Ooo La la.....

The weekend was good...!!
I went to Glasgow...had a great time ..as in proper relaxation..holiday...whatever you could think of!!
Think about this..a whole 2 -storeyed house to yourself with net connection, cable TV, an excellent collection of DVD's ranging from Monsoon wedding. Sixth sense, Top Gun to Bad Boys-II and even Cold Mountain and a fridge full of food ranging from aunty's specially-made-for-nephew home cooked food to pizzas and cold chicken/ salad creams and all sort of delicacies like cookies n chocolates and what not..!!:-))and to top it all that..call up KFC and ask them to drop in a COMBO meal at your place..!!that was heaven on earth for me..!! 
Dont ponder too much what i was doing there alone at my uncle's place..i had told my uncle (Dad's brother) that i would be droppin in at their place for the weekend and they forgot that they had a marriage to attend and end result being me landed there and they had to go for the marriage:-)  n my only company for sometime on Saturday was my cousin brother Sarin. He was a proper host and there are a lot of memories that i have shared with him in childhood days...!!in the earlier days when i was small..he used to be real thin and i used to be HUGE..horizontally but then as time went by...he got more and more healthier (muscle building..etc) while i went on being healthier in another way!!:-)
and today this is how he looks


The above snap is shot after the recently held finals of The BT BOWL (Club level Rugby) after his team lost. He is the one in the front row squatting in the extreme left with a blonde streak on his hair..!!(HE looks like me...face atleast):-)
Anyway watching movies was getting boring for me and i decided to read HARRY POTTER for a change. Read from Volume 1 till PRISONER OF AZKABAN. Amazing book. This is one book i think that will enrapture both the children and adults alike. It has a mix of Enid Blyton (wizard land and magic - suiting taste of children), to some extent Agatha christie (the mysteries involved and revelation of Harry's history at odd moments when you least expect it) and John Grisham.And the best part is once u start reading Harry potter, u dont feel like keeping the book down till u have reached the end...i was awake till 2:30 am today morning trying to finish Prisoner of azkaban and never knew when i fell asleep..!!Anyway thats that!!
all in all a very relaxing and fantastic weekend. and I might have gained a couple of kilos too;-)
By the way..today onwards i am going to tell my weight in stones. I weigh nearly 14 stones (14 stones = 90 kilos...so for those intersted you can do the necessary conversion and decide how many stones you weigh;-)))
CHEERS.

Brilliance!!

An English university creative writing class was asked to write a concise essay containing the following elements:
1) Religion
2) Royalty
3) Sex
4) Mystery
 
 
The prizewinner wrote"My God," said the queen, "I'm pregnant. I wonder who did it?"

My Experiments in the Kitchen

Hmmm.....believe me when i say i never in my dreams thought that I would be cooking at any point of my life. I remember my mom used to keep asking me what if my betrothed was ignorant of cooking and i had a steady response always "I will make sure she knows cooking before i get married to anyone".
But we have all heard the common saying "Necessity is the mother of invention" and miracle of miracles....i was forced into cooking after joining my office Edinburgh. The main reasons being:
1. It is not everyday that you can eat half boiled vegeatbles and half cooked stuff at canteen
2. The amount spend in cafeteria is almost double what it would be if i cooked at home.

So takin all these factors into consideration, i plunged into the world of cookery. The inspiration to cook, i must admit, came from my flat mate in blore as well as here in edin burgh now - Randeep Basu. He is the main cook. I cut the vegetables and mix the masala in the correct propportion while he starts cooking. And then he leaves it to me while i check the taste and add salt/pepper/whatever available to make it more spicy n hot - this taste in food can be attributed to me being a mallu, i guess and it does help when the other person is a Bong with similar food habits and is a non-veg too:-)))))
We had intially started with veg dishes experimenting various recipes and then one day, a weekend, we decided to try our hand on chicken. It is a point worth mentioning that both of us were new to cooking (atleast i was and i guess so was he) and cutting and cookin chicken was a dream for us.
And we decided to make this dream a reality. And you should have been there to taste it - yummy yum:-). That day we realised that if not for anything atleast for survival sakes we could cook n eat tasty food:-)
Potato (aaloo) has become our staple food coz no matter what dish we prepare, that seems to be the main ingredient - aaloo baingan, aaloo gobi, aaloo dum, aaloo mutter, Gobi dum, rasam, sambar, dal , rice and once even aaloo parathas. Rice, samabar, dal and rasam are generally made by other falt mate here - Vinay V who is a pure vegetarian though after being in our company, he has slowly started eating eggs:-). He makes excellent Sambar/Rasam/Dal, provided he has the mood.:-) But after coming onsite, by far the best sambar has been prepared by Srijith - one of my colleagues and u can call him my ML (module leader) as well.Excellent.
The intial days of cooking were filled with enthu when we used to get up in the morning and cook lunch in all zest n vigor.
But off late the drive has gone. Have to get some new recipes, i guess in order to get the old enthu back again in cooking.
All in all i can say - My lucky wife;-)

"Bend it like Beckham"??

Well past 2 days hardly got any time to blog. one of those rare occassions when you are actually bogged down by work and dont have time to think..forget blogging..!!:-)
Life has become pretty mundane. Nothing interesting going on. off late due to extreme work pressure even football has come to a standstill - secondary reason being the ball has very less air in it and kicking it now on a windy day...it would bend like how Beckham manages to do it.
Speaking of Beckham, recently watched the movie "Bend it like Beckham" yet again and i wonder if Beckham actually intend to kick the ball so that it curves or does it happen just naturally for him. Intersting question eh?
I remember when i started playing football way back in standard 6, even i used to curve the ball..though unintentional and after getting into college and being selected as Centre back for College football team, my services were always called upon for free kick/ corner, the only main reason being - I could curve the ball in the last moment taking the Opponent goal keeper n players by surprise.
And trust me when i say this (ok, i am demeaning myself now) I never intended to curve the ball. I just used to take a small run up and kick the ball and voila 9/10 times it used to curve. Dont ask me how. it just used to happen and during that 1/10 chances when it didnt curve, i used to look at the spot from where i kicked , frusturation and anger glowing on my face (very similar to Beckham's reaction after his spot kick against Portugal in recently concluded Euro2004 quarters went into infinity).

