Life in Netherlands-Part 6- ..3..2..1.. Ignition..Lift off

And tower cleared.. It went ricocheting from the ground into the windy skies of the ASK Military base at 't Harde.

After months of designing and constructing with 4 other super cool international students, the rocket was ready for launch. It was a fantastic experience which involved some awesome rocketry knowledge, a chance to work with some brilliant minds around and a real launch feel . Probably the coolest project I have done till date. For the first time in Holland, being with this team made me feel at home.

      Best team I've worked with till date

Antanas couldn't make it on launch day

We probably had the best looking rocket amongst all. Martin's idea of putting up every team member's country flag was such a feel-good idea that made us all proud and happy. An international collaboration that truly materialized experiences in a plethora of domains.. We named our rocket MEAT 52, a scramble of TEAM 25 that we were officially called in the beginning.

Successful or not, a great deal of lessons were learnt while sprucing up the rocket. Listing few major ones and the entire experience of launching a rocket! 

We decided that a simple mechanical deployment system would work best (not the greatest idea-Lesson 1) for our rocket since we didn't want any hassles dabbling with circuitry and programming too much. Lesson 2-Nothing, I mean nothing at all is free of electronics and/or programming in today's science. I think it was quite simpler when men pushed the wheel cart!

Our rocket malfunctioned the previous night of the launch. Apparently the updated code wasn't working because of a software glitch in the system. How small things can ruin your life! Stefan(my skilled teammate toiled through the circuits all along when we lesser mortals who could not go beyond the definition of capacitors and resistors watched) and Eric(the electronics and programming/debugging guru) worked on it all night while the other teams and safety officers had set up a camp fire in the middle of a beautiful scouting camp situated right in the heart of a typical European countryside which had great big farms hosting animals like Llamas and kangaroos too!!

The campfire in the middle of nowhere

Yeah, it was peculiar but great.. The guru and the prodigy had set the system right before the night died and we began testing and retesting it. The servo behaved stranger than ever.. The gear inside wouldn't turn a full 180 degrees consistently. It kept getting stuck midway which ultimately was the cause for the 'after' condition of our rocket!

 Lesson 3- Don't test so many times that a working system fails!

Setting up the towers

Anyway few more adjustments, it was just fine and we retired into our sleeping bags. The launch morning wasn't a guest for perfect weather though.. Just like the previous day, it kept raining and the cold penetrated through my shoes and lost me my toes for the day. When you are in Holland, complaining about rain only wastes your energy. It rains in Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring!! And every time it does, it feels the same. A thin chill passes down your spine constantly giving you the feeling of being electrocuted! Soaking wet,we tested the deployment system and it was working. Alleluia! After removing and wrapping the parachute into the top section several times so that it did not interfere with servo rod that pushed off the nose cone during deployment, we fixed the motor with Olga's guidance and help. (Lesson 4 – Give more than enough tolerance for a mechanism that will keep your system safe). We went back to the tarmac and one by one the rockets shot off from the towers that we the participants had assembled the previous day.

It was awe-inspiring, encouraging and motivating to see a rocket-our rocket being launched. I got an opportunity to set off the ignition for the launch! ;)

MEAT 52 and some other launches

Rocket sciences isn't exactly easy or predictable, I can now sympathize with the millions of dollars draining in the gutter all over the world due to failed space missions. Who wouldn't after seeing the remains of our rocket that had a perfect launch but a failed deployment because the servo wouldn't just turn all the way?! The military officials at the base took the longest to find our rocket remains. The egg placed in the belly of the rocket that had to return safely to the earth (the competition criteria) was probably deep fried mid air and had shattered into a thousand pieces when the rocket nose dived at approx 200 km/hr from about 700 m high! 

What came back of our rocket!

We knew we had lost the run in the competition when we saw the rocket diving down with the nose cone still on the body after it had disappeared into the clouds for few seconds. The yellow of the parachute was nowhere to be seen then. But that was just one thing in the rocket that was intact amongst the remains, in fact we got it back exactly the way we had packed! The nylon was still roped around the cloth. We had probably tied it too tightly while trying to make space for the servo rod. Lesson 5- Make sure of the material thickness while designing the system. Everything occupies more space in the body than you imagine!

So our rocket's launch and flight were alright but we could not retrieve the egg safely, Mission failed. "Well, sh** happens!" grunted the safety officer. Though slightly disheartened, Martin's ever positive attitude and the rest of the team's pick up and learn mindset, helped a lot in digesting our rocket's demise. Atleast it would be lesser unknowns for the next time! Some other rockets that were working fine till the last minute faced terrible fate at the end too. But on the whole, the rockets not just from DARE but also NAVRO and NERO(all Dutch amateur rocket organizations) rounded off the day with some mind blowing show!

Wouter on fire! 

