ranged from 1 to 10. The only thing that was different about this post was that it scored highly on your humor scale. But when I had started writing it, I had no inclination to make it sound funny. In fact, when I set out to write something, I usually have no idea whether I am going to make it funny or ordinary or serious. I just go with the flow. And these blog stats will in no way affect my decision. If I choose to write about something serious today, then that’s what you will see and if I choose to put on my thinking cap, then you will have to put up with that as well, and on days when my humor quotient is running high, you will find posts such as the one on cats. It’s similar to how we, as kids, ate whatever our mommy put on our plates. At least I did! So dear readers, be good children and read whatever I post, okay? okay. And as stated in my very first post, this blog is going to be a mixed bag of my emotions. If humor is your only cup of tea, then you are welcome to not read my blog. Also, if you want to continue being rude and not leave comments on posts and be a silent stalker of my blog, then so be it. I have nothing to teach you, you ill-mannered readers! Hmph.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Divorce

On my way to work, I see a particular hoarding every day. I haven't been able to click a picture because I pass by it when I am on the bus and my awesome phone isn't sophisticated and advanced enough to be able to click pictures at such far distances. So I googled for a similar picture and here it is:



I find it mildly amusing as well as a bit appalling. Amusing because – just imagine one fine day you find out that you are no longer married because your spouse filed for a divorce and you had no inkling about it! Appalling because it makes me ponder – should divorce really be that easy that you don’t even need your spouse’s signature, let alone a court appearance? In some cases, yes! I strongly feel that one must be able to break free from an abusive marriage, legally and otherwise, without any hassles. There is no point in being stuck in one. It’s not worth another day of your life. So I leave out this category. But I am talking more about everyday divorces where normal couples break up just because they don’t get along with each other anymore, they don’t understand each other anymore or just because they are bored of the monotone that their marriage has become. I really wonder how minor tiffs and peeves such as ‘He always leaves a wet towel on the bed’ or ‘She always has the last word when it comes to TV’ can lead up to a divorce. Don’t these couples remember their wedding vows of being together till death do them apart? And I find it even harder to believe when love marriages end in a divorce because of such reasons. Here they don’t even have the excuse that their families had set them up against their wishes. They, as mature (I hope) adults (I really hope!) had chosen to come together. Nobody had forced them to. In fact, they were madly in love. Those were days when everything seemed right as long as they were together. Nothing else mattered. How can the memory of those days be wiped out by wet towels and TV remotes? At least for the sake of these memories, couples should make an honest effort to sort out differences and make it work. If despite that, things don’t seem to work out, please go ahead and go separate ways. But allow yourselves some time to figure things out instead of letting these small, every day issues overcome your life and make your decisions. Otherwise there’s always divorce for $399!

P.S Even divorce is expensive. That should give couples enough reason during recession to stay together.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

I heart google!

I am sure we all have our 'I love google' moments. I had mine today...again! So lets back up a little bit and let me give you a quick brief about what happened last Sunday. I had put some rice to cook in IPR's pressure cooker. You know the prestige/hawkins kind? These pressure cookers are a blessing. Everything cooks so quickly in them! So on that day I had put the usual quantity of water in the rice and expected that it will cook within the usual twenty minutes. But within ten minutes I smelt something burning. And you can imagine a hungry woman's dismay and frustration when she sees her dinner stuck to the bottom of the cooker. The rice had turned as black as one of IPR's cats and It was an ugly sight. So I scraped out the rice or what was remaining of it and let the cooker soak for a bit. Then I began the difficult task of scrubbing and cleaning. And I kid you not, but the cooker was charred and there were even outlines of rice grains on it. And I kid you not again when I say that I scrubbed it for half an hour straight. But nope, the charred cooker was stubborn. By then, I was getting really worried. So what will I tell IPR?! After all, pressure cooker is a prized possession of almost every Indian in US. Pressure cookers are insanely expensive to buy in this country so every Indian will guard their pressure cooker as they would any treasured possession. So then I did what I usually do when I don't know what to do. I googled how to clean burnt pots and pans! I found a remedy recommended by quite a few people. Here it is:

"Fill the burnt vessel with an inch of water, add 1 tbsp of dishwashing liquid, 2 tbsps of baking soda and 2 tbsps of vinegar. Bring to boil on the stove. Then set it aside for an hour or so. Then use a steel scrub to scrub it."