Probably i can console myself that i have got the inborn talent of curving the ball without having to try hard.
hehe..!!
The only times i felt guilty was when my team mates or juniors used to ask me on how to kick the ball so that it curves...i used to tell them tall tales...askin them to kick the ball with a particular portion of the foot so that it curves and lucky enough for me at times when try tried it..it did curve and my image remained intact:-) (as a good player and as a good coach;-))
Ok guys..i can see all the rage and criticism coming in from all those ppl whom i have "coached" if ever they read my blog. Sorry ppl...:-)))
And my footballing career (whatever little) i owe it to my build..(oh boy! aint i hefty) and the fact that i am a left footer..!!Being left footer had always helped me getting easily into a team and my willingness to play defense. Cmmon who in th world would love to play defense. Everyone wants to score goals.
Well I too had started off playing as a forward in 8th std.But my gauche endings in front of the opponent goal post (at times not even the goal keeper would have been there) forced me to rethink on my playin strategy and arrived at the wise conclusion that i was not made to play forward. I decided to shift myself down and become a midfielder. I was successful when we used to play Inter-class/ Intra murals tournament in school...and seeing my enthusiasm the coach pulled me in as a reserve for the school team. But then the glory days were soon to be lost. In the interschool i had to run so much as a midfielder and with my bulk...within 10 min of play, i was gasping for breath.
There i reworked my strategy to stay in the team.I didnt have much options. I pushed myself to play defence, gracefully giving others the chance to make play and score:-)
And since then thanks to my bulk and the "Bend it like Beckham" abilities, I have stuck on in the team - school n college n even in infy football team. I didnt have to run much and i could use my build to the full use and only ocassionaly using my natural footballing skills!!! Another thing i was famous for was the sudden burst of energy which i displayed on field when i got possession of the ball and would just make a run with it to the opponent goal only to squander away the ball in a completely gawkish manner!!
reading so much i thing anyone could very well guess who my role model is - yeah ROBERTO CARLOS.

- known for being attackin defender and his power filled free kicks.I swear he would die of fits if he knew he is my role model in football followed by chance happening of reading my blog.
God save all those ppl who think i play real good football!!

I want to Break Free..........

There are certain situations in your life where you just are in a helpless condition. You want to do a lot but yet due to some obstacle...maybe you are far away or you may not be well equipped..whatever maybe the reason, u just cannot bring yourself to do anything. Things come to a stand still. The inner you wants to break free ...just burst out from the existing body and spread out my wings and just enter into another world.Jim Warren, a well known painter used to paint people ripping through the back of the canvas, symbolizing the breaking into another world. Imagine if we could really do that. The world that we paint, if we could rip the canvas and just enter into it and live there till your mind reaches saturation and then crawl back into this ugly world.Things are never the way they seem. When I was in Trichy, Blore used to be heaven for me. Filled with babes n pubs...it was heaven on earth - what else could a mortal ask for. And i was the happiest man on earth when i knew my posting was in this heaven...but then within 2 weeks of being in blore...heaven seemed more like hell!!There was nothing too exciting happening and then me and my room mates used to watch tv and see the life in europe and US and fantasized and wondered the days when we would be there surrounded by babes somewhere abroad..!!and voila..out of the blue..i get a chance to go to scotland...known for its rich brand of malt whisky than anything else.I thanksed GOD for this opportunity and reached here...the first week was full of enthusiasm gettin accutomed to this place...but then the cycle never stops..it continued..and once again the life here has become mundane...nothin exciting..nothing happening..!!The only time i really enjoyed was the road trip we guys had..just wish at times that i had pair of wings...just fly away into the horizon..just keep flying...hills on one side...plains and rivers on the other side...listening to the rustling of leaves...the calm water flowing ocassionally hitting the rocks and overcoming it completely to continue to its journey down to the sea...!!!!amazing right???I feel as if my hands are tied and i am being whipped by someone...i try to yell out but realise my mouth aint opening...my throat is dry...longing for a drop of water to wet it...its been ages since i ate..stomach is growling..my beard stings not having taken a shave for a week ...i smell blood...my own blood...which was beaten outta me...I am suffocating...not able to take a single whole breath...somebody help me...i close my eyes...and pray for an angel to save me from my distress...I open my eyes and i see myself floatin in mid air...i no longer stink...i feel fresh...there are no chains bonded to my legs and arms...i look down..i see my body...its dead.,.i am no more...free from the earthly bondage into which i was born...free from the corruption..free from all that evil....i cannot be harmed anymore by any Goddamned mortal...no one can bind me down anywhere...there are no restrictions...But....................................What happened to all those ppl whom i loved and cherished...they are still there in that mortal world...struggling out to meet and fulfill their own personal demands...and that of others...Can i enjoy my life after life with my near and dear ones struggling...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.........is there never an end to man's demands...you want something badly...and when you finally get it...you want to go back to your old self and it just keeps repeating over n over n over...But many a times we do not realise that many of our troubles are not really troubles and if we look at it more closely, probably we could have got rid of it and attain complete freedom.Probably we need some third person to point it out to us that we aint bonded as we thought we are.  The short story The Man In Chains will give a fair idea of what i am trying to say.
Somebody SAVE ME!!!!!!!!