Bangalore life/blogathon/mommy

Mac and eggs – Indian style

Posted on by Archana K B / 5 Comments
Most kids love mac and cheese. N is no different. She loves macaroni. I had started it so that she can survive hotel food, whenever we travel and stay in resorts. From the time she learned of “Yanke Doodle” rhyme song, and found the word “macaroni” in it, her demand for macaroni has increased exponentially. I too love Italian food like pizza and pasta but not on all days! Its like you dine at Barbeque Nation. Before visiting the restaurant, you feel you haven’t been there in ages, and you start yearning for the fried starters. But once you come out of the restaurant, you feel so full that you pledge that you would never visit this restaurant again. Its the same with me for pasta. Though I order it first, the creaminess of the sauce makes me feel so full and awful till the rim of the neck and I end up passing rest of the meal towards my faithful, loyal and loving husband to finish off the rest.

So after being pampered by the grandparents who had come to Bangalore for our Rajasthan trip, N wanted macaroni to waive off her ‘loneliness’. I did not feel like having the cream sauce and was wondering what twist to bring into it, when I saw the recipe in the MTR macaroni back cover. It asked for red chilli powder and garam masala, but N did not liked spicy food. So the below is my twisted recipe I did at the end.


Ingredients:
200ml(1 glass) pasta boiled and drained as per the instructions on the packet
1 small onion
1 small tomato
1 small carrot
2 eggs
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 Amul cheese slice.
For adults, I would have added generous amount of pepper, red chilli flakes and oregano instead of the cheese slice. N love eggs, so I added two to give it more flavour.


Steps:
1. Boil and drain 200ml (1 glass) of pasta as per the instructions on the packet. I do add salt and a bit of olive oil while boiling pasta.
2. Heat olive oil in a pan, and add chopped onions to it .
3. After 1-2 mins, add the chopped tomato and grated carrot and saute till it cooks.
4. Add some ginger garlic paste, sprinkle some salt on it and give it a toss.
5. Crack two eggs into the pan and stir occasionally till scrambled eggs are formed.
6. Add the drained pasta into the pan. Toss and serve with grated cheese on top.
Do try the same or go “Fearless” and experiment with ingredients to give it your own twist.
blogathon/Stories

The tea break..

Posted on by Archana K B / 0 Comment

She woke up her obedient daughter. It was getting late to school. The school van would be arriving within an hour. She went back to kitchen to complete preparing the breakfast. Time ticked on. She was so engrossed in her morning household work, that she was startled when the little one came behind her asking for her dose of milk and cornflakes. The warmth of motherhood flowed into the household environment, till the school van honked to announce its arrival to pick the daughter up. As she waved her good bye smilingly, the light from the aura of excitement and love, went down slowly. She walked back to the kitchen, had her breakfast and prepared herself a cup of tea. She sipped it slowly, standing in the balcony of her apartment, as she does daily. This was the special short break time, before she immersed herself back to the chores…Far across the road, in a small hut, the workshop was already opened early in the morning. Maybe he had got more workload today…

With unknown eyes watching from the distance, the blacksmith had started doing his job. He had got a great offer yesterday to complete an assignment within one day. He had arrived at his workshop much early that day. Before the sun started getting hot, he immersed himself in melting and beating the hot iron rod, with great energy and precision. The process of moulding and shaping was very hard but the reward had always been minimal. The boy from the nearby tea vendor shop arrived with his cup of tea in a mini glass. He kept his weapon down, and started sipping it slowly watching the increasing traffic on the road, as he does daily. This was his short break before he immersed back into his back breaking work…The tall apartment buildings with beautiful balconies and tall windows, across the road reminded him of his small dreams of owning a piece of land..

Bangalore life/blogathon/books

Little Reader’s Nook

Posted on by Archana K B / 1 Comment

I got my reading habit from my father. I remember reading “Far from the madding crowd” by Thomas Hardy, owned by him when I was very young. When I read the book in high school, I did not understood a single word. Though my sister too was interested in books, the children’s membership was entitled to me, and so I enjoyed a major share of Nancy Drew, Enid Blyton, Secret Seven, and Famous Five. Though I did not understand the political part, I was so influenced by the diary writing from “The diary of young girl” by  Anne Frank , that I started writing a diary and hiding it from my parents and locking in my wardrobe in between my clothes. But at the same time, I am not so in love with the hard core book addicts like the little ones immersed in heavy Harry Potter books at the airport, who should be actually making ruckus and running around and like real little children.