It was not just a great learning experience but also so much fun. Met so many amazing people, heard different stories, saw some great fire tactics display and truly camped after ages. Plus it felt cooler later on to tell “I just launched a rocket!” ;)

That was the first time I realized that it was not just Stefan who was good at working with his hands, it was common to all the Europeans there. They are used to working on their own. Some of them there had built every piece of furniture in their apartments! Of course assembling/transporting launch towers and rockets wasn't a big deal for them! In India, the usual age when you would probably hold a drill gun is around 15-16.. May be not even then for most of them(generally speaking). Here, a majority of them know how to repair any problem that comes with a bike or for that matter any mechanical/electronic gadget. It made me feel lot more dumb than usual! Why hadn't anyone let me try when my house needed painting or a partition in the living room had to be erected? Where was I when dad kept sending his old 70's bike for servicing? Or when my computer and audio/video player needed repair? Why hadn't anyone told me I could do it or taught me how to? All I remember from my childhood is everyone's desire for me to excel in academics and extra curriculars. India should be westernized from this aspect. We run to “professionals” for everything. We are so much dependent on someone else for everything. Why is it that we never try doing it on our own? Is it just laziness or pure ignorance? Are we afraid to try or do have a false dignity of labour concept? Or is it just because its simpler and easier to let someone else do it? Any which way, children in India miss out on developing essential working skills for life.

These people have done it all. Plus they are good at academics and extra curricular activities. I felt a little useless in comparison to their efficiency. But since then, its been a different story all together. Those couple of days changed me quite a lot. Every time there is some machine malfunction, I just think of the launch days.and some how I come up with a solution! :) Lesson 6- Just the mere thought of someone else being able to do the job makes you do it yourself first! And it gives a little boost to my confidence. Its not just me, most of my fellow Indians are now painting and furnishing their houses on their own which they definitely wouldn't have done in India!

The rocket days are something I will never forget for it has been an eye-opener to a new subject, new friends, new mindset and a host of experiences that I had come here looking for.

In the making of...

Unforgettable  days...

aeroyogi

15/05/2010

My Nicotine....

At the oddest of hours and the weakest of moments, I remember the one thing that always assured a great ending to my day, my nicotine. Even though I have been away from it since the last ten months or so, today I experience a powerful withdrawal hit which has weakened all my senses and has had me lower my guard. I am on my knees wasted all over drowning in a puddle of nerves, desire, fears and pain.

Yes, I am Swathi Krishna and I am an addict. From the time, I can possibly remember, I owe my dreams, goals, fantasies, pleasure, victories, failures, heck, my entire life to this incredibly addictive substance which has clearly made me what I am today!

I must tell you about my nicotine. Its the kinda drug, that had normal effects like any other would do, but in its own special way. It pumped me up a million times over, gave me a sense of euphoria and drove away my blues miraculously, no matter how badly the day had ended. I always had preserved it for the end of the day, which gave me a reason to survive the next! I probably did it once a week or bimonthly when I was a kid(mostly for recreation). As I grew older, responsibilities, worries and tensions came with age that forced me to use it for sheer survival! Where the deadlines had to be met, doppelgangers of all kinds had to be dealt with and fight for survival in the direst situations had been almost life-threatening. In such times, it was only my nicotine on a daily dosage that helped me pull through. Of course all my well-wishers forbade my regular usage of it, but I always sided with the one thing that kept my soul intact. And the best part is there haven't been any side effects nor will there be any!

And yet, it was this wonderful matter, that encouraged me to abandon it. Graceful enough to let me pursue my dreams. It was a choice between that and my career. It was valiant enough to let me go just as I was cos we were mutually dependent. Indeed, the beginning of this separation was replaced by my excitement of living in a foreign country which strangely had license to sell every molecule that caused addiction except for my nicotine. But now, after 10 months of restraint and self-control, I am on the floor, craving like a baby. A tiny bit of it on the tip of my tongue would do. But I am miles away from the treat.

It is available on almost every other street of an Indian city, (yes! Its legal very much because of its popularity and harmless nature) but each place serving it differently that every new joint you try, you rediscover yourself differently. My nicotine is not a normal roll and sniff kinda joint. There is an elaborate, gratifying procedure to savour it. And if the one who prepares it isn't doing it right, then half the euphoria is lost before it reaches your taste buds. There is a specific pattern to it and every sitting you need to have atleast 7 shots before even mildly being satisfied. The rhythm of the making of your shots stimulates your fluid production and the wait of few seconds before you can pop your first shot gets highly unbearable in a thoroughly enjoyable way. Pick-crunch in the belly-toss the filling-dip in sweet poison-pop it in before it pops out! And it repeats...

