A beautiful life..

#5
snuggling and cuddling up on cold winter mornings...

humming and hawing

diehard optimist or the world's biggest idiot, time will tell. Till then wishing, waiting, chilling....

conversations with the little tyke..

this one is one popular request..

dad (to Cinderella) : why are you wearing that T shirt? you look like a scarecrow
JB (indignantly): No baba (father in bangla), dont call her that! she does'nt look like a scarecrow, she looks like nothing!!
peals of laughter and many repititions follow..

A beautiful life...

# 4

a nice hot oil massage for the head; a really nice movie, I mean really nice.. casablance, birdcage (dont laugh,I love it!!), pretty woman, as good as it gets, the bucket list ....; a lovely tisane; comfy seating and an anticipation of something nice.....

A beautiful life

#3

Misty mornings, nip in the air, steaming cups of second flush darjeeling tea, a good book and a warm shawl....

in conversation with a little tyke

Disclaimer: This blog is not meant to be read by anybody below 16 years of age, actually this post, the rest is Ok.

JB : mamma, who is Doctor Spock (has been reading James Herriot,apparently it was mentioned in one of his books)

Me: a well known paediatrician who wrote a book on handling young kids which mothers swear by even today. I had a copy, which I gave away after you grew up, and when baba and me decided we won't have a another little JB.

JB: Oh! so you started taking Ipills then ?

WTF.... he claims he saw an Ipill ad on the Disney channel (parents watchout!)..... jeez! how much more does he know?

tea...

20 and counting.... yeah, that is the no of tea varieties you will find in my kitchen cabinets.

I was shocked myself..... ok! ok, there are a couple of tisanes thrown into that lot too.... rivals a mean selection at a tea shop or a cha bar.

My tryst with tea started when I was barely in my teens. kadak chai with adrak and a hint of cardamon is what I started with then (can't stand it anymore!). Living that long in Kolkata, the hub of tea trade, I learnt to appreciate tea, real tea.

Dolly's tea boutique in Dakhshinapan (in Kolkata) is where I bought most of my tea from (and still do, if my sister manages to make a trip there for me). It is an interesting place, the walls of the tiny boutique are layered with tea cartons, the rich smell of tea wafting all over, done up tastefully with brightly coloured block print cushions and tablecloths and little potted plants and bric brack from indian handicraft stores. Dolly, is a tea taster herself and sources the tea from her store from tea auction houses in Kolkata. Almost all tea of that quality is exported. People like Dolly (she was one of the first), realised that there was a market of tea connoisseurs in India too, so saved some of our best to sell here in India too.

I saw another tea store in the departure lounge of the Kolkata domestic airport.. Manjushree plantations and went crazy.. the loot (a part of it he! he!) is in the picture. My favorites.. darjeeling second flush and orange pekoe from the nilgiris

Now, back to my steaming hot golden brew..vintage collection Darjeeling tea from Manjushree plantations.. their website is under construction, so no link..

A published author at home.... and JB

After the ooohs and aahs subside...

Conv I:
JB : didi, did you get paid ?
C: Yes, not much though
JB: I want 10% of that
C: for what?
JB: because I am the brother.

Conv II:
JB : It's such a headache to have a celebrity sister
C: I am not a celebrity for getting one story published, but I will hire you as my publicist when I write my book :)

Awesome Pumpkin Salad from a food show

I love watching food shows on the telly. My first memories of one of those is a Jamie Olivier show which I used to watch every Sunday at 1 pm on most days with JB (the son).

And then suddenly there were a plethora of food shows on practically every channel starting with Nigella Lawson and Kylie Kwong on TLC to khunti kodai and ranna ghor on local Bengali channels. I was spoilt for choice. My son watches the shows with me with equal enthusiasm if he is around. When I am surfing, I am usually looking for a food or a cookery show and I can sit through them all.

This recipe is a dedication to my fondness for food shows of which I am a huge fan.

Pumpkin salad

This is a Nigella Lawson recipe which I improvised slightly to suit our dietary requirements and it tastes as good as it looks..

Pumpkin : cut into bite size pieces...... 750 gms

Onions sliced and soaked in vinegar for at least 2 hours... 2 medium size

Pine nuts peeled and roasted......... about 2 tablespoons

Spice mix......1.5 tablespoon (you can use your own combination, I used salt, chilli powder, fennel powder, cajun spice mix)

Thick yoghurt.....2 tablespoons ( the original recipe uses feta)

Parsley and basil ......finely chopped, for garnish

Olive oil..... 2 tablespoon

In a bowl pour 1 tbsp of olive oil and the spice mix on the pumpkin peices and mix thoroghly. Bake the pumpkin on a baking sheet at 180 deg C for about 20-30mins.

