Kashmiri Chutneys---Mesheid Al Chutney

Ingredients:

Pumpkin, Zeera, Curds, Honey, Walnuts, Coconut Powder

Method:

1.Peel pumpkin or slice and peel;

2.put in pressure cooker with half a cup of water; two whistles and 15 mins simmer.

3. Mash once it cools;

4.Put the whole mush in a muslin cloth and hang;

5.Hang curds in another muslin cloth.

6.After 4-5 hrs; mix the two;

7.Add salt or honey according to your taste ( depends on whether you want it salty or sweet) Add zeera (lots) and grated walnuts or coconut powder.

8.Enjoy with batta , roti or aise

Kashmiri Cuisnines--Al Yakhin

IngredientS
Al, Onions, meat, curds, oil, badiyan, shonth powder, rohan, pudina

Procedure:

1) Peel al remove seed make small slices

2) Fry al properly till yellowish brown. sprinkle 2 tspn of slat over fried al

3) Pressure meat with onions, {after adding salt (2tspn), badiyan(1tspn), rohan(1), shonth powder (1/2tspn shonth powder)} for 10 seeti.

4) stir fry curds with cold oil till thick for at least 10-15 minutes

5) add pudina, keep stirring for 5 mins more

6) Add fried al and pressured mazz with its rass and boil for 10 minutes

.7) Add zeera ½ tspn and serve hot

Marraiges

esAs a bachelor i always wondered why there was such a hustle & bustle about marraige..why we would celebrate it with such fervour & gaiety(not to mention pomp & show) , why married women where so talkitive & married men in such a pensive mood, why marraige would mean the begining of another chapter in the lives of the married ones…etc

Now i realise marraige isnt all that we perceive it to be. Its more of living at peace with your partner just as if you are living with yourself. Coming from nuclear families, all prospective brides & grooms are totally pampered by their parents,so when it comes to living on their own with a complete stranger, it seems like an exciting & adventorous part of our existance initially but slowly reality begins to knock loud & clear.

The beauty of marraige is the journey in which we discover realms of each others being. Its more to do with being commited to the relation rather than commitment itself, loving each other rather than being loved, trying to change the bad habbits of each other without changing each other, to support each other through thick & thin : in apercu to be a friend,guide,lover,muse, philosopher to your partner.

In starting our new life we face many problems. differnt people think differently ,act differently, behave differently.It’s all a matter of giving each other time & space to get adjusted to each other’s personsality,habbits,behaviour,thoughts etc.

Love is important in any relationship.It keeps you going through the worst of times but a time may come when the love wont express itself through actions,words or deeds.Thats the time any couple can truly gauge the strength of their relationship.Inspite of whether your partner has had a past relation that didnt work out or you where into some other failed relation if the two of you are happy together, nothing else is going to matter more.

Love marraiges arent a sure sucess story..Eventually the Love goes & the marraige remains..As a pessimist once said “comparing arranged & love marraiges is just like asking is suicide better or murder”. So all of you out there who are wondering whose the right guy, just ask yourselves “can i be happy with him/her when i am old & weak.Those of you who are too afraid to try out a relationship for fear of failure i would just say “its better to have tried & lost then to not have tried at all”.

its commonly said that Marriages are made in heaven but celebrated on earth. What about divorces then?? So I think there is nothing like a perfect made-for-each-other couple. Marriage teaches us how to tackle situations on our own. How to adapt to a new family, a new life, new roles, and new challenges.