Yeah, Priceless is the pleasure derived from one sniff in the open air as you pass by a stall, hearing the smoking potato mermen singing gallantly to the lil' shy pulses in tutus, the irresistible crunch of the bad fat guy amidst its hundred brothers and the jaw dropping tango of cumin and mint with the sensuous tamarind sauce gliding in and out; all conspiring against your free will and ultimately taking over your senses. The quick and careful preparation by the vendor even amidst a jamming mob, the rush when you know the nicotine wont last long with the sweet poison engulfing the bad guy and the eagerness with which you pop it on your tongue gives such a high that clears your head in a jiffy like a seasoned matron. The tango of cumin and mint continues on your taste buds arousing every cell to join the celebration of a delicacy forming within you. And what more, if you cannot afford it, then may be you live in some dusty alley downtown!

And I'm sure I am not the only one, there are millions of people in and outside India addicted to it. If there had to be a society of addicts, the fraternity could fill up a couple of nations easily. I am not ashamed of being an addict, cos those who aren't, aren't blessed enough by this cosmos to dwell in the charm of one helluva substance named Pani puri!

I dunno how long it will be before I can get back to the love of my life, but I do know, when reunited, the universe will engage in such merriment unseen before unfolding a fair of life and celebration on every ounce of every galaxy!

aeroyogi

27/6/2010

A million times over....

Feathers spread warm and bright,
She glides high and might,
An angel so prime she is,
I bow on my knees to my goddess so kind.

Held me tight, has she always,
Picked me up from the ground,
Despite my ego clad songs so long,
I lap in her eyes tall and sound..

Not a word of falsity,
No pretense of being guile,
How, I cannot fathom her patience so firm,
That turns me round-around on ground..

The world might be lost,
For her thoughts have I conquered,
No straw had I picked,
To gain such an honor.

She feels my breath every arc,
Across the oceans yonder,
How, I cannot fathom her heart so large,
That can unendingly love beyond the bond.

When I crumble beneath the vessel of existence,
She holds the freight that guns her down,
Yet she smiles and hides me under her veil,
Faces the wrath and fury prolonged.

As I stand amidst the graves ,
She clutches me hard and steers me loud,
The world sneers at my deeds those deserved,
My tears trickle into her embrace profound.

She believes in me when I do not,
And converts me so with no afflict,
How, I cannot fathom her trust is placed,
That realizes a hope of life I dreamt.

The most beautiful of nature I've known,
She wears out in sentiments drawn to me,
How, I cannot fathom, an ugly wight like me,
Seems to her like the paradise's Queen..

A single lyric will do injustice,
To the lady I know is a miracle,
How, I cannot fathom I adorned her feminity,
If not a blessing thats ONE and true.

I would depart with glee,
To again be from you,
A million times over, I'd cry,
Mother, Thank you.......

aeroyogi
14/6/2010

Life in Netherlands- Part 5- Peakaabooo... the sun is out!

The smell of fresh grass,bright sunlight kissing gently on the the back of my neck, faint wind playing with my hair, tiny winged insects crawling up my aeroelasticity notes and lustrous ducks walking past me, all of these betokened the mighty onset of spring and the peril of winter. Even though spring started quite early and many talked about it as the Dutch would do, it was only today that I really felt the dainty season through my veins.

I had proceeded up the library roof top around 6 pm when the library shut down on a fine April Saturday. If you think I am a geek to sit with books on a day like this, don't you dare! If you bore my work load, you would condemn me for not working harder! Anyway, there were hardly few people up there and the weather was perfect. Not windy, not cold, not hot, not humid and definitely no clouds! I sat at the top of the slope and opened by notes and started pouring my brain cells into it.  I gradually leaned on my back still muttering the notes under my breath with my backpack acting as a pillow.It was so relaxing and soothing, just like my bed back home! :D That was comfortable. Owing to the sub standard bed and "cot" that was provided by the housing department, I had never felt like climbing onto it with my books. And there I was on the soft grass reading away like it was a novel. The warmth was just too apt in magnitude and I could actually feel my skin smiling broadly on the rendezvous with the sun after months! 

And just as I was absorbed into the surroundings as with myself, there came along a couple of ducks quacking along, may be something funny cos I felt like laughing too! May be they crack(quack)ed up seeing so many papers strewn all over me. Still on the ground, I could see the deep orange of their webbed feet like never before. Do all ducks have orange limbs? Now, I am confused cos I don't remember seeing such a beautiful orange on any animal. Or may be they were highly patriotic ducks, they just had to wear their country's colour all the time! :P Wait, did they think I was lifeless, cos the minute I got up to grab my phone camera, they almost flew from there! I had to literally run around the library dome to get a picture of those cute companions. they just refused to be photographed showing their tail all the while and keeping a grim face! hmph! x(

I just let them be and walked back to my books. Seeing that I meant no harm, they came back to my study spot and kept me company. They probably sensed I needed quiet and so they maintained it. With ocassionally a few swans soaring over,lot of light and air and not a human to disturb, I did a lot more than I would have done locked up inside! 

