half century parties

So we are finally all set for both the half century parties and the 7 house guest we are going to have over the next week or so and 8 more over the weekend..

Spend most of the day organising the house, towels, sheets, table linen, embroidered coasters for my tea set to impress MIL, monogramed handtowels, trendy curtains in my bedroom, new plants for my living room, extra household help, RSVPs the list goes on..

Boy! I missed the house proud me, glad A kept out of my way.

Goa - some more hues

''it is very easy to like someone.. a meaningful relationship happens when you can tolerate the not so nice things about that someone..'' whoa! when did I come up with that one.

Had a great mini holiday in Goa with the family - my favourite moments: collecting seashells on all fours with Junior on the beach, watching A grin after a awesome meal at Mum's kitchen in Miramar after sulking the whole day.

We did all the stuff we had'nt done a lot in our previous visits to Goa - spend hours and hours on the beach, explore Goan food in every meal - Ahh! the awesome goan curries - Vindahloos, Sorpotel, Xacutis, Caldeen, Rechardos, Ambotiks etc etc - rediscovering sanas - a local bread served with the fiery hot curries - the sweetness accentuating the taste.

Old Goa - tells you a story - the ruins of tower of the church of St.Augustine towers, the Basilica of Bom Jesus, the Christian arts museum, Se Cathedral.. all nestled in approx 1.5 - 2 sq kms of the world heritage site.I only wish I could spend some more time walking around the site on my own - had to leave in a hurry, nobody else seemed interested enough.

The science musuem under the national council of science musuems in Miramar was a discovery too. Would definitely spend some more time in my next trip there with Junior - infact probably a whole day. should be an enriching experince for the kid - he wants to be scientist, more specifically a geologist.

Not to forget, also acquired my first peice of designer wear..

Finally off to Goa.. could do with the break. Was getting inordinately addicted to work, my laptop..Zooming out in the real sense .
looking forward to connect with my son and family.. :)

shaurya - movie review

one of the best hindi films I have seen this year. It talks about issues like ethnic cleansing.. desi style. brilliant performance by all actors - kay kay menon, outshines everyone easily in his role as the quasi fascist brigadier with a strong dislike for all muslims. Rahul Bose : we know you speak good english man. How about actually acting for a change. Doing alternate cinema these days does not make you a great actor. you can do crass commercial stuff and still be a great actor. As Sharukh Khan had said in one of his interviews : " people say that I act the same way in every single film, what they don't realize is how difficult it is to do the same stuff over and over again."

watching Narayan Muthy on 'Unstoppable Indians' on NDTV profit.
he says "articulate the values and walk the talk" about how he ensured he was creating a value based organisation .. very very powerful speaker.. Some more of Murthy speak "we infosyian's are not used to giving high marks to ourselves" I find listening to Mr. Murthy very very inspiring. Would love to work for a company which has a chief mentor like him one day.

reminds me of my many conversations with you D.
Suffering from writer's block at the moment. ..

Oscars 2008.. the big day approaches

We are so close to approaching the D-Day, the Oscar nominations for 2008 are to be announced on 22 nd January and I am no where near compiling my list of favorites.
So these are the movies I intend watching in the next 10 days (I don't know how!!) which most pundits claim are the favorites for this year..

1. Atonement
2.My Blueberry nights (would have seen it earlier, but Norah Jones reminds me of someone I despise, but I shall watch it now)
3.Reservation Road
4.No Country for old men
5.Charlie Wilson's War
6.American Gangster
7.Kite Runner (though I am pretty sure this won't win, even if nominated for the same reasons walk the line did'nt, the book is too widely read. Everyone has an opinion.)
8. The Diving Bell and the butterfly.

Mad Money and Bucket List are on the list as well. Nothing to do with an oscar though.

The bong connection

Made maccher jhol this afternoon which would have definitely made mother-in-law from Kolkata proud.
The Maach was rohu fish (the fishmonger swears it is a sweet water fish from the rivers of Gujrat) and the jhol was patla jhol or thin gravy made from tomatoes, onions and masalas and delicately flavoured with kalo jeere

A good sunday afternoon watch..