Marriage is another chapter in the book of our lives. It teaches us to learn new facets about each other with each passing day , to understand how the other functions, how we can make each other comfortable & how our lives can be better together. One forgets to think of our own self, we think of each other & that in itself makes us happy. In marriage one realises each day isn’t going to be a happy, bright, joyous day. This is life so some days we will be faced with hardships, stresses, tensions, problems, fury & what not. If we can resolve all these emotions together, then life is indeed going to be a pleasant journey

It’s often said when you marry a person you don’t only marry him but you marry the entire family. If we respect & love each others family, we will make our lives less stressful & more peaceful. With each day of married life we observe changes in ourselves.
One lady I once met shocked me by saying aloud“we shouldn’t let our lives revolve around our husbands, who knows aaj hein Kal na ho ya divorce hojaye…you never know
divorce is no longer a taboo word, itno ka hota hei..Whats the big deal”.

i believe marriage is more about love; it’s about compatibility, understanding, trust & true friendship. There is no recipe for a successful marriage, its all that we make out of it
i couldnt disagree more with “who knows kal ho na ho” kind of stance..thats being naive & clever at the same time.to be honest who has seen tomorrow,it could be judgement day or it could be just another normal day. by trying to protect ourself & our feelings from being hurt we cant just become like a tortise,living life in a shell..

even if we depend on your partner,we can give them the freedom. wanting to see our life inter twined with that of our partner wont make us obselete as an individual with independant thinking.its what we want /allow our live sto be.one has to be totally retarded to let relations or people dictate hisher life.i belive inheriting the values of your family is a virtue that not everyone can boast of these days.repect,love,caring & sharing wont ever be stupid.challenging all thats taught to us will make us a rebellious brat & nothing else.

loyality to our parents & partner doesnt amke us naive,it makes us trust our loved ones.partners exist independently everywhere..no one lives another ones life;no one can.but its the sense of having a special someone in ones life that makes all the trilas & turbulations of life seem easy–as now we have someone to share the burden with us

Live in relationships or experimenting relationships in the hope of finding the perfect one leaves many discontent & lonely at the end..we cant always have relationships on our terms.. the essentials of relationships should never be compromised but I aint sure how it feels to demand love when it’s not given willingly?!?

life shouldn’t end up in a compromise nor should it end up in just passing time with people who give you good vibes but no stability emotionally or otherwise
I believe if you have to demand love, than its not yours. If your partner loves you or you have been able to develop a relation which generates love between the both of you then neither of you will have to demand love, respect or care. It’s going to flow on its own.

I belive there are some tools which aggrendise the married llife of two people. One of them is communication. Communication between the partners is the key to a healthy relationship, arranged marriages thrive on communication. Two complete strangers live a happy married life essentially because they can communicate their views, likes, dislikes etc.
Another important factor which is crucial is arguments between couples is argument. When couples argue, they are actually giving vent to all the negative vibes that exist within them. After the arguments get resolved, the couples come closer & their relation becomes stronger

I guess there is no perfect recipe for an ideal relationship or marriage.marraige I believe is all that the couples make of it. If we can develop a relationship based on friendship, love, respect, openness, communication, honesty etc then even if the two have been strangers. They definitely become soul mates

The Pain of Wisdom (Tooth)

Its after a long time since i became an adult that i re-experienced the deadly tooth-ache again.Long back a sa child having a tooth ache meant a small duration of discomfort,some pain during the tooth extraction & then yummy softy to satiate the anxious spirit.

But alas!now it means pain,pain & more pain.I did hear people talk of Wisdom tooth as something that makes itself obvious in the later stages of life.Many simply extract it & many simply bear the pain without loosing it.

Somehow as luck would have it,i got my wisdom tooth 3 days ago, which amounts to 26 years after i was born & nealy 6 months after my marraige.Paradox if not paradoxical enough the pain made itself be felt after i watched the first day-first show of the hugely acclaimed movie-The Slumdog Millionaire.

The pain started on friday morning,it was slow & not causing much problems ,so i just didnt give it much attention.On saturday it was too intense to be ignored,so i asked a family doctor to give me the medicine.A plain paracetemol was all that i had,so i took it to ease the pain.As i slept the pain huddled me,threw me,made me scream & yet no releif was in sight.The tooth ache & the subsequent head ache where pinching my soul.The night seemed long & painful.At about 4 am i opted for a home made cure.I crushed 4 cloves,added some salt & little cooking oil to make a paste.Then i dipped a cotton ball into the paste & then kept the ball in my mouth near the wisdom tooth.This acted as a sort of anesthetic for the tooth & the pain subsided immediately.Thus i was able to sleep till 7 am.