After a while, I snapped up my belongings and walked down the only slope in Delft as the sun decided it was time to call it a day! The winds were picking up now determined to defeat my hair in all good spirit and the ducks were heading back to their nests on the edge of the canal opposite the library that was posing like a shy damsel letting the last of the ducks wade through her. It still felt perfect letting Newtons gravity and inertia laws prove themselves while I had to just put one step forward....:D 

.

Back on the ground and near the EWI building, which strangely was standing still (every time I pass by it, I have the feeling that, all its 20+ floors sway to Holland's aeonian winds! :D ) was when I saw the planes flying into the evening sun with contrails trailing meters behind. Was glad to see the metal birds back in action after the Iceland volcano puked ashes at the skies and stopped the very thing from moving that would feed me bread and butter next! This global warming reduction technique is not only effective but also a spectacle to behold, especially if you do not know why! If you haven't seen it before (your kidding!) or you wanna see it again, here is a page of some photos I clicked. 

One of the good things about Holland is that you can look up at the skies and walk your ground without the fear of falling into a pothole! And so did I utilize the benefit fully today. It looked like as though the pilots were as eager as me to reach out and hold on to the sun for a long time as they flew directly into it.. If you can enlarge the photo, in one of the pics, it actually looks as if the plane is ramming into the sun, causing a solar flare ring outwards. Just as I wanted to lower my gaze, few gulls soared by across the contrails crooning in unison the song of spring and the lightness of hearts. A panorama that let my face relax in a smile and my mind perch on the tallest of the greenest trees! 

It was time to get back to my nemesis as the weight on my shoulders prodded me hard. As opposed to the winter and the autmn, my mind though loaded with a million worries, seems blissfully light and the confidence hops back slowly just like the ladybird skipping on the bark of the young tree right beside me. All of the flora were sprouting leaves and colorful flowers in full force. I would again be able to pluck those apples from the nearby tree in few days and there will be golden daffodils waving out to me wherever I go. Some air in the wind that said things would get better now....

 A flame of warmth, happiness and expectation surged through me leaving me smiling more than ever outside my humble dwelling.... Spring, as I have never before seen, is definitely rolling on its fastest wheel... :) 

aeroyogi

The big fat Indian wedding-1

I decided I will write a series of posts from now on about Indian weddings. According to me, its a waste of time and money. It tests your show-off skills, emotional quotient and it is the ultimate pressure handling test. Companies can use it as a tool to assess the candidates break down point.

They look grandiose, has a lot of merriment too but on the outlook. Do you know and/or believe the atrocities committed/undergone when a Hindu brahmin girl has to get married in India? I am not talking about the during-marriage phase yet, its the prior-marriage part of it. Let me list few of them for you. And of course we are talking about arranged marriages. I don't have to explain the concept since its got quite a reputation. Some favourable and some depiciting astonishment..

Of course, I am not saying all brahmin families are the same. As in case with anything, there are few exceptions but what is the fun in talking about them?? ;-) This tale could be of any ordinary or extraordinary brahmin girl. I cannot comment on other girls. But I guess its all the same. Lets talk about a happy little family which is not completely orthodox or has thrown all the traditions to the wind. A broad-minded loving family where the girl hasn't had too many restrictions.

The girl in question could be a graduate, a post-graduate or a doctoral degree holder. She can have the potential of being the next Sunita Narain, Naina Lal Kidwai, Indira Krishnamoorthy Nooyi or a Kalpana Chawla. But to the family that comprises of not just the parents, she is a mere mortal. An ordinary girl. Her dreams and goals could as well be treated like a mistake caused by her youthful zest and imagination! Once an ideal hindu brahmin girl makes a crime of turning 21 or 22 years old, all the aunties in the house start getting hormonically super active. Yeah, you read it right! The aunties of the house!

They all become mothers of the girl, crooning over her and start manipulating the actual mother's sensitive, scared brain and turn matchmakers at their own will without any prior consultation from the girl's parents. Oh yeah, forget the permission from the girl. Their estrogen production might have stopped ages back for good but the new estrogen rich kid in the block somehow activates the adrenaline in them and magnetically attracts them all like vultures towards meat! The uncles usually remain silent but on occasions they offer their advices nose-up in the air with a feeling that no man is born yet who can contradict them.

