Homemade pizza

Well, we recently bought a tandoor oven that is supposed to be able to be able to toast, grill, bake, roast, defrost, reheat and so on and so forth. Versatile, huh ?

Anyway, I really wanted to share the photo of the first thing we tried out with it, home made pizza with capsicum, onions, tomatoes and cheese. It was really good !

What do you think ?

A Perfect Poach

Hey guys ! Sorry I've done the vanishing act of late...this BEd course is so damn tasking, what with its endless lesson plans before and now all the pedagogical analyses and simulated lessons that we have to pen for the practical papers (English and Bengali)...and more charts and models ahead...a computer project (my topic is 'Terrorism : Role of Media')...class tests...oooooooooof !

I'm all the more bugged because I have so much to share with you all and no time...it's so unfair ! :-(

Any way, I'm on top of the world this morning...because I made a perfect poach at last ! I've made decent poaches before , but this time I was able to transfer it intact from the frying pan to the plate, which I've never been able to manage before. My FIL says the secret is to get the amount of oil just right while my MIL insists that it's the letting it 'rest' in the pan for a couple of mins that makes the removal easy. Whatever. At this moment, all that matters is that I just have to share the photo with you guys. Cheers !

I'll try to be back with more news soon...take care, everyone !

Green Nooks

There's not too much of nature to go ga ga over here in our neighbourhood, which is one of the relatively new localities along the E.M.Bypass. In fact, it's still in a state of considerable concretisation, which recently made me succumb to an allergy attack that came and went like a child's smile, only not half as welcome. Now what does one do when one is as used to greenery as I have been since my early childhood, be it in Wales or Salt Lake ? One creates one's own little green patch, of course !

Now let me warn you in advance (in case you begin to harbour great expectations of my ecological entrepreneurship) that my gardening genes are by no means original. I embarked on the process of green-ing my home, inspired by two worthy predecessors, Ma in Salt Lake and Mamoni, here. Ma, as a matter of fact, doesn't know too much about gardening and her excessive enthusiasm once proved to be quite uncongenial for the chrysanthemums concerned when, advised to add a manure of shorsher khol to the budding plants, she overdid the amount of khol in the mixture, rendering the manure too strong for horticultural purposes. Her remorse was genuine and acute, but it didn't help to resurrect the plants. That, however, happened to be an isolated occasion. Ma does have a real passion for gardening and the numerous delicious papayas, guavas and lemons in our back garden are the fruit of hours of planning, judicious care and earnest instructions to often well-meaning but rather ignorant gardening personnel. The latter category included our former driver, Hori Da, whose sporadic sorties into Ma's beloved garden depended mostly on his benevolent moods and eccentric labour. However, that never deterred Ma from buying numerous potted plants, flowering or leafy, arranging them along the ledges of our spacious verandahs and taking care of them more than her own children (yes, Mitu did often level such a complaint against her desensitised person).

The result was that I grew up, with considerable botanical ardor, often having fallen asleep in the afternoon ensconced in my reading chair amidst a curtain of greens, creating a perfect Elysium in my own house. My interest in plants seeped into my journalistic assignments, where I did the rounds of a few front, rooftop and terraced gardens in Salt Lake, finding particular delight in hearing experienced gardeners air their views and proudly display their gardens to the public. (It was a totally unexpected matter that I even landed what sounded like a marriage proposal on one such assignment). Recently, I even did a couple of articles for The Telegraph on the East Kolkata wetlands, the latter endangered by illegal urban encroachment and pollution.