After breakfast i got BRUFEN tablet from the market & began the course.The pain Nearly vanished for 6 hours,after 6 hours the pain came back.I felt like i was trapped in a unending circle of pain .It felt so painful to even gulp down food.

Yesterday was better,The pain was omnipresent as was the discomfort but not to that extent.I researched on how my friends & family had dealt with this & deduced that many prefer to bear the pain rather than extract the tooth.

Not only is eating an effort for me for the past 3 days,even gulping water or just sleeping quitely is painful.I seriously feel sick at times.Its like a two-edged sharp pin having been inserted with one end in your teeth & other in your head.Unbearable really

Today i feel better but have decided to consult a doctor in the evening to eradicate the possibility of inflimation & get the right dosage of medicines to be used.Now i am reminded of what my grandfather used to say “Wisdom comes at a price which not everyone is willing to pay”…In my case the wisdom tooth proved to be too costly for comfort

Starting Carieer Jobless

Right from the time we start our professional training,all of us aspire to start our carieers in no time & slowly move ahead aggrandising our knowledge & salary in the process of acquiring better jobs & carieer incentives.I was no different.Right from the time i started my Professional course in engineering, i would always look forward to the day when i would start earning on my own,have full independance in life & be self sufficient.

I toiled hard & long to complete my 4 year bachelor degree in engineering,just missing the honours mark by 1%.However i did rank first in my batch,which was very encouraging.Instead of plunging into a job rightaway i gave prefrance to pursuing Masters in engineering;not just because my father had done his masters too three decades ago but i wanted to have super specialised knowledge in my feild.In two years i had completed my masters with an overall CGPA OF 7.5 & again first rank in the batch.

I was confident that wherever i went now, finding the right job or the right employer wouldnt be a problem.At 26 i was BE in Civil engineering & MTech in Water Resources Engineering;which in itself was something great for me.I got married & came over to UAE after completing my Mtech.Finding the right job for myself wasn’t easy.The absence of experience from my CV was very hard to compensate by my academic prowess;however i did find the right job in a company in BOQ section as QS.I was on probation for about two weeks during which i was given some buildings to analyse & estimate.I was sucessful in estimating the exact quantities required & my superiors where quite pleased with me & intended to employ me from next week.What more could i want in life;everything was going smoothly

But as luck would have it,the next week saw the slump hitting the construction belly of UAE with utmost intensity.With the result that lesser work started trickling in.Many companies either closed up,or fired most of its staff,or reduced the wages or didnt pay any wages at all.In this situation i was told that i unless the situation didnt improve;the company couldnt hire me.
This was quite a hard shock to take for me personally.I felt like being the most jinxed person around.But in a week or so i decided that this was a godsent oppurtunity.I could practise the software & buildinmgs in the office 1 or 2 days a week & the rest of the time i could easily spend at home or enjoy by going to the library,museum,corniche ,cycling etc.

We seldom get the time to realise what all we can do in addition to our professional prowess.Writing was something i had long left in pursuit of my academics.Now having started writing again gives me a sense of freedom & comfort which i havent felt before.Going to the library makes me feel there is so much to learn & so much to see.Going cycling makes me feel one with nature.In short,i can enjoy life in a way i possibly couldnt while in the 8am-7pm job schedule.

Morever this crunch wont last forever.My job is going to happen after the crunch;so instead of sulking about not having a job i can well enjoy the period so that when i do have a job i will have spent the past in loads of joy …& will be ready to face the future with full vigor & zeal…What say folks

