Off to New Orleans!

So we're going away this weekend to New Orleans! We decided around two weeks ago to make the trip and ever since then, two things have become apparent to me: (a) The anticipation of an impending vacation is one of the best payoffs of taking a vacation, (b) A woman's approach to a vacation is vastly different from that of a man.

I think (a) is self-explanatory, but let me dwell on (b) for a bit. If you're a man, your approach most likely will be - "Tickets are booked. Great. We leave at 7 for the airport". But, if you're a woman, it all begins with the quintessential pre-vacation question - "What am I going to wear?". And one thing will lead to another and before you know it, your "incidental expenses" will outweigh expenses of your trip itself. So, a new top, a new skirt, new clothes for the husband, a bag of goodies from Sephora, a new perfume, and a hair styling appointment later, we're all set to leave this evening. Will blog about New Orleans once we're back!

PS: This is for my fellow makeup junkies. My haul from Sephora consisted of a smudge-proof eye pencil from Urban Decay, liquid eye liner from Tattoo, Eye shadow in Galapagos from Nars, and a soft-pencil lip color in Walkyrie from Nars as well. Haven't tried all of them yet, so right now, I can only vouch for the lip color which I also used at my wedding two years ago. So hard to find a good shade for lip color for brown women around here somehow. If anyone knows of any, please help out :).

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day to all my fellow Indians out there! Missing the unbridled celebration that is so characteristic of India. In fact, I miss it on all festivals too - the loud speakers, the pandals, the decorations, the singing and dancing on the streets - that vibrant, unrestrained celebration that we Indians are so fond of. Nothing holds us back when we're happy or sad, and I think it takes a certain amount of unity and love and pureness of heart to be able to express oneself so freely.

For all the Steven Slater admirers out there..

Slater's got style. The man is now famous for calling it quits. An overnight celebrity of sorts for not being able to take it any more. So, while I've given Susan Boyle and Octomom a miss, Slater gets a place in my blog. Why? Because, you see, Slater hasn't really done anything that remarkable. He neither wowed millions with a dramatic singing performance, nor did he push 8 babies out of his uterus and live to tell the story. He simply had a meltdown at work. Anyone thinking so what's the big deal? Well, it's just that thousands, perhaps even millions, of people gazing out the office window on a Wednesday afternoon wondering how much longer for the weekend to arrive, will now have the comfort of drawing a mental picture of escaping to freedom via an emergency chute, beers in hand, no less. That sort of thing can change lives. If that's not a big deal, then what is?

Now, I'm no legal expert, nor do I know anything about airline safety, but all I have to say is this. Give the guy a reality show already! Move over, Fly Girls (yes, someone actually thought of a show on flight attendants even before this exciting event) The most famous flight attendant in history is here!

Anniversary Present

Every year, for our parents' wedding anniversary, my brother and I rack our brains trying to come up with an idea for something nice to surprise them with, and almost every year we end up sending them flowers from one website or another - flower arrangements that look nothing like the picture online. Having done this year after year, my brother came up with a new idea this year. Rather than squander money on roses or jewelery (I know, no self-respecting South-Indian woman speaks of jewelery so condescendingly), we decided to donate to charity in our parents' name this year.

Since we're from India and supporting a cause in India is closer to our hearts, we picked the following charities to donate to:
*Sankara Netralaya - A philanthropic eye hospital in Chennai, India that performs thousands of eye surgeries, free of cost every year, for those who cannot afford it. We donated to have a free cataract operation performed the date of our parents' anniversary. What could be a better present than to prevent blindness?
*Akshaya Patra - An NGO in Karnataka, India, that provides free, nutritious mid-day meals for over a million schoolchildren in India so that they don't drop out of school because of hunger.
*Sphoorti - An NGO in Hyderabad, India that helps support basic needs such as education and healthcare for poor, orphaned children.

Our parents greatly approve of our choice of 'anniversary presents' this year. What better feeling than to help a fellow human being, knowing that you could make a difference with even as little as it takes to send flowers or a box of Swiss chocolates? If anyone reading this post is looking for ideas for a good present, well here's one, that's not only a great value for the money, but good for your soul too.

On Nutritious Cooking

So, the girl who spent the first two decades of her life eating pretty much rice, rasam and fried potatoes and absolutely, stubbornly refusing anything else at the dinner table, has finally started to pay attention to what she eats. And, she is amazed at how much she never knew and never bothered to find out until now. She first had her epiphany when she realized one day that she was no longer 20 and eating tubs of ice cream in bed would have it's consequences. But soon enough, she also understood that looking good was just a visible confirmation of the fact that eating right == being healthy.

However, much to her chagrin, she also learned that epiphanies do not have a ripple effect. Spouses, families, roommates will resist changing their eating habits, and while one can have a positive influence, it is a hard sell to get people to suddenly switch to soy and whole wheat. And she felt the frustration that her loving mother must have once felt when her daughter refused to eat her greens. So, she thought, what is one to do to help everyone at home eat healthy? And then it struck her. Sneak in the good, nutritious stuff, so that nobody notices! So here are a few tricks she found useful in making carb-loaded Indian food, or perhaps any cuisine for that matter, a little healthier.