The point is that my love for greenery remains, although a trifle subdued by the air of Kalikapur, which seems to be heavy with dust, dirt and pollen most of the time, rendered even more intolerable by the pungent carbon monoxide that the tea-stall just below our apartment insists on belching into the clean morning air each day. In fact, I requested K to take me out yesterday (our anniversary having been on 28th Feb) to some spot where there would be nothing except greenery all around me for a couple of hours. This would explain the august presence of two silly young adults on the sun-baked, winding pathways of the Botanical Gardens at Shibpur, yesterday at about noon. To be fair to ourselves, there were several other silly young adults all around us. The only difference being, of course, that they were heading for the nearest source of shade they could find/ were evidently blindly in love and therefore not behaving rationally/ they were armed with umbrellas, full sleeved attire and a proper lunch inside them. None of which applied to us. Although we sported nonchalant expressions and took some wonderful photos at the place, half-an-hour of March sun making its best efforts to bore into your skull and suck your grey matter dry isn't really conducive to any sort of comfort, however ardent about flora you might be. All the arrows leading to the garden cafetaria seemed to be as misleading as a mirage. We didn't manage to trace the building and assuage the pangs of hunger assailing us at that point. Exhausted and ravenous, we took a quick route back to Park Street, where cheilo kebab, pineapple blossom and beer worked wonders to improve our temper and reconcile us to the vagaries of our recent experience.

I realised one thing at the end of the day : like art, the appreciation of nature too is conditioned by the state of one's mind.

Ad-ing to our Woes !

At last, we’ve managed to sell off all our living room furniture. The latter included a sofa set, a coffee/centre table, a TV with wooden stand, a floor lamp and a small storage unit, popularly known as a microwave table. With the disposal of these items, it feels like a huge load of responsibility has been taken off our minds. Another actual proof, I suppose, of how material issues engage our lives to an idiotic extent. Among the residual and mostly minor items left is a metal strolley, a bucket, a pedestal fan, an iron and ironing board, a toaster and a couple of chairs. The car has verbally been booked, a monetary advance due over the weekend and a deal worked out that’ll keep both parties happy, that is, the buyer pays a certain amount less and we keep the car till the last possible day. Now all we have to bother ourselves with, one would presume, are the cleaning and packing. But well, the amount of trouble I had to go through to sell off the furniture was enough to make me feel like I should purge myself of pent-up stress by penning the whole saga.

First, let’s talk of the ads. Nothing in the ads, be it the tagline (enticing words like ‘great price’ or ‘’real deal’ or really cheap’) or the content (where my favourite pastime, photography came into play) or the actual low prices quoted seemed to be of much help in drawing customers in person. I first advertised on a Thursday afternoon and hardly anyone responded till the weekend except one lady named Virginia, who wished to buy the 5-bulb floor lamp with colourful shades and recently purchased CFL bulbs. She was the only person who was prompt in replying to the ad by mail, following it up with another mail (once we gave her our contact details and fixed up an appointment), then a phone call, and finally her august person on Sunday morning. She didn’t even require any assistance, although K did offer to dismantle the lamp for her, in case that made things easier to handle. Politely turning down the offers to help, she paid the amount quoted in cash without the embarrassment of bargaining and ended up carrying the unwieldy Hydra of a lamp back to her SUV on her back herself. We couldn’t but help be impressed !

But then she was an exception. Even the car ads on the weekend triggered off several phone calls but produced no one actual customer, who was resolved to come over in person to show proof of his interest in the item on sale. I tried refreshing the furniture ads on sulekha and craigslist, which was executed without much of a problem on the former, but met with an unexpected obstacle in the latter. I was warned that if removing the ad only to repost it for the sake of top-posting took place within a specified time and date, my ad was in danger of being considered spam, or worse, deleted. Now that was a setback of sorts. And yet, top-posting was a compulsion, since hundreds of ads were posted in a particular category per day and it was practically impossible to expect potential buyers to spend hours poring over the list for that day with endless energy. Finally, after racking my brains for several mins, I came up with a solution. Of course ! I could re-post it as a fresh ad from K’s a/c in that particular site. No sooner said than done. I made some other changes as well. I converted the keywords’ font to bold and upper case with a bit of lower case thrown in between to provide relief to one’s eyes. Other baits were thrown in, in the form of free bonuses like vases and soft toys (which we’d have given away in any case). I also reduced the asking price of the sofa set by about $20.
I wondered what would happen next.