I had read on internet, about mommies who want to instill reading habit in their children, by reading to them everyday. Though I do read occasionally, I am not a voracious reader, neither do I have patience to read out and tell stories to others. As like any mother, I also want my child to read, and hence I enrolled for Little Reader’s Nook By Devaki. Initially I was apprehensive, whether it was worth the money, since N is not interested in books, and the few books she already have, has got tears and pages pulled out by now, due to her fiddling. But the books I received were really age-appropriate(compared to another reader kit I had subscribed to), and N had atleast one book, which she considers her favourite from the lot of books we receive every month. Now the onus is onto me, to cultivate the patience in me, to sit and read for few minutes with her, bearing her antics, while I read my lungs out, even if I know she is least interested in the English I speak, and more excited to pull out the folded papers. And the customer service was also very good. Devaki was very prompt and responsive to all the queries, intimidating every details of the shipment and books each month, and in reminding to renew the subscription. The personal touch and involvement makes you feel its not a company based service, but rather a friendly next-door neighbour service for your child.

Now that I am settled with the book reading subscription, I am thinking of starting the art and craft based subscription kits in preparation for the summers. Which one do you reckon in Bangalore, or from India?

blogathon/Relationship/Thoughts

Analogy of solar system

Posted on by Archana K B / 1 Comment
Few years ago, while I worked in Chennai, I remember having a discussion with my colleague on friendships. Yeah, you guessed it. I love thinking on such topics. The most used tag in this blog is obviously relationships and thoughts.


It came naturally for me to reply with an analogy of circles. I replied that gangs of friends can be considered like the orbits in a solar system, where in every person you meet in real life is a gravitational connection you make like the sun to the planets. They circle around you either closer or farther in an orbit with a gravitational force proportional to the wavelength of moral principles or values followed by the both you and them. But unlike the force from the sun, this wavelength is not static and therefore the orbit is also not exactly circular or elliptical but in similar closed shape. More like an amoeba circumference. It does not differentiate between family or friends or spouse. There maybe orbits close to each other or seems to overlap, which confuses your relationships, but there are subtle differences which differentiates them, and places them in their own orbit. And to complicate more, You or the sun can themselves act as planets revolving around some other Sun or person.


This can explain to a satisfactory extent on love, attraction, breakups, death, and not keeping in touch, etc. We keep in touch by not reducing the gravitational force towards the people we want to be close with. If there is a clash in the wavelength of thoughts there arises repulsive forces which may weaken the gravitational force allowing them to break off from the orbit. Love has more magnitude in the force than attraction. And hence even if you can be attracted to many, very few can be in your immediate circles including family or any other relative whom you are very close to. And the people who are in your memory or have died are still revolving around you, but with less force since you haven’t broken away from them, even if they have broke away from you.


I am still thinking on moulding other bits and pieces of this theory, for instance, the emphasis of time and lifespan in this unique complicated world. Do you have any inputs to help me out?


Linking the post at Ultimate blog challenge and Nablopomo.
blogathon/Photography/Travel

Jaipur trip summary

Posted on by Archana K B / 5 Comments
“Kesariya balam.. Padharo mare des.. des re..” (Listen)
I heard this song initially in Balika Vadhu Hindi TV serial few years ago. The setting of the plot is in Rajasthan and this song kept playing as the title track every now and then. Little did I know then, that I would visit the place afterwards.

 

For the december vacations, many of the friends including travel websites and holiday packages, suggested Rajasthan as the place to go in India during December. Though we hesitated because of the cold weather and how it would affect N, there was no alternative coming up to suit our taste. The Delhi-Agra-Badrinath trip we had in 2009 was tempting now to do a north india tour once again. And so I set off planning the trip, which finally came to six days. Though the itinerary was created, and we went around following the main outline plan, sightseeing plans got topsy turvy but we managed to cover the most important places.