Dostana is Rubbish

i Had seen the promos of this film.i thought it had to be some funny kind of story with lil rhona dhona..i was all up fro it.i decided to watch it this past weekend & boy was i frustated..the storyline is so weak,it makes you think whats so funny about all this..the acting by all the 3 actors leaves so much to be desired..priyanka is in her worst acting spree & john looks like he is talking to deaf & dumb persons…gesculating all the time….oufh..the only thing funny was aunty…lolz
i mean the crux of the movie is that 2 hot guys want a flat,they get it at the cost of having to state that they are gay,how priyanka’s boss gets attracted to her in one go,how they are all into each other ,how the 2 guys create problems,how they express their love & how eventually she goes with the boss..oufh…the lil boy did better acting than any of the lead actors..i guess bluffmaster was far better than this bogus film

i then thought of seeing yuvraj cause it had rehmans music & it looked quite good,but when i read the storyline i was too unsure to sit another 3 hours of torture..when can we as an audience grow up to say enough of trash…start showing movies now..i was reading the other day of shahruks new movie which i feel except for srk has nothing to boast of.

dostana would be so more funny ahd they just used saif instead of john & amir or srk instead of AB.well preity or rani instead of priyanka would have added a lot of life to it..but if wishes where horses,beggars would ride them..
except for Taree Zameen Par i cant remeber any worthwhile movie that i saw so far…when will the industry start taking us seriously

Ghajni–A Amir Khan Classic

Since a long time i had long deduced that hindi movies where for the brain dead.How else could anyone explain the sucess of some Imran Hashmi flicks which where full of kisses,smooches,flesh show,hot steamy stuff,a little bit of fights & himesh’s voice & music…
However classic films like ”Mr & Mrs Iyer”;Page 3;Dil Chahata Hei;Rang De Basanti;Shaurya;Chak De India;Devdas;Hum Tum;Munna Bhai MBBS;Jab we met etc..would trickle in from time to time making a normal human entrtain himself without having to leave his brains at home!!

when i heard of ghajni,i was in a fix.the fact that amir had given his time to the movie was reason enough for me to go & watch the movie for he has had great movies to his credit including Dil Chahahta Hei,Rang de Basanti & Taree Zameen Par..but the storyline seemed too south-oriented wrt stunts,fights etc;;;not something to enjoy i felt.

somehow curiosity came over me & i went to see the movie here in UAE.surprisingly many young arabs had also decided to watch the movie only because of Amir khan.when the movie started there was total silence,no one even moved.the first half of the movie is full of jokes & funny incidents .everyone had a good laugh(including the arabs,what & how they understood is a moot issue!!).in the second half the movie gets more voilent & full of some tension.

There are some loopholes in the movie but Amir khans anger,restlessness & fury in the film keep you glued to the screen.the end of the movie is too good.one feels avenged for the wrong done to amir in the film.

its by far one of amir’s best performances & reinstates him as the real king khan of bollywood.shahrukh is for romantic,suttle flicks;salman is a lot better than shahrukh provided he concentrates;saif is ok–challable but the real king is amir.with movies like sarfarosh,rang de basanti,taree zameen par & ghajni he doesnt have to proclaim his greatness..he is great in himself…

all of you who havent watched the movie,go watch it to see what the finest actors in bollywood can do with a simple role…In another attempt to outdo himself there is a strong feelar in the market that for the next movie Amir is gonna gain oddles of weight..

Thats what a true actor can do!!hail AK

Slumdog Millionaire

With so much media hype about the movie ; A.R.Rehmans award winning music i was very interested in watching this film which was being hailed as a classic by many.Afterall it was after a long time that people where taking notice of bollywood movies.So i decided to watch the movie ASAP.

When i arrived at the movie hall i thought i was in the wrong place..Most of the seats where vacant & the film was about to start in 8 minutes,strange for the first day first show of such a popular movie’s screening in the UAE.Anyways as the movie started i was somehow reminded of the feel i got when i first watched “Salam bombay”.Though neither the plot was similar nor the concept but somehow i got a feeling of deja vu.

The movie is set in the slums of mumbai;how two brothers escape the clutches of a gangster;how then one of them becomes a gangster himself,How the other gets himself into a gameshow just to get in the eyes of his beloved,how in the end all is well…blah blah blah

the two protaganists “salim & jamal” have done a good job;sanjay manjerekar as the don is a bit irritating,anil kapoor has tried to overdo his role of a game show host(tried to out-do bachans image of KBC),the actress had no major role to play out but her acting was good..A movie you can go watch if you dont have many tensions of your own..surely

The movie is good,the script is good,the music has Rehmans distinct style.On the whole it’s a good watch,but not something you expect to watch for a movie which can go to the oscar’s.I would rate it below films like Rang De Basanti,Dil Chahata Hei,Gajni,Tare Zameen Par etc

I guess if one goes to watch it without keeping in mind that its of the Oscar standards;then its a good movei but going with high expectations will surely let you down..