I remember a grand-uncle of mine telling "Good boys are like vegetables in the market. You go early in the morning, you get the freshest and the healthiest ones. You go by evening, you will have to settle for the rotten ones." Well, I so wanted to say "I'll go back the next morning". But I bit my lip. :-)

The poor parents in question, bound by the societal conventions now look into each others eyes. May be the only time after 25 years when they got married! But this time there is no pure, young romance in their eyes. Thy dread the near future. An overwhelming sense of danger is cast upon them. They fear getting into the "getting our daughter married" mode. But they treat it like a duty. A responsibility, which they were shouldered when they were born around half a century ago! They feel there is no escaping to it. If they fail to comply with the societial rules, they can be marked as bad parents. And they who have been the best of parents till then fear a black spot on their parenting record. They silently hold each others hands, once again may be after those 25 years when they first held it in their wedding, close their eyes and dive straight into the dark forces of horoscopes, matrimonial sites, Brahmana sanghas and of course the ever-helping relatives arms!

You can find a deep change in the way they talk to their girls. Fathers who treated their daughters more like sons, gave a high-five when they came back home in the evening, plotted together in pranks now start looking at their daughters more like- you-are-a-guest types. The mothers become unnaturally shrilly and start fussing about a simple acne that is sprouting on her daughter's face as though its a malign tumour that could kill her. Forget about sizes. If the girl does not look like a sleek designer flower vase, eternal doom is guaranteed! Lets talk about that later.

I will eat myself if a brahmin family does not look at horoscopes,the first thing, in times of crisis. Parents who generally do not believe in astrological influences start taking out the dusty old horoscopes of their daughters that was written when the girl was born. A natal record penned by a man, usually of whom the parents have atleast heard about, who people consider, to be bestowed with the knowledge of seeing the future. I do not know how, but this man can tell the exact year in which she will get married the day she is born. He can say which direction the groom will be found! I think the vicious process starts here. The quest begins with the aim of digging out the guy who had matching planetary effects when he was born. Wow, marriages here rely primarily on the day and time when the girl and boy was born!! Makes sense huh?!

Beat it, a man who is no way connected to the girl, sits in his private sanctimonious domicile feeling blessed about designing another human's life and people actually take his word on the girl's life. If he says the girl was born in the wrong time, she is chided after 21 years for not crowning out of her mother's cervix hours earlier or later! But if she did crown at the "right time" i.e something like during the fight of mars and saturn or during the mating of pluto and the moon for example then she can bring enormous fortune to the guy who holds her heart! I'd say who holds her dad's signed cheque book rather!

I am not saying this ancient study field is wrong or is senseless. I trust my country beyond any barriers. If some tradition/culture/a field of study was born in India, it definitely has a rational and intellectual dimension to it. If its been for so long, may be there is more to it.

Indian study of planetary movements dates back to the B.C's. Those noble men searched and found answers to several mysteries around human life. Those in the Vedic times(I don't claim to be an expert on Vedas, but having undergone few related lessons about religious history years ago, I can only think this as a probability.)wanted to know how man is related to the universe. They tried relating the microcosm and the macrocosm which research facilities all around the world are trying now! They predicted celestial phenomena which astronomers do today! Along with being brilliant astronomers, they were philosophers who tried to find the truths and tried to relate human activities to the celestial phenomena in the only purpose of finding a way to relate to the universe, beyond mundane. In that sense they became astrologers too. They couldn't be wrong in predicting the influences of planetary motions on natural disasters and human life. It is done even today but we know it with a different name! But what is happening today is men sheerly following a crude path to make a living. They follow a set of rules that has changed over the years to suit human needs. Today's astrology is something like an ABCD(American Born Confused Desi).

Is there someone who has actually studied the vedas completely and has full knowledge of the celestial occurrence? If so then he wouldn't be found on every other street of an Indian town. If so, he would be employed by the greatest research institutes in astronomy, meteorology and disaster management and the earthlings would never be less prepared for a disaster!

Now you are not expecting every Indian child's life to be predicted by someone like them, do you? Basing every important decision taken in a life on the word of someone who proclaims to know the heavenly bodies better than anyone else is outright foolish! What value does a person's will/desires hold then? If a certain star/planet/constellation was prominent a the time of birth, so be it. But how does it affect the later life? How does it determine a person's character?

Generally, in any hindu tradition for that matter, if the planet Jupiter is strong i.e in a certain position and the Mars is not creating any ruckus by being in the wrong position the girl is ready for marriage! Doesn't really matter if she is on verge of completing her thesis which could potentially cure cancer, she has to get married at that time or else she is doomed for loneliness, the rest of her life.