A lot, it seems. I was flooded with phone queries regarding the availability of the sofa set that afternoon. The queries incorporated some odd questions like whether we had pets and whether the fabric of the sofa was cotton or not. The latter was tough on me, I being so ignorant about fabrics in general. The only thing I was able to confirm with reasonable confidence was that the material was definitely some sort of natural fabric. Another caller wanted to know how long we’d had the sofa or been using it. The next few phone calls were more forthright and mostly from Indians responding to the sulekha ads, The callers were men and asked more relevant questions relating to when they could actually come down and have a look at the articles on sale. One of them, a stammering South Indian, called from his office in Princeton in the evening and wanted to know if he could come over within an hour. I was in a bit of a fix, as I'd already assigned the respective times of 6.30 pm and 8 pm to 2 other parties who’d expressed interest in coming over to inspect the furniture that evening. I didn’t want to put Murali (the aforementioned S Indian with a nervous stammer) in an embarrassing situation, where multiple parties were bidding for the same object of contention. Fortunately, K entered at that moment and told me to go ahead and ask him to come over straightaway as it's a quite common experience to find most of the expected parties not turning up after all. In fact, the 6.30 pm party belonged to that species of traitors. But Murali did keep his word and was impressed enough to buy the coffee table and microwave unit and carry it off straightaway. K helped him with the latter, pleased to finally be able to dispose of these major furniture items, now that we were actually heading home. They took such a while to get the coffee table into the back of the car that I called up K on his cell to ask if there was a problem. He said no, Murali had just been taking his time to adjust the car-seat (for infants) at the back to make way for the microwave table. I was glad to hear that, for the next thing I did was to put a couple of soft toys we had in the inner panel of the microwave table and ask Murali to consider them a gift from us to his little son. He looked really pleased and touched at that and thanked us in his own special stammering manner.

A couple of hours later, the 8.30 pm party, two brothers named Vishal and Vikas arrived to take a look at the sofa. It was sweet the way the two interacted, the former so evidently protective of his younger sibling and eager to see him settled in a reasonably comfortable surroundings, which occasioned their interest in our sofa set. I was discussing the merits and demerits of the sofa but was interrupted midway by Vishal, who announced in a hearty booming voice that the only criteria that the sofa needed to meet for them to approve of it were his brother’s taste and the said furniture’s ability to withstand his own weight without totally giving way under it. That was plausible, considering that Vishal was a 6 foot tall strapping hulk of a fellow, as broad as he was tall, with a considerable paunch and a lot of excess fat at his disposal (besides the extreme patience he sported in answering umpteen phone calls within the short span of time he spent at our place that evening). I laughed, saying I wouldn’t want to comment on that anyhow. Vikas looked quite comfortable, once he'd made himself comfortable on the three-seater. They were, a s a matter of fact, unexpectedly polite, not even venturing to touch the sofa unless I gave them a go-ahead of some sort. That was a novelty in my experience and indeed that of many others, as far as I’m aware of. Well, to cut a long story short, they decided to buy the sofa set and carried it out to their cars with K’s help. Here, we were in for a pleasant surprise. K came back after his second exit (with the loveseat) beaming. On being asked about the source of such glee, he announced that the brothers Sharma had decided that the deal we were offering on our TV and its stand (which I'd casually mentioned to them, wondering if they knew any interested parties) was too good to be passed over and so they were going to take immediate advantage of it. Now that was good news indeed ! It only meant that there was going to be no TV for us for the next week or so, which caused K more sorrow than it did me, since I only watch a couple of cooking and travel shows at lunch and a sitcom in the evening or night. K however looked and indeed confessed to feeling quite unhappy at this sudden turn of events, used as he was to his daily dose of ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’, ‘Friends’, ‘Seinfield’ and ‘George Lopez’. But of course, at that particular point of time, selling off all the furniture seemed overwhelmingly more of a priority than getting our usual fare of TV programmes. So we reconciled ourselves to the unhappy truth that ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ was the last film we’d watched on our beloved piece of electronics. So Sharma and Co departed soon after, with a bonus in the form of a couple of glass vases in excellent condition, one of which I was particularly sorry to part with, as it had been a gift from a dear friend on our 1st marriage anniversary, which we’d spent here. But it was impractical to carry back home and I had long since hardened my mind to the anticipated inevitability of its sale.