 

Finally this is what happened.
Day 0:
 We, a family of six people(including both sets of parents and N) started on Sunday evening flight from Bangalore to Jaipur and checked into hotel Suryaa Villa for the night. Also, we rented Toyota Innova for the next 2 days.

 

Day 1:
In the morning, after breakfast, we visited all the forts of Jaipur, Amer fort, Nahargarh fort and then Jaigarh fort and ended up having a late lunch at Rainbow Restaurant on Amer road. In evening, we roamed around Jalmahal before returning to the same hotel to retire for the night.

 

Day 2:
We drove to Pushkar for visiting the Brahma temple and then came back directly. Though we had plans for visiting Ajmer, the elders were not that interested in ‘unheard’ Jain temples and the mosques.

 

Day 3:
We had an elaborate and expensive breakfast in Laxmi Misthan Bhandar(LMB) hotel and explored the City Palace afterwards. After covering the nearby Jantar Mantar which was at walkable distance, we had lunch from the City Palace Cafe. Before the end of the day, we also visited the interior windows of  the Hawa mahal. Though we had plans of shopping in the bazaar streets, all were tired, and the Jaipur city bazaar crowd deterred us more from venturing.

 

Day 4:
Starting early at around 5am, we all got into Ranthambore Express train(04821) at 6.10am towards Jodhpur. From the railway station we arranged a Qualis for checking into Mandore Guest House and had lunch. The Qualis taxi driver, Prithvi Singh was so friendly and informative that we engaged him for visiting Mehrangarh fort and Jaswant Thada in the evening, and then returned to the guest house for dinner and rest.

 

Day 5:
To experience Rajasthani food, we dared to experiment that day without having breakfast at the guest house. The cordial driver showed us some famous sweet shop, but unfortunately it was not open until 10am. So we had some onion kachori, bread kachori, jilebi and gajar halwa to start the day. Afterwards we went to Umaid Bhawan Palace, and then Mandore Gardens, did some shopping, and lunch at Annapurna Restaurant Dhaba, again on the advice of the driver. In evening, we set out to Osian and stopped at Desert Cafe where we hired jeep safari to drive into the desert(which had little shrub vegetation unlike the real sand dunes) and then at the cafe, had tea(Rs.50!!) before driving back to Jodhpur guest house.

 

Day 6:
Again we started early to board the Jodhpur Indore intercity express train(12466) at 6am to return to Jaipur. Though we had plans in our initial itinerary to cover the places missed out in Jaipur, the elders were tired and the temples and gardens were quite far and not considered that important. So we rested at the railway station itself, before moving to airport in the evening, for the flight back to Bangalore. A better alternative was to board a return flight from Jodhpur , but flight rates were expensive since we booked late.

 

Other notes:
At Pushkar, a guide who offered the history details of temple and to show around the ghats, cheated us by leading to trap of poojaris asking for money in the name of donations(bhog). This ruined the whole pilgrimage experience, since he excused himself without showing us the actual temple.  The highlights at the Umaid Bhawan palace were only the museum showing history and artifacts of the creator Raja Umaid Singh and few vintage cars. Apart from the cars, there was nothing much to see there. At Jantar Mantar, we took a bad decision of taking an audio guide instead of personal guide. It became quite hard to understand the long audio explanations, but we did a workaround, by hovering around the groups roaming with guides to hear bits and pieces of information from them.

 

On hotels:
Suryaa Villa in Jaipur is a decent heritage hotel, with average rooms, but value for money service. The customer service was very good, the restaurant was OK, and there is outdoor and indoor dining, with an adjacent small swimming pool. They arranged taxis and had good knowledge on the sightseeing. Overall we were very satisfied with the budget hotel.
Mandore Guest House in Mandore is outside the Jodhpur city, but had a very good gardens with ambience. They had total of 16 bungalows, consisting of 3 hut rooms, and other stone cottages, with modern bathrooms. The food in the restaurant was very very good. The drawbacks were inefficient administration (we were presented with some other’s bills twice), and the complete absence of support for pickup from station, considering that the guest house is quite far away from the city central.

A good trip to refresh ourselves before we soak in the new dawn of 2014. The photos are shared in this Flickr set.

Linking this post at Ultimate Blog Challenge and Nablopomo.