Luck By Chance---- Movie Review

After having been discouraged by Bollywood films like Slumdog millionaire,i thought its better to check the next films @ home by downloading it from the internet ;rather than sitting in the cinema halls for a laborious 3 hours.At home at least one can move around & relax.

With this figured out,i was looking for movies to watch this weekend when i stumbled over the film “luck by chance”.The trailer appeared promising & it had a cast which included rishi kappor,juhi chawla,dimple kapadia,farhan akhtar & konkana sen sharma..all of whom have ruled the industry with their acting prowess at some point or another;so opting for this movie was but natural.

The movie has a very interesting concept.It traces the struggle of two newcomers;how they face the hardships;how they overcome the stumbling block & how both attain sucess at their own pace.

Farhan Akhtar is drawn to Konkana at the time when he is a nobody;just another body in the innumerable strugglers who come to Mumbai to try their luck.Konkana is a struggling actor too but she has done a few side roles in some films.A director keeps her bound to him by the promise of giving her a role in his new film co-starring John Abraham & Bipasha Basu.

As the movie progresses we realise how much the two protagnists have at stake.Farhan Lives in his Masi’s house,who advices him to leave this uncertain life of struggle & join his fathers buisness in Delhi.The two fall in love with each other.

Farhan lands the main role in a big banner film after being recommended by dimple(whom he accidentally meets & flatters in a party)
How entering the film industry changes his ideas about love & friendship;how eventually he sees the logic & rationale & how inspite of having come to his senses he is unable to get konkana’s companionship in his life again is all what this film is about.

Konkana on the other side is ditched by the director,who refuses to cast her in the film;how she realises that she alone can make her future happen & how she ultimately makes it big in the TV industry is what makes the movie worth watching

Zoya Akhtar’s film is good to watch but there are some loopholes.What happens to the Grandfathers clock that farhan lends to his friend who is an assitant director or what happend to the theater-based friend of farhan havent been explained however its a full paisa vasool..

something which i feel is quite a rarity in the times of today in hindi film industry

DEV D--THE MOVIE

I first heard from my friend about this film. He had liked the film very much;so i decided to download the movie & watch it at home.

From Google & Wikipedia i could deduce some facts about the movie; the apercu apparently seemed that its a modern day take on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s classic Bengali novel Devdas and directed by Anurag Kashyap.

All i knew about the director was that he had written the script for the film Satya(1998). i had liked Satya very much & was encouraged to think that Dev-d would atleast be as good as Satya if not better.Abhay deol was also someone i knew as capable of being a good actor.so i had the wish & hope in my heart that this would be a good watch for me..But as they say “if wishes where horses,beggars would ride them”

I wont write about the story, but I would surely like to opine that having spent a nice weekend in watching this film i felt confused & forced to think & contemplate. Its about love, but not the one which soothes the mind.Its about the Love of Dev who wants to have exclusivety over Paro & her body even after she has married someone else.

Its about care & concern,but not the normal concern we are allowed to express in society, its the concern of paro for dev even after being married to someone else..care which leads her to agree to make love to dev but her soul prevents her from doing that.

Its about what bad times do to a person,as they did to chanda but such bad times arent only what happened to her but a part of it is what she did to herself or rather allowed being done to her.its about addiction of drugs,lure of money & how life teaches us a lesson in different ways.Eventually its about what, how & where we learn our lessons .On the whole if you have appetite to contemplate in a pensive mood & your life seems confused or messed;watch this movie to get a new insight into the existing problems & well who knows you might solve your troubles as well..

this film is Not an EMOTIONAL ATYACHAAR..do give it a try folks