The house looked strange indeed after the sale of the major items of furniture ; and that is something I find very unnerving, the anguish that attaches to a house that is no longer home. I couldn’t help feeling that there’s nothing half as upsetting as the look and feel of a house that is soon to be vacated and all I could think of was my relief that our days in that apartment, and indeed, this country, are numbered, and that there is a permanent home that we are soon to return to after all.

Happier times :






(more updates later...)

HOMEWARD BOUND !

We're finally going home, early in September. No, the date hasn't been finalised yet, although it'll probably be on a weekend so that K can get some rest before he joins the TCS Kolkata office on Monday. We're in a mad, chaotic situation now, selling off furniture items and the car. My last few days have been and the coming few are likely to be occupied mostly with frenetic scrubbing and dusting and packing and planning. You'll find me on my knees, armed with latex gloves most of the time now, trying to get the apartment back to its former pristine condition, which is proving to be a feat of sorts as we've been here for a year now and have definitely 'used' it. My principal areas of jurisdiction include the gas range, the refrigerator, the kitchen floors, the kitchen walls that loom above the gas range (spotted with yellow from our turmeric-heavy Indian cooking), the window frames, the bathtub, basin, commode and floors and the display rack in the living room. Yesterday, I spent the entire morning trying out numerous solvents and cleaners on my turmeric-stained kitchen walls without any success whatsoever, until I returned to my faithful original, the Vim Dishwash liquid. It lived upto its record of conquests, once again, although a whole year of stains meant I had to strain my back and waist muscles for over half-an-hour, eliminating the incriminating marks. But at the end, the result was marked. The impression from half a feet away was that of a white and not yellow-splotched wall. Vim Dishwash liquid ke jai ho !

Besides this, of course, I'm checking the email every half-an-hour, replying to responses - of ads put up on craigslist.org and sulekha.com - from prospective buyers of our furniture etc, half of whom are not even remotely serious about the entire deal, and mostly just end up wasting our time and wearing out our patience. There's this one guy, an Arun from Woodbridge, who called up thrice about the sofa set and center table and car, but hasn't been able to make it yet thanks to the lack of availability of his friend, whose car was supposed to convey him here. The very first day he called, he sneezed thrice on the phone, straight into K's ear, much to the former's discomfiture and the latter's disgust and even dismay, who was seriously convinced that the said Arun might have swine flu. It was too much for me when he even suggested calling off the deal because the guy might infect us. I couldn't but rubbish that and told him firmly that he was to ask the guy to come over at his convenient earliest, although I did commiserate with K on the affront to one's hearing if one was sneezed upon so loudly and so many times in one phone call. That certainly would have been a novelty for most and not in a happy sense at all !

This afternoon saw us embark on a shopping spree for the folks back home, that ran its course right through the evening, interrupted once in the middle only for a small evening snack and marinating the chicken that is to be our dinner tonight. The weather has been dismal today, raining non-stop since 1 am early this morning, when the thunder and lightning was as bad as it could possibly get, the entire sky a grim yellow and the extreme flashes of light & sound not in the least conducive to a peaceful weekend sleep. That continued into this morning, after stopping in the afternoon for a couple of happy hours. Having checked weather.com before we left home in the afternoon, I was to discover to my chagrin that the forces of nature are after all as unpredictable as they're reputed to be. We made a trip to Bridgewater Commons Mall to check out the formalities of disconnecting our T-mobile connection but were re-directed to a direct sales outlet of the company concerned, a few miles in a totally different direction. Rather annoyed at this unexpected disruption of our list of things to do that day, we pondered for a few mins, before cheering up and deciding to go ahead with at least our shopping plans for that day.