Once done, take the pumpkin out and cool. In a mixing bowl, toss the spiced pumpkin pieces with onions, herbs and the pine nuts with the remaining oil. Pour the salad out on to a serving dish and dot the yoghurt unevenly onto the salad and serve garnished with a sprig of fresh parsley... and enjoy!

social network - movie review

.....social networks.. facebook, orkut, friendster,linked in, twitter,myspace and hundreds of lesser known ones are just that... all about connecting with people and social acceptance.
I saw Wall Street - money never sleeps as well as the first one, Wall Street, featuring the young Charlie Sheen and the much younger Michael Douglas a couple of months back. That is about money, greed, ambition and what the three put together can do to you.
Social Networks, the movie, is the story of how facebook happened, in flash back, through stories told by it's founders- Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin and the Winklevoss twins during the depositions for two seperate lawsuits filed by Saverin and the twins. Eduardo is fighting for recognition for being acknowledged as one of the original founders of facebook and the Winklevoss twins are claiming the idea of a social networking site was originally theirs' . In real life, while Mark Zuckerberg goes from strength to strength with facebook becoming the world's youngest billionaire, Eduardo has dropped out of public life. That's all he wanted : recognition.
and what hurt him the most was Mark betraying him at the behest of Sean Parker (better known as the founder of napster, played brilliantly by Justin Timberlake). " I was your only friend'', he tells Mark during the deposition.
The film moves through the corridors and residences of the Harvard university... where a young computer programming geek or should I say genius, is dumped by his girlfriend. Hurt and angry, he hacks into the databases of various residences and creates a website called facemash.com where male students can choose, which of the two female students featured, is more attractive. As an outcome of which, Mark gets a 6 months academic probation, earns the ire of the female students on campus and is noticed by a group of seniors - the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra who have been toying with the idea of setting up a netwoking site for Harvard students called Harvard connections.
Mark goes on to set up facebook, intially open to Harvard students and then includes students from other campuses after he runs into his ex-girlfriend (not from Harvard) at a restaurant, who has'nt heard of his website.
The story moves from residences in Harvard to Pablo Alto in California, where Mark moves to, in summer, to look for investors and to do some more work on his website after Sean Parker convinces tell him, that that's the place to be for someone, onto something big, like him. In Pablo Alto, facebook evolves with the site hitting a million members (today it has over 500 million), VC fundings coming in and with Sean Parker's increasing involvement in the business decisions of the company, much to the chagrin of Eduardo Saverin.
The movie ends on a piognant note: a successful, rich computer genius losing the only friend he had, trying to reconnect....
brilliant performances by the leads.. Jesse Eisenberg (Mark Zuckerberg), Andrew Garfield (Eduardo Saverin), Justin Timberlake (Sean Parker). Great Screenplay and dialogues..
A must watch!

movies, JB and me..

Since summer this year, I have been re-living memories of my childhood watching old classic movies with my son. We've been through movies like Bridge on the river Kwai, Railway Children, Patton, The eagle has landed, Saving private ryan, Pearl harbour, Where eagles dare, The Caine mutiny, Guns of Navarone, many Hercule Poirot movies, with David Suchet playing Poirot.....the latest being Ben-hur. Watching it re affirmed my belief that every old classic need not necessarily, be a good watch for children. I send JB (.. the son) packing after the famous chariot scene, which by the way, even in this day and age is still breath taking.

Charlton Heston as Ben hur, and the spectacular and magnificient scenes like the chariot race or the battle in the sea, in the absence of digital special effects with real people and real sets would be my major take aways. Towards the second half, the movie goes into a biblical mode with the crucification of Christ, and the rise of Christianity etc.

The movie watching spree with my son, also got me hooked on to war movies, a genre which I have developed a fondness for, only recently.

A beautiful life..

#2

My favourite part of the day has always been the dusk/evening (5-7 p.m.) and everything associated with it. Working people coming home, those working late strolling out for a cup of tea from a road side stall; children playing around or the more stressed out ones, shuttling from one class to another; the elderly,up from their afternoon naps settling into balcony armchairs with their steaming cup of chai; cooks and homemakers organising family dinners..

I am usually doing one of the above depending on my schedule for the day. A and I usually go for our 3 km brisk walk, have a cup of tea in my balcony,before the mad evening rush to finish homework,organising next days' meals, evening dinner etc starts again.