This is the point which brings parents to their knees. They would rather let the world die than conducting their daughters wedding after her thesis by which time Mr.Jupiter wickedly pulls out of his deployment! May be that is why there is still no cure to cancer! :P

Anyway the girl may well be ready to accept consequences. When so argued, the lectures begin. From every corner. At some point you will want companion blah blah... Agreed. Everyone needs a companion for life.. But who says if Jupiter decides to take a break form the same position, the girl cannot find a guy?! Of course if you are prioritize cast and creed, which is rather senseless, one would rather not bother after Jupiter decides to call it quits. And I wonder, how does Mr.Jupiter manage to act on all the billion hindus around the world? Why does it just stop being strong for a person? How can Jupiter be at the extreme of fitness for the person sitting next to you but be at the prime of infirmity for you?? Hundreds of girls are born at the same time. So all those hundreds should get married at the same time, with guys possessing matching planetary conjunctures at their birth time and in turn it implies that all of them will be found in the same place more or less. Right??

Oh we still haven't spoken about matching the zodiacs(rashis). How is it that constellations can be friends or enemies? And based on that humans getting married?! I am sure this was not what the Vedic people decided to pass on, atleast not in this way.

Ok will someone please explain that to me?!!

Ok, that topic can go on for days,. Didn't meant to write so much or get so serious! Pardon me. :)

The next step for parents would be to register their daughter in those money-minting small dingy offices calling themselves trusts and sanghas, in case they do not have "contacts" whose brother-in-law's, grandchild's maternal uncle's wife's sister-in-law's brother's son is available for marriage! Those old-fashioned staff in the offices set up rules that the house mates have to follow with no exceptions. A studio-picture where the camera man has a thousand lights on the girl who has no limits on her make-up and that photo which has been photoshoped with tens of editing steps clearly visible is the primary most requirement. The morons in there fail to realize that she is hardly gonna look like that daily! Mind you its not the groom's family asking for it yet!

Looking for the right guy. A brahmin guy. Parents who have never known internet, will become tech-savvy, register their daughters in all online websites, some named like 'asklaila' (doesn't it sound like a tabooed website or something? :P ) and start browsing the profiles of boys there!! I'm serious. It sounds rather gross, don't you think? The very concept of it makes me nauseous. Its the same case with guys I suppose too. The same parents who wouldn't allow their sons to check out a "girls website" and proudly tell everyone "Our son is such a good boy. He never looked at any girl also before, you know?" oblivious to their son's hidden talents, will encourage, flaunt and in fact use the technology to the fullest extent in browsing profiles and pictures of girls, commenting and having a good time of their lives! Hypocrits!!

I love bhel puri and dahi puri too! :P

There is more to it. Once they start finding interesting profiles, some coming from those dingy offices, comparison starts. Salary, Place of living, Status are the top priority. Mind you, at this stage, the horoscopes will mysteriously be matching and of course the relatives and parents-turned spies would have found the link in their contacts and would have extracted all the details of the boy! You see, in certain sects of brahmins, it is known that everybody within the sect is related one way or the other. Its like the pure-blood concept from Harry Potter series. Find the missing link, you find the true CV of the guy!

The entry of girl and guys still awaits. May be you first need to digest this post. I shall soon get back to you.;)

Tot ziens!

aeroyogi

27/03/2010

Agent Kats in the house! (Story 1)

Well, if you are wondering who this Agent Kats is, you are one of those who did not read my blog at the right time. She had shown herself to the world for few hours today. She is my character, born out of me. Actually she had never surfaced any day before. Few circumstances yielded in her rising.. A character that stole me away from me. I wish you all could read about her. But Vignesh just showed me how dangerous it is for the world to know about Agent Kats right away! Not that it hadn't occured to me but I was so in love with my intrepid, audacious, invulnerable and dominating character that I wanted the world to read about her. I still do. But may be a little change in perception was called for. You will get to know her better in due course of time.

Agent Kats. She was born out of abhorrence. She has a split personality, but any form she adornes, her ultimate motive is to cause misery and destruction, a gruesome end is what she craves and strives for! Destruction of those who torture, drill, bore and grind your senses and absolutely get to the worst side of you. I love Agent Kats, not beacause she is me, its because she is not me!

She is super sexy, carries an athletic body that probably won her medals in the Olympics, wears black leather, has a ruler straight hair that brushes her back just beneath her shoulder and a tuft of hair always falls on her eye. She has an OMG3 console that acts as a weapon manufacturing database for her. But she hardly needs it. She can move with the agility of a snake while can balance herself better than a cat! Not unlike a spiderwoman, her brain is razor sharp that can work on different areas at once and her confidence alone could just obliterate you. She thrives in an invisibility shell that senses the need of her services. Half a thumb tall in her shell, when risen from her slumber transforms into a dark, translucent, six feet tall woman with rage tat could ignite hell. She is simply amazing.. I love her!! I feel sorry I never gave her a chance to face up these many years!

She has had a couple of ventures too in the recent past where she valiantly destroys the enemy with her ingenuity, exuberant skills and robust weapons. Grown men those who obviously have undervalued her, have experienced the worst of brutal destiny. Her most recent one would rock your ground. Literally. What else can you expect with a 200 dB sound level?