K waits for the rain to subside :

Poor visibility :

However, as I hinted at, the weather gods played havoc with our intentions and we actually had to pull up along the wayside, for the rain became so torrential that visibility at a distance of more than half a foot was nil. After 15 mins in the car, K rebelled and announced his determination to drive on, braving the odds. I gave in, also annoyed. So we drove on to 'Marshall's' and 'Bed, Bath & Beyond' at Bridgewater Promenade and later to Walmart, to indulge in some hardcore shopping till my feet went to sleep and we had to give up and go home. The shopping saga continued late into the afternoon on the next day, mercifully a Sunday and what's more, one boasting better weather. In between, K's college batchmate Jhuma called to enquire if we could possibly return via Heathrow, since I've become really pally with her via orkut, but am yet to meet her in person. So now, we have a total of 3 invitations from friends to make a stopover at their places via home. The others are from Shobhana, my happily married and dearest school friend in Singapore and another dear friend of K and mine, Ayan, who's based in Bangalore. Now that I think about the invitations, it strikes me that we've actually gone global !

Btw, I almost forgot : we spent a most unpleasant 15 mins - hot and bothered, with menacing drops of rain leaking onto us from a grim black-grey sky - in one of the several parking lots of the Bridgewater Commons, hunting for our car. After we had almost given up, K noticed that there were two entrances to Bloomingdale and we had parked our car near the other one. I was too disgusted at my poor observation skills to experience even a passing sense of relief.

More updates soon...

RANDOM LIFE

The newspaper is getting increasingly interesting by the day. Take the TOI, for instance. It is finally reducing sensationalism to the span of its city supplements and producing some 'real' news. Check out a random selection of news items here :

1 ) Effect of Mamata's annual rally on the routine of the citizens

2) The sorry side of the above story

3) How greed might prove to be one's undoing

4) The actual, insidious effects of increasing pollution

5) How airlines are trying to be indiscriminately careful

6) Making a mountain out of a molehill

7) How the needs of women are currently being capitalised on

Whew, quite some variety, I must say. Makes one regret that one can't really somehow manage the time to read the newspaper from cover to cover on a daily basis. It would evidently prove be both informative and entertaining. Of course, a lot of people don't like to read real news, just the relevant gist. But I find the whole rigmarole as absorbing as that of a good crime thriller : a lot is said, a lot is left unsaid. It's upto you to fit the bits and pieces together to decipher what the current state of the nation is like. Often it's painful, cutting you yourself to bits and pieces before you manage to desensitise yourself to emotions and indignations and just watch and wait. For the reality that is more a solution than a problem in itself. Which might mean waiting for a long long time, really.

On a lighter and more random note, you might, like me, prefer to watch other people wait for irresponsible others who leave them locked out of their own home. My lunch was interrupted yesterday by the most awful hammering and shouting possible, almost precipitating a heart failure. It turns out that a couple opposite were unable to enter their own house, since a certain 'Henry' was not answering the door. They screamed the whole neighbourhood down in his name, peeped through the animal entry/exit slit lower down on the main door, banged their fists against the former (it's a wonder it didn't collapse under the assault), went down the back stairs into the parking lot only to return in a moment or so (just when I had been about to feel relieved and jubilant at their departure) ; in short, they did everything to arouse the curiosity and annoyance of the entire residential complex.

Pre-Henry :

I just didn't get it : was it a child they were calling out to and who might have fallen asleep or who was ill and who therefore they shouldn't have left alone at home in the first place or a guest or family member who was taking a shower perhaps and therefore simply couldn't hear them ? I mean, why couldn't they just sit down on the steps and wait for for a little while for the person in question ? By the time the two were done, exhausted, I was too. My audibility limits had been severely challenged and to top it all, it had worsened a migraine attack which had started that morning. By the time the said Henry turned up on the scene - a 30 something hefty young man with a very red face, an unassuming, cheerful voice and a receding hairline - wiggling his way fast to the source of all the chaos with a huge soda in his hand, I was ready to beat the hell out of him for making all our lives collectively miserable by his unexpected and untimely disappearance from the scene.