Mad Men...Don Draper and co.

have been addicted to the award winning television series 'Mad Men'.. The lead, Don Draper with his mysterious past, silent,thoughtful, charismatic womaniser, the brilliant creative head of an advertising agency is particularly mesmerising. His wife Betty, is good housekeeping incarnate. The quintessential 1960s, perfect housewife,mother,hostess. More about the characters in the subsequent posts...

The series moves through the era when advertising was coming on its own and moves through various small and big changes that affected the world of advertising over the years. The advent of television, the changing social order in America in the John F. Kennedy era, the growing importance of America in the world of business,the focus shifting from the continent and so on...

I can't put my finger on what exactly I like about the series...... but I know I will be waiting for my copies of Season 5 DVDs, when it premeirs next year, along with many other Mad Men addicts around the world.

growing up....

when I am depressed,I eat a lot of chocolate... and then I walk, a lot; hoping to burn most of it off..

This one is for you sis.....

listening to this song by RIGHT SAID FRED brought back many memories... of you, me and our music in our growing up years...
Phil Collins, Rod Stewart and his women..New Kids on the Block and many more, our collection of grammy award tapes, our wall full of posters, craning our necks out of our bedroom window to hear the out of tune 'Hotel California' being played by amateur bands at the
Spring Fest wild fire nights and giggling our way through it and more....

Being Julia....the mom

I often wondered what my relationship with my son would be like when he was little. (Well, he is still little, but only for his indulgent parents! at 10, he thinks he is a big boy now)

Though I don't always watch movies more than a couple of times, Being Julia is an exception.What stayed with me were the last few scenes. Julia, a famous actress, has a complicated relationship with her son, husband and her own self. The only reality in her life is theatre.

Her son, now a handsome teenager, finds it difficult to comprehend his mother. On one hand, he misses the fact that his mother is not the regular plane jane mother, but on the other hand, also admires her deeply for the grand woman that she is. In one of the last scenes,Julia takes her revenge on a young actress, who has tried to take away her part, peace of mind and husband, on stage, probably the only place she is always 'at home' in....only bows to acknowledge the standing ovation when she see's her son stand up.

That one scene somehow sums up a lot ....

A beautiful life...

discovery # 1 : A nice warm perfumed bath, a good read before bed,a warm orange flavoured tisane and some old comfortable bed clothes... ummmm , lovely!

The Ghost Writer,movie review

Had read some terrible reviews of Ghost Writer, one of Roman Polanski's latest films released early this year.... The plot sounded interesting, giving Mr.Polanski the benefit of the doubt, decided to go ahead and watch the movie.. I am glad I did.

The lead, Ewan McGregor, plays a ghostwriter hired to write the memoirs of the British Prime Minister of Scottish descent, Adam Lang, played by Pierce Brosnan. The prime minister, along with his wife and staff is camping on an Island in the United States, with his ghostwriter who is only allowed to work on the manuscipt, left half done by his predecessor, in the confines of his designated workplace on the island.

The task of writing the memoirs is not as simple as it sounds.. as the ghostwriter starts his work, intrigued by the sudden and mysterious death of his predecessor. In the process, he discovers a sinister connection between the CIA and the Prime minister. The discovery eventually becomes a threat to his own life, as he uncovers the mystery surrounding his predecessors death. Read more here

Apart from the obivious, I am particulary fond of watching movies with a strong connect to the prevailing socio-cultural or political environment. And this one is definitely on the upper half of the list ...

I did some searches on Tony Blair, the erst while Prime Minister of the UK, who often came under heavy criticism in his own country for his support to the US admistration's various policies,especially those on Iraq. There were also some sundry blogposts and articles on his alleged links with the intelligence agencies of both the countries... and some malicious ones suggesting Cherie Blair's involvement as well. Ah! yes, there are also reports of the controversial arrest of Roman Polanski linking that too, to the making of this film. Read the report here

The political backdrop of this film is very very interesting, and there is certainly more than meets the eye. The similarity to real life events is uncanny, the shot of Pierce Brosnan at Martha's Vineyard airport, the mention of torture flights, the thinking wife who advices her husband on each step and is not just an arm candy besides of course, the various allegations of soft peddaling on US policies by Tony Blair during his tenure and so on....

A recommended watch...

blogging..

I have been blogging for exactly 5 years now. My first post on this blog appeared in Aug 05.

.. the tangine

bubbling away in my emile henry clay pot....