'Summer with Nikita' is an idylllic Ingmar Bergman film.. story of two adolescent lovers, harry and nikita who fall in love, go on a boating holiday in summer, get married and have a baby.. The movies was banned in the year it was produced in the US was being too explicit (1957.. not too sure)
The local DVD library (which has suddenly gone up in my estimation) is doing a retrospective on bergman films and movie hungry people like me are riding it. They did one on hitchcock films, then satyajit ray films, award winning foreign films and than finally bergman films..way to go, guys!!

The 80th Academy Awards, 2008

.. will be held at Kodak theatre on 24 th Feb 2008. The pundits have started predicting the front runners... none of the films have generated the kind of euphoria which one saw with the release of crash or the departed or walk the line last year.
The DVD library has none of the films on the favorites list.. I hope I get to see them on time this year.

one of the few things I would definitely like to do before I turn 40 is do the film appreciation course and see one full international film festival..

Finally watched terms of endearment on DVD one evening.I had been trying to watch the movie for a long time but never really got round to it. The movie is an adaptation of James Brook's book, beautifully made. Shirely McLaine is brilliant and Jack Nicolson..still breathtaking. the movie is the story of the lives of a mother and daughter over 25 years (or more, I lost count). It makes you laugh and cry both at the same time. Some how reminded me of Eric Segal's 'Love story'.
Much as I ride the pace at work, I miss my movie evenings. There were several of those earlier.

'Slummy mummy' is what they call them these days.. I came across the term in newsweek which said that momzillas is actually becoming a phenomenon.
Scary huh!

highs and lows of motherhood

Junior's rough copy for school was finishing. We had only 5 pages left in the beginning of the week. Irritated on being reminded three days in row to get him a new one, I gave him some money in a brown envelope and told him, "buy it yourself, from the staionary shop in school''.
He came back today from school with a brand new 200 pages double line copy from school and handed me the brown envelope with the change.
.....my son is growing up, I'll miss him :(

ernesto 'che' guevara

I have always been fascinated with che... ever since I found his biography among my fathers humongous collection of Communist literature as a teenager.
Ernesto che Geuvara, an obscure Argentinian doctor who lead the Cuban revolution with his band of guerillas and overthrew the then reigning dictator, Batista.
There is always been some amount of mystical romanticisn associated with Che's image. Even more after his death. He was killed by the army (or some say the CIA) in the Bolivian jungles organizing guerilla fighters in 1967.
Cinderella recommended a mexican movie called 'the motorcycle diaries'. the movie is based on a journals written by Che and his friend Alberto who travel all over South America to do their medical residency at a leper colony at the banks of the Amazon. The movie starts as a travellogue but ends on a sombre intense note. It succesfully shows Ernesto's transformation from a fresh faced school boy romping around the country side to an intense young man troubled by the social injustice of the South American poor.
After watching the movie a few times I revisited my fascination for handsome and charming Che. This was a couple of years back and once again my fascination with the poster boy of communism was forgotten in the sands of time.
2 years later, at home, irritated with my illness, while surfing channels I came across a TV program on the history channel on Che..
and so I write on..

2008 Oscars countdown..

My Oscar party list of invitees seems to be growing steadily...SIL & I will finally have the party together across the globe, at the same time. She will serve dinner and I will serve breakfast :)
The list so far..
1 film critic, 1 writer, 2 students, 1 doctor, 1 film director and teacher of film studies, 1 grandma, 1 HR head honcho , 1 ex HR head honcho...
eclectic enough ? think so..

High on life

I am high on : kids, work... :)

kids : Cinderella topped in two subjects in SYBA , Junior is getting a trophy for academics and coming first in quiz .
work : rocks
my food.. never fails to diappoint

The Joshi museum of miniature railway, Pune

Finally, I took junior and cinderella to the JMMR in Kothrud, a very maharastrian locale in Pune.I had been hunting for the place for the eversince I heard of it 2 years ago, finally found the address and phone number in a book called 'my Pune, travel book' under the things for children to do section.
Located in a robust, husting and bustling lane off Karve Road, the local maratha fervour is unmistakable. You see dozens of educated parents trudging into the museum every Saturday and Sunday with little tykes in tow.
The musuem has a giant turntable on the first floor with a huge miniature railway set up - there are all kinds of trains (42 kinds claims a pamphlet) and mechanical toys: a moving ferris wheels , a circus tent which goes up , a chimney which emits smoke, cars which move and accompanying commentary in Marathi, people who can't understand marathi are given headphones for english commentary.. the whole thing is orchestrated : It is a 20-30 mins show.