Post-Henry :

In fact, I wonder what we'll do back in Kolkata, after all the tranquility we've become habituated to here now. This place is definitely a quiet, picturesque residential locale, and we often speak in whispers or at least hushed voices in our bedroom or over the phone or lower the volume of the TV at night, fearing that even the normal pitch of our voices or the latter might sound loud to neighbours because of the extreme quietude of the neighbourhood. Although this is much more peaceful than what I myself have been used to all my life in my own locality at Salt Lake, it's not half as cacophonic as our current home, post-marriage, at Kalikapur, where rickshaws, autos, taxis and whimsical microphones seem to own the place, rendering us residents an intimidated and even apologetic (!) lot. Add to that my extreme edginess and irritability after facing all the honking, hooting and hawking on the busy intersections of Gariahat and Ruby General and there you have a very jittery me, contemplating the distinct possibility of not being able to pen a single line of poetry for the rest of my life. Talk about stark contrasts and bleak prospects. I'm beginning to feel quite sorry for myself, after all.


Our neighbourhood (photo : courtesy K-Factor)

Paradise Lost

I was just wondering how we react to changing circumstances and whether that really makes us master of our own fortunes to the extent we'd like to be. A friend put up photos of her sister's newborn baby yesterday and that was the trigger for these reflections. I just can't get over the wonder of the process of growth of a newborn into a full fledged adult and then actually leaving the nest to discover life. The sheer contrast between the helplessness of the infant and the ruthlessness of the adult astounds me. I was watching 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' yesterday and the experience of innocence transforming into experience was a marvel indeed. It's been going on for ages, this metamorphosis, and yet one wonders. At the cycle of life that fuses good with evil and makes us embrace both to attain wisdom. No use grieving over the once trailing clouds of glory and the angelic (if limited) existence that we were cocooned in. Much as they might have wanted to, parents have never been able to shield their children from the darker, baser side of life. It will happen. One way or the other. And they all (even the victims, at times) remain unhappy onlookers (and even participants) of that momentous occasion.

Ma slipped and fell down the stairs of our home on 17th Feb, 2009. Her nightdress and chappals caught on the rails of the collapsible gate that looms midway between our ground and first floor and dragged her down several stairs, taking her by such shock that it was all over before she realised that something had happened, and further, not being able to get up indicated at some unpleasant development. Mitu called me up frantically here and I ransacked my address book to locate the phone numbers of a couple of neighbours and relatives who might be able to reach the spot fast before the situation took a turn for the worse. Both Mitu and K tried Baba's cellphone but it went on ringing without any vocal response. It was 11.45 here at night and we had just been about to turn in for the night. Finally, we managed to communicate with Dr Sur, our neighbour (a very old gentleman) and Pranab Kaku. They promised immediate aid. A couple of hours later, K woke up a headache-treated-with-crocin-groggy me to offer the information that Baba had arrived and they had reached Baba's hospital to get an X-ray done. Ma had torn 60 of the 1000 ligaments of her ankle, the condition being serious enough to be bracketed as a simple fracture and impair normal movement for more than 21 days. Three whole weeks has now been extended to a month, Mitu tells me. The whole world has gone topsy turvy at the small Mandal microcosm and I'm just sitting here and drowning my helplessness and pain in words. I now realise what most women in patriarchial society lose with marriage : the solace of happily executing their own small but well-demarcated duties to parents and siblings in an oh-so-familiar world. My own situation is not the general one perhaps. Not everyone is living in a different land after marriage. But you can't but concede that yes, it has the potential of developing into the permanent and general situation some day in this era of mass migration and globalisation. The trauma of being a hapless (n)on-looker of the trials & tribulations of one's immediate family and too far away to be of much practical aid is an agony I don't possess the audacity to express in words.

This is the same parent that carried me in her womb for 9 months and nurtured me for God knows how many sleepless nights and days. Maybe she continues to do it even now. And here I am. A sphinx of solipsistic splendour.