Oatmeal Rava Dosa

Inspired from this blog, but adapted to my mother's recipe and tried and tested successfully on the experimental subject (a.k.a. unsuspecting husband).
For breakfast for two, you'll need:
1/2 cup sooji
2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup rice flour
Green chillis (around 4, finely chopped should be good)
Jeera
1/2 tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp red chilli powder

Dry roast the rolled oats for a 3-4 minutes. Then grind to a fine powder. Mix all the above ingredients together along with 3 cups of water and let sit for 15-30 minutes. After that make dosas using olive oil pam cooking spray (my new best friend). These turned out perfect - crisp, virtually oil-free, and with all the goodness of heart-healthy, soluble oat fiber no less.

One can substitute (at least partially) processed or wheat flour with oat flour in many recipes. Check out recipes for rolled oats rotis or oatmeal muffins. Tried these too. Tasted great.

Flaxseed ... in almost anything

Omega-3 rich flax seeds must be the easiest-to-hide healthy ingredient you can ever find. They really don't have any detectable flavor or taste (when ground; always grind for maximum absorption in your body) and you could sprinkle flaxseed meal in just about anything, curries, raita, roti dough, etc. without an iota of difference in taste. They are also a substitute for eggs in eggless baking. Here's a tried and tested recipe for flaxseed dosa podi (who would've thought?!)

The net is abound with many, many such healthy recipes, and the girl discovered that trying to adapt what she and her family enjoys eating into healthier versions will ensure that eating right does not feel like a punishment.

Note: Flaxseed must be consumed in moderation, not more than a teaspoon or two per day.

Those early friendships

Sue's post on her son and his little friend has inspired me to write a post of my own. I am blessed with decent memory so I have fairly vivid memories of some of my kindergarten friendships. For some reason, in those days, I mostly hung out with the boys at school. So here's remembering Abhishek, Arvind and Shammi.

So first there was Abhishek. Having both just moved to Delhi from Tamil Nadu at five, we were practically inseparable and happily chatted away in Tamil all day long while our teacher unsuccessfully tried to get us to interact with the other kids who mostly spoke Hindi/English. This continued until our teacher and parents conspired to tear us apart and put us in different sections lest we turn into some kind of social rejects. Heartbreaking, really.

Then came Arvind. Arvind was the sweetest guy and we got along really well. Until he lost bladder control in class one day, that is. After that incident, he was constantly the butt of everybody's jokes and I was too embarrassed to hang out with him. So that's how poor Arvind got dumped. Some of us have to learn the harsh ways of the world sooner than others, I guess.

Then came Shammi Kapoor. No his name wasn't really Shammi Kapoor (Bollywood star), but I remember him as such because he was Shammi's most ardent fan if there ever was one. Now Shammi, for some unfathomable reason, imagined that he had found a most captivated audience in me for his Chitrahaar song-and-dance performances. So each morning, Shammi and his devoted mother would hunt the school grounds and would not rest until they had found me. Mommy dear would then leave contented for the day. Shammi was like krazy-glue. Once spotted, it was impossible to get rid of him, or to make him stop "electric-shock dancing" (Shammi Kapoor's signature dancing style). I can still recall his chahe koi mujhe junglee kahe moves.

There were others too, but these are are the most memorable and perhaps also the quirkiest.

On journeys and destinations

These past few days, I have been trying to re-evaluate my priorities in life. The recent death of a very dear relative, well before his time, has got me thinking about my life in general. There seem to be so many things that my husband and I are constantly putting on the back burner because work and other seemingly mundane things occupy our time and our minds. That much needed visit to the dentist, our annual health check up, a much-desired vacation to Rome and Paris, making a "5-year plan", taking that photography class, investments ... the list just simply goes on. And time seems to be flying. Only the other day I was telling a wide-eyed recruit that I have been working for four years. He even said 'Wow!'.

Another thing I have realized about myself, is that sometimes I work so very hard towards something, but only after I have invested an immense amount of time and energy in it, do I realize that it does not mean as much to me as I thought it did. Perhaps it's the challenge of the journey but not the destination that interests me? Or maybe, I get so engrossed in the journey that I never stop to think if the destination is even worth it? For instance, I remember having worked truly, insanely hard to get into a top college during my teen years. And when I didn't, oddly the thing that rankled in my brain the most was not the fact that I spent all those hours slogging away, but that I had missed a basketball game at school that everyone couldn't stop talking about, to attend a tuition class. Sure, wanting to get into a top school is not a bad goal to have. But how close was it really to my heart? I honestly don't know. Yet, I spent the better part of my teen years working towards it, and in the process, missed many a birthday and hanging out with friends like a normal teenager should.

Anyway, here's an interesting story - http://www.wanderings.net/notebook/Main/FishermanMeetsHarvardMBAMeaningOfLife . It's nothing new, many may have read it, but it conveys a simple yet interesting thought. Sometimes, I suppose we don't really analyze what we're working towards or why, and if, in the process we are missing out on the things that truly matter to us.

And on that note, I encourage everyone to take an hour out of your year to get your annual health check-up done. It's never too early or too late to start paying attention to your health. You owe it to yourself.