The museum was set up by Bhau Joshi, an engineer and a miniature railway enthusiast, who unfortunately died just six months after the
museum was inaugrated. His son Dr.Ravi Joshi runs the museum now.
The place is quaint , old fashioned and devoid of modern trappings but surprizingly well organized.

(the museum is only open in the weekends between 5-8 p.m., special arrangements , however, can be made for block bookings, tickets cost Rs.25 per head for adults and children above 3 years.)

Needless to say, Junior, Cinderella and me had a great time. Junior spend all morning today trying to re create the set up with his cheap chinese train tracks I bought him from the hobby shop as a souvenier, Lego and matchbox cars.

the basu trail..

I thought i had to immortalize this ...

A and I have been chinese food ethusiasts for for as long as I can remmember. Our association with chinese food started in Kolkata . In Kolkata everyone likes chinese food..the city has restaurants all over the place and not to mention Tangra or old china town.
A ghetto of chinese residents in the north eastern part of the city. But the chinese here are far from economically challenged. Most chinese families here live in huge mansions and run fairly various business : tanneries, chinese sauce production units, successful beauty parlours and almost all of them run chinese restaurants on the ground floor of their mansions. The community is very close knit and it is not unusual to come across a big mama in one these restaurants who understands little or no english. These restaurants are always run by members of the family.. you would more often not find the daughter or daughter in law of the family handling the till and ushering in guests. The food is what I would call Indian Chinese or Calcutta Chinese as it is known in other parts of the world.
Also this is the only place in Kolkata where one could get alcohol even on dry days ..if you can get past the long line of cars and cabs that is.
At one point A would have his lunch everday in a restaurant in Tangra called 'lily's kitchen'' which served the best panfried noodles I have ever had .
When we moved to Pune, chinese food options were limited, so we decided to start cooking at home. thanks to A's travels availability of ingredients was never an issue.
And our cooking at home evolved over a period of time. As far as chinese is concerned A is strictly a recipe book chef. We started with books like easy to cook chinese to land of plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop.Fuchsia Dunlop is a hot favourite with us.. She has studied Sichuan Cuisine in Chengdu from the Sichuan institute of higher cuisine.
She consults with a restaurant called 'bar shu'' in chine town near SoHo in London.
We celebrated A's 49th birthday in Bar Shu this year. A discovered the restaurant on one of his trips to London about a year ago. He frequented Bar Shu so often that the staff did'nt realize he did'nt live in London. He had a pattern. he would go for a drink to this pub across the street from barshu called the 'the dog and duck'' and then have dinner in bar shu before calling it a night. He did this trail with clients, colleagues and friends who then coined the term 'the basu trails'' for these evenings .In my one week in London, I had dinner there 3 times.
Bar Shu serves exquisite Sichuan food. We do almost all the dishes on the menu at barshu and to quote some of over zealous admirers of A's culinary skills 'you do them better''.. dan dan noodle,mouth numbing chicken, boiled beef, preserved eggs and the like.

movies and me..

Just got back after seeing ocean's thirteen with Cinderella. George Clooney and Brad Pitt seem to be growing hotter as they grow older.. or maybe it is my evolved taste in men. the older the better.. so long they are not grandpas.
Ocean's thirteen is definitely a much better watch than Ocean's twelve.. though all the three are a great recommemdation for your personal DVD library collection. Steven Sodenberg got all of them in and you even got a glimpse of Andy Garcia..
The same setting.. las vegas casino and boy! I loved the dialogues. This film definitely lifts your spirits..

Saw a very different film with A last night: ' Amadeus '.. a sublime film. Will write about it when I have finished watching it..

one has moved on in life..

to a new job, opportunities and relationship.

Things have really changed since I lasted posted anything on this blog. I wanted change and boy! what a change it has been!

Work is engrossing and exciting.. an opportunity to create something from nothing. I could develop this into a core competency one day.
And I have finally found a mentor. We have a intellectually stimulating relationship. He says, he was like me when he was younger... that is the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long long time. Wishful thinking though!

we are back!!!!

and delighted to be..