Somerville Photos

Armed with K's anniversary gift, a beautiful plum coloured Nikon Coolpix S550, I've been doing the rounds of the locality of Somerville, capturing memorabilia :

Please click on the photos to view their enlarged versions :

A Costume Shop on West Main Street :

An antiques shop on West Main Street :

Dunkin N Donuts : American counterpart of CCD

Alfonso's- the best local pizzeria, downtown Somerville :

Somerville Public Library :




Somerville Town Hall :

Somerset County Administrative Building :

First Reformist Church :

Methodist Church :

United Reformist Church, West Main Street :

Baptist Church :





Stained glass window panel on church tower :

Historic County Court House :

Senior Citizens' Housing :

An Interesting House Nearby:

West Main Street :



East Main Street :

Making an effort...

Have finally taken Barnali's advice and emailed a couple of poems to a couple of e-magazines of a good standard and reputation. Have also mustered enough courage to send a photograph I took to another e-magazine of a slightly more multifaceted nature. Am keeping my fingers crossed.

Tried my own version of rajma yesterday night as K was dead tired, having had a long day at work. It didn't taste as good as the one K prepares, more so as I decided to experiment with it, leaving the methi out at the end. I think I'll leave this particular dish to K, in future.

We've been watching 'Oye Lucky Lucky Oye' in instalments (we are so lazy, OMG) over the past two days. Couldn't care less whether it turns out to be a hit or a flop. It's racy and ridiculous and roaring fun. Am loving it !

Am reading Coetzee's 'Slow Man'. I have a bit of trouble concentrating when a concrete plot goes abstract, but then, having read 'Foe' during my MA has managed not to totally unnerve me. Plan to finish it soon. Hope it ends as brilliantly as the other novel did. I remember having been impressed enough to churn out an appreciably large term paper on 'Foe' for our PoCo classes. I must have been really inspired, now that I think about it.

A huge heap of weekly shopping illustrateds await my inspection. This time, there's also a Holiday Gifts Special booklet from Walmart. I guess their Christmas is equivalent to our Durga Pujo. In terms of meaningfulness, I mean. I just realised my vocabulary is getting limited. Must catch up on my reading. The more you read, the better you write, I've always noticed.

Jhinuk has written a funny post on Srinwanti's orkut-related problems on our group blog. Had fun reading it. To think Srin hadn't know so long how to change her profile photo when we people have been vain enough to change ours several times in a week itself. Come on Srin, all you need is just ask ! LOL.

Have been GTalking with Ma and Mitu for the third day in a row now. Am on top of the world. Nothing like family gossip to cheer you up when you're alone at home.

Took some new photos of this place (home) and uploaded them on orkut (where else? !). They look much better, now that (1) we have a few more things to fill up the rooms and (2)I had the intelligence to use the flash.

Rony-Tanima and Pintu have finally been able to see both the photos and videos of Siddhant that we took during our recent trip to Atlanta. Picasa seems to have introduced a new set of options in terms of album accessibility. Well, at least they made sense to me. What with the new Gmail themes, introduction of video chat by Google and now this, I love the very name of Google. Oh, and I even managed to locate our block in Salt Lake in Google Maps. The place has finally received its due in the virtual world. Hurrah !