I wasn't too confident but it's not like I had other options. So it was worth a try. I felt like I was back in my chemistry lab, mixing up all sorts of chemicals. I used to really enjoy doing that. I distinctly remember the distinctive smell of the chemistry lab in school, my teacher explaining the experiment of the day, the rotten egg smell of Hydrogen Sulphide, pH test, titration experiments, yadda yadda! I remember my excitement when I was assigned my 12th grade chemistry project. It was analysis of soft drinks and I thought it was the coolest of the lot because I got to buy all varieties of soft drinks from the canteen and do all sorts of experiments with them. Its a different issue that I don't remember any of it now.

Anyway, so back to the problem at hand. I didn't have any of the ingredients for this home experiment so I went out and bought all of it, including the dish washing liquid and the steel scrub. I came home and proceeded to do exactly as mentioned above. And voila! it worked! Ok, I had to repeat the procedure three times. So you can imagine how stubborn the problem was. But it worked like a charm. And I know you guys won't believe me if I don't give you a proof. So here's a picture after the third round of experimentation.



I wish I had taken a before-the-experiment picture so that you could have appreciated this better. But I didn't! Sigh...

Anyway, so now I have a remedy to pass on to my kids and grandkids and so do you. You're welcome! For now, I will sign off in 'Powerpuff girls' style...so once again the day was saved by Google! Anybody remember powerpuff girls? Blossom? Bubbles? Buttercup? Anyone?

P.S It is essential to use the steel scrub. The other scrubs didn't do the trick.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Spot the difference!

As a kid, I would wait eagerly for the newspaper man on Sundays so that I could grab the Sunday magazine before anyone else did. Of course, my sister found that habit extremely annoying. I still do this when I am home. And my sister still finds it very annoying! Anyway, the Sunday magazine featured a couple of pages of cartoons, word puzzles and along with that a puzzle that I loved - 'Spot the difference'. For the uninitiated, this basically required you to spot six differences between two images that were seemingly identical. It was always easy to find three or four of these and sometimes five, but I would almost always struggle with the last one. My mom also loved it and after we were both done, we would compare to see if we got all of them right. As years have gone by, we have graduated from 'Spot the difference' to 'Sudoku'. But last week I was reminded of it again.



This picture was clicked on my way back from work last week. You might need to maximize it so that you can have a closer look. Now compare it with the one below:



Now go ahead and spot the difference! :)

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

My feline flatmates

As promised, here's the story about the cats.
So, it was just another usual morning. I sprung out of bed, smiling and excited about yet another day at work (Really!) and hopped and skipped to the bathroom. Only to be greeted by one of IPR's cats. This one’s called Zoey. I finally found out the names of the four cats: Lily, Midnight, Grace and Zoey. The names are pretty easy to remember if you’ve seen the cats.

Lily – she’s white. She is the biggest of the four, but for her size she is meek you know. If you are as much as 10 steps near her, she will run for her life. She sleeps near the fridge and looks up every time I open it.

Midnight – Haven’t seen her around much because she is locked up in IPR’s room most of the time. She is the new one and the other cats fight with her. So she will be kept in the room until the others are accustomed to her. And as the name suggests, she is as black as midnight. But I caught a glimpse of her yesterday and I kid you not, she looks big and a little oddly shaped.

Grace – She is another black cat. Build: Slender. And hence the name. She is quite active. I guess that’s the secret to her well-kept, well-groomed figure. Once in a while she stops outside my room when she finds the door ajar for a few seconds. I keep my door closed at all times because I really don’t want these creatures in my room.

Zoey – Last but not the least, this one deserves a special mention. Now if you pay attention to detail, then you would have noticed that I haven’t attached a gender to this one. It’s still a mystery to me. I think it’s a she. But it could be a he too. Whatever. We will refer to ‘it’ as ‘it’. Okay?

So yeah, the story revolves around Zoey. It’s a pretty big black cat. And the kind that gives you a cold stare every now and then, sending shivers down your body. It sort of would remind one of he who must not be named (Yay! The new HP movie is here. Can’t wait to see it!). So on that fine morning, Zoey decided to curl up on the window sil of the only window of the only bathroom in my apartment. And it gave me one of its cold stares as I entered the bathroom…the kind which sizes you up and says ‘Remember this is my space’. I tried to shoo it away. But it didn’t budge. I tried different things (including politely pointing to the door, and I kid you not, I bet it understood and still ignored my gesture and proceeded to make itself more comfortable). So I thought ‘Ok. Let it have its moment of glory’ while I switched activities in my morning routine and proceeded to make my morning cuppa tea. Once done with that, I went back to the bathroom feeling confident that Zoey would have respected the extra allowance of window time and proceeded to its next perch. But no, our friend Zoey was still happily gazing outside the window (longing for the birds flying by I guess). Now folks, you know how mornings are. You have just about enough time for a quick shower and then you run to the bus stop. So I could not give it any more time. I decided to be brave and ignore the fact that a cat was in the bathroom. So I stepped into the bath tub and turned the shower on. And at the very moment when the first drop of water touched the bottom of the bath tub, Zoey’s feet touched the bath tub sil (For lack of a better word, I am using this to refer to the side of the bathtub. If anybody knows what it should be called, please let me know so that I can edit it.) So from the other side of the shower curtain, I could see Zoey’s silhouette perched on the bathtub sil. I poked Zoey from the other side of the curtain, gingerly, with just one finger. And it jumped onto the bathroom floor. Then, thanks to my quick thinking (I know you want to pat my back right now!), I quickly opened the bathroom door and out ran Zoey! So, our mighty looking Zoey is actually scared of the water. But I wonder why it didn’t run when I flushed after you know what. Maybe when I turned on the shower, horror memories flashed in front of Zoey’s eyes – of IPR giving it a good scrub. That explains it.
And by now I know you must be dying to see a picture of the hero/heroine of our today’s story. So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the star of the evening:


Zoey on its other favorite perch: Kitchen window sil

That’s another thing about Zoey that irritates me. Every now and then, Zoey's paw will rest on the cutting board. Now why would it want to rest its paw (which I am sure is awesomely manicured. Cmon, even if it’s a he, can’t a man, err feline male, enjoy a manicure these days?! 21st century. Metrosexual men. Remember?) on the cutting board which us humans use to cut our daily bread?! And IPR is no less. She will keep the cutting board right there. As if it’s Zoey’s birth right to keep its paw there, like it’s not a cutting board. It’s a paw resting board. And IPR will use the same scotch brite for her dishes and the cats’ dishes. Ewww! Who in their right mind would love cats so much and who in their seriously right mind would want four of them creatures in their house?! Our friend P.J. O'Rourke has explained it very succinctly:

“It's easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet. People like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponsible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it.”

I have no idea who P.J. O'Rourke is. But I agree with him. And no, bathing with a cat is not on my list of ’50 things to do before I turn 30’. But I am adding it now. ‘Cos how many of you can boast of having done that? ;)

And just so that I don't offend the other feline inmates of this apartment, here's :


Lily reclining on the cane basket oppposite the fridge


Grace on one of her periodic stops outside my room

The paparazzi has not yet succeeded in clicking a picture of Midnight because as I said she is kept under tight surveillance or shall I say 24 hours security. But they are working on it. So please keep checking this page regularly for updates!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

A quick update

Hello everybody! Sorry about the brief blogging pause. Don't you worry, this time I am determined to keep my blog alive. So here's a quick update on the last few days:

1. I did not get to see the July 4th fireworks.
2. I finally decided to put to use the TV in my room. Only to find that something's wrong with my cable connection. So until and unless IPR fixes it, I will have to postpone TV watching until I am in India.
3. A lot of time has been spent on online window shopping - browsing through store websites and making mental notes of gifts to pick up for family and friends.
4. I am officially addicted to "How I met your mother". So far I had watched the episodes only once. Now I am re-watching and re-re-watching them. I wonder why I still laugh at the same jokes again and again. But I love 'em and they make me laugh. So that's all that matters. Doesn't it?
5. I have been going off to bed at odd times without really having the intention to fall asleep. And then I talk nonsense in my sleep when S calls. I bet he finds my sleep talk extremely cute. (Official blog announcement: S shall henceforth be called 'The Boy' on this blog)
6. IPR taught me how to make sambhar. So far I had never managed to make it just right. You know what I mean. IPR says tadka/tempering is essential as it adds the flavor.
7. Funny incident happened with one of IPR's cats. A separate blogpost shall be dedicated to the cats soon.
8. Roommate visited NYC and I happily played guide to the only touristy place I have been to in NYC - Times Square. Yes dear readers, I went there again! I still can't seem to figure out why people are in awe of this place. It's just a bunch of fancy hoardings and hordes of people (most of them looking upwards, gaping and clicking random pictures. Ofcourse, I did the same minus the gaping). See pictures below.







Have you noticed that everybody who visits Times Square always takes a picture in front of the Yahoo and Nasdaq hoardings and of course The Hard Rock Cafe?

9. Mental note was made that one must act all touristy in one of the next couple of weekends and take the tourist bus (you know one of those double decker ones where you can sit on the top) and marvel at the city's sights and smells.
10. Solemn resolution was also made to stop refreshing orkut/FB/gmail tabs every 2.67 minutes. Ummm...ok gmail is allowed.

P.S Those of you who know me from my workplace in Kolkata will know why one of the pictures was clicked. Any guesses? :)