This wrong-doer (we shall call him enemy target) smelling cigarette-ish had caused a lot of annoyance and misery. He challenged the powers of the all-prevailing Agent Kats and her endowment. Thats when Agent Kats exploded out of her invisibility shell. I felt like someone was giving her drum rolls behind! She flew out like a Ninja with fury undefined. As she landed straight on enemy target's shoulders, she transformed herself into the six-feet phantom. A spectral delicacy for the eyes! He could already feel her weight. Aha! Pay back! He began crumbling while Agent Kats only stood her ground! When the enemy target could no longer tolerate, he buckled on his knees. Agent Kats zipped out her console and threw it in the air high above. As she did, the audio command prompt bleaped. She muttered something to it and then I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. There were all sorts of weapons that lined up and then formed a delta. Odd sounds emanated from those vibrating artilleries, none that I could recognise. But I saw the target down on the floor screaming clutching his ears. I did not understand. The noise wasn't that bad. Perplexed I look at Agent Kats. Her lips twisted wickedly and pointed at a small screen on the gizmo that had stationed itself in mid-air right at the center. It was then I realised she was directing all the 200 db worth sound towards the target. Normally, threshold of pain is 120 db.When exposed to sound levels greater than that, constantly, it could lead to a variety of misfortunate abominable ailments. Agent Kats did nothing but to stand on his chest nonchalantly with folded arms. I wonder how she shielded herself and me against the sound! Pressure built up and blood started oozing out of his ears and nose. She hadn't touched him and yet he couldn't stand against Agent Kats' mightiness. His body was contorting like as though he was being electrocuted in a cold water bath. Sensing he had enough after a while, Agent Kats lazily pulled out the center most contraption and muttered in a strange language into it. All the gadgets fell into a single line, roved around the target in an involute fashion and swept themselves cleanly into the OMG3 console.

Agent Kats zipped the console to her waist and walked gracefully upto me. She never spoke to me but something in her eyes told me that she would always be there for me. I held her up in my palm and she stood there wit a benign smile. I thanked her and she calmly walked right into her invisibility shell. The shell simply floated into me. All of a sudden I felt light by a thousand pounds.

She exudes an aura around herself and anyone in her vicinity. Her power is ineffable and she is enigma personified. I am yet to discover lots about her. Atleast it looks like there is a lot more to her than this. When I do, the world shall be enlightened better.:-)

aeroyogi

26/03/2010

Life in Netherlands-Part 4-Studying differences...

Somewhere in the early dawn, still lying on my bed, I groggily parted my window blinds to see the wet road, multi coloured spaceboxes and the little glowing stars from the lamp posts and other buildings. Of course you can attribute the "star effect" to my poor uncorrected vision! Its become an usual ritual of mine to get a glimpse of the blurry morning outside the window before I get out of bed. I dunno why but I just do it!

Its also another ritual of mine to curse under my breath (I dont want that to be the first word I utter every morning) seeing my alarm clock showing 8:00 am when it just looked like 5 am outside!

Welkom bij Holland!

But this quarter, I had decided I wouldn't repeat what I did in my first quarter. Learnt few valuable lessons that will shortly come across you. I decided, rain or snow(forget sun) I would go to all my morning classes that started at 8:45 am. And so am I following my decision very tediously.

Back in India I'd wake up comfortably at 6, catch the bus at 7 :30 and sit happily in the bus till the traffic was conquered and then go about the day like a happy soul. That was so easy. The fact that I had to travel about 25 km just one way now seems like a child's play!

I hurried through my morning activities and got down to see my cycle lock totally disappointed with me and refused to open in the cold! Seeing that my faculty is on the other end of the campus,(about a kilometre) I had to hurry now. It had snowed the previous night and the temperature was pathetic enough to just freeze it all over. I hate walking or biking on ice owing to the fact that I have hurt quite a few "sensitive" parts of my body slipping over. I must have made a mistake in fulfilling my karmic duties somewhere along the line. The vengeance is appalling! But still undeterred I tread carefully as fast as possible literally frightened of the viciousness beneath me. Nature decides to push its clairvoyances further in trying my grit and starts showering some snow flowers and tugs the winds to crusade past me almost pushing me back to my room.

Frozen canal on the left and the icy-salted road!

My conscience thinks of me as a woman with fortitude and yes I wouldn't betray my conscience any day. With a deep frown between my brows I squint up to look at the sky that was still lapping all the different colours. It looked like one of the modern art paintings where in only the artist himself can decipher its meaning. Pondering over the pink, blue, grey and orange and dreaming of the clear blue skies back in India, I just pushed myself against the winds and after what felt like an hour of this drudgery, finally! lo behold! I reached the faculty. What a relief it was!

My faculty lobby.