Sweet Somethings, Now Nothings

Grihoprobesh Photos_27/07/2007

I've been enumerating the things that I miss, now that I've been doing without them for quite some time and find my adaptibility a strange shade of extreme. My money plant (which Mamoni had bought me from Gariahat more @ Rs 20 but we managed to avenge it several times over) seems to be able to flourish without me there every morning, excited at the thought of finding a couple of more leaves perhaps having unfurled their tiny green selves overnight. The wedding wardrobe with pull-out concealed alnas on both sides and a full-length mirror running the length of an entire front panel. Comfortable cushioned chairs, a sofa, tables. Tubelights. A proper bed with a solid mattress (we're quite comfy here with a dark brown comforter below us spread out on a carpeted floor and another blue comforter over us). Lack of decorations and knick-knacks. The circular three-photo-frame containing a photo each of our marriage, reception and honeymoon, greeting us smilingly from the surface of the wedding trousseau bedside table. The room-that-is-not-only-a-room (a verandah, for the unimaginative few). The sliding-glass-window in the living room and the broad windowseat where I had got used to cosying up (with Mamoni) when I felt the need for my own corner. The colourful curtains that K and I had selected so carefully just prior to their grihoprobesh, when we hadn't even been married. Most of my wedding sarees, blouses and petticoats. A locker full of wedding jewellery.The morning pujo and the accompanying fragrance of incense that provided a heady start to each day. The other plants in the verandah that Mamoni and I shared the responsibility of quenching the thirst of, periodically. The hard copy of the everyday newspaper. Reading it while lazing over tea and biscuits. All the birthday parties, anniversary celebrations and wedding invitations. The much greater variety of transport (wow, I actually admitted that !). The freedom to venture out alone and not worrying about getting lost anywhere at all. The frequent get-togethers at shopping malls/CCD/Barista for just a coffee or milkshake or attending the first day first show of a much awaited film at Priya. The ability to haggle over things as silly as junk jewellery and flip-flops by roadside makeshift shops and not feeling in the least embarrassed over losing the bargain, just moving on to the very next one and starting all over again. Hanging out for hours at Starmark or Planet M, checking out the latest arrivals. Above all, our friends and family, who made us feel longed and cared for.

Our now desolate bedroom :-(

Well, I've sure worked myself up into a sense of wistful melancholy right now. I'd better wait for it to subside before I can blog on an objective note. Bye for now.

First days...

Ekhane amra Holiday Inn Express e uthechhi,K er client co. Johnson and Johnson er shathe eder akta tie-up achhe, tai they are offering a concession on the daily tariff. We reached Frankfurt early, i.e half an hr before the scheduled time of arrival. But our flight to Newark,NJ,was delayed due to technical glitches in the aeroplane that we were supposed to board...so we arrived a good 3 hours late in USA...immigration check,baggage claim and customs clearance didn't take up much time...luggage is intact...the limo-driver who was supposed to come and receive us at the airport was good enough to wait for the entire period of time.We reached the hotel around 9 pm.There's a MacDonalds just across the road...K bought burgers and french fries for dinner...we went to sleep almost immediately and woke up around 9.15 am here.Went down immediately without even brushing as the breakfast is 1) complimentary 2) over by 10 am.There were plenty of options...cereals of 4 types,brown and white bread, cinnamon rolls, cakes of several types, fruits of 5 varieties (melons,grapes,papaya,banana),baked egg cakes, fried bacon, 3 types of juices (cranberry,orange,apple), mashed sausage,t oast with a choice of grape jam/strawberry jam/peanut butter and yogurt, available in a variety of flavours like cherry,banana and strawberry, peach, blueberry etc. It seems easy to lose weight here as the dietary value of each food is mentioned on the container. After breakfast, we retired to our room,where the housekeeping staff, we found, had already finished the cleaning and supplied us with fresh bed linen and towels.We then each took a bath successively and watched TV.There were some weird reality shows being aired.We lunched on maggi soup,toast biscuits and yogurt, while watching Andaz Apna Apna, the CD of which we had brought along with us. We had a long nap and woke up around 6.30 pm.It was drizzling.We took our umbrellas and went out for evening snacks and to buy phone cards. Bad luck. After chicken sandwiches at MacD, we located the Towne Plaza, where the phn cards were sold...but due to its being 4th July, the shop had closed early.we bought some Chinese style chicken chowmin for dinner and returned to the hotel. There were some magnificient fireworks visible from both opposite the Towne Plaza and also from the Hotel driveway, the latter being just opposite the Branchburg park, where it's hard to get parking space ,the place is so crowded with spectators on that particular evening. After sitting on benches in front of the hotel for some time, we returned to our rooms, had dinner (though I must say, I didn't think much of the chowmin and prefer Indian-style Chinese which looks and tastes much more appetising) with the regulation fortune cookies and went to sleep about midnight.

This morning, we woke up quite early, finished brushing etc and went for breakfast. Today,there were variations in the breakfast menu. There were scrambled eggs, pancakes with syrup, potato pies etc. Now I'm at the laptop, while K had gone to buy calling cards. He's just returned and is trying to call home. Shall get back later with more details.