I was so glad for the warmth inside there. I was already 5 minutes late but you know what? the teachers here couldn't care any lesser as to what time you walk in or out of the class. Unlike in India where the teachers (albeit a few) stop their teaching, look at you like a piece of smelly toe-rag and question you- "What I-say?? No time sense? You think this is your in-laws house to enter whenever you want??" and that which evokes an equally adept answer from the student if the teacher can be played around with. A million of which I am sure you can think of. And walking out of a class in between meant you would either end up in HOD's room or/and screw up your internals marks next time!

This professor did not bother to look away from his presentation slides and went on about the effects of flutter on different components connected to the wings. I sat down and started taking notes while the guy behind me bites off noisily on his apple. I have got used to this now but initially this struck very strange in fact offensive too! In India I was once told off by my harassed lecturer in a noisy class that did not listen to him, for drinking water "Swathi, I am an old man standing for 2 hours and lecturing and you are drinking water!" Like I denied him the privilege! Like any student could deny any privilege to any teacher!! That was for water. I couldn't imagine anyone in any class bringing anything that even smelt good. Forget eating except probably in my former HODs class 'cos he had real thick glasses and he could hardly make out what the front benchers did! May be some of the teachers took it as an offense too.

Through out school and college life, we have followed the custom of not eating inside classroom religiously even though no hoardings were put up. Guess its sort of inbred into us. Until and unless we decided to get naughty in the class, hardly could we set up a lunch table when the teacher is chalking out equations once derived by "noble" men that solved complicated questions for which, answers weren't even requested!

But here, I still remember the first day vividly. I was out of my wits. This guy walks in half an hour after the class, sits in the front row, pulls out his new coke bottle and uncorks it. It makes an unusually loud gurgling sound in the silent room with the gas trying to escape. I look around and no one is least perturbed by it. Its like they hadn't noticed this guy at all. The professor declares a break of 15 minutes while people go out, get coffees and chocolate bars. I did take a coffee too, but I hastened to finish it before the break was over. Back in the class again, I was taken for a surprise.. All around people started ripping open their packets and sipping drinks even after the professor had resumed the lecture. In India, only the notorious lot or those who wanted to get out of class did that! And to a bigger surprise, the prof himself was sipping coffee while changing slides. Now thats something I hadn't seen at all! Soon another guy just stood up in between the class, picked up his coat and walked out silently. I was waiting for the professor to say something. I didn't know how they abused students in Holland and I wanted to hear it! But the prof couldn't have been more impervious to the situation. I was dumbstruck. I then realised may be this is all common here.

Oh, students are never abused by teachers here whatsoever! Students are respected and treated as equals just like the teachers, may be not in terms of knowledge but in every other human way you can think of. Of course you have no hitting businesses here and the situations and people you deal with seem so sensible and full of maturity. I wonder why is it mostly never like that in India.

But you cannot deny teachers hitting you meant they cared for your development. You wouldn't realise it when your getting beaten up but atleast you'd realise it some day that some teacher cared for you so much and because he/she beat you, you have learnt something really worthwhile and good! I cannot see how you would realise if a teacher cared for you here. Actually I'm not sure they do!

As days passed by, I realised my previous realisation was true but I still couldn't take a coffee cup inside the classroom forget eating when the lecture is being delivered. But today, in the break, I zip up a coffee from the vending machine right outside my class and sip it slowly- as slowly as the lecture was going. I still cannot bring myself to eat something in midst of a class! I think after coming here, I am addicted to coffee! With huge books, monotonous lectures and hours in front of laptop, I need caffeine now. Oh! Hollanders are coffee lovers as well..

The coffee, chocolate and drinks vending machines outside the class in the corridor.

There are other changes too.. Hardly any professors used lecture slides to teach students in India. It was just chalk and board. But here along with those two, everything was in a presentation format. Its later put up on a portal where one can access the class notes online. The teacher-student relationship is much better in India where we get to speak more often! Here everything goes online. From schedules to meetings to assignments. One mail to all in the group and the job is done. No professor would ever know your name or your existence until you are acquainted with them for a good reason. And then students print out every single thing- slides, lectures, assignments-even those which can be read from the net!! I kinda feel the westerners waste too much paper.

My coffee mug and my nemesis! :-o

But one really likeable aspect of the faculty is its brilliant classrooms! Well decorated, well lit, well equipped for both students and teachers, its got space and the aura for learning. They have something called the smart boards- you can see to the left of this picture. You mark on it, you have it marked on the presentation slides! So the profs need't use long sticks or laser beams to point out above their heads!

One of the classrooms.

Anyways, after 4 different courses at the finish line of the day, I am again at the bottom of my well brooding that I may never end up getting my degree! For one though its not all that difficult to understand he subjects, its just bad enough to give answers in the exam which is never related to the text! Everything here is application based. Students are bred in such environments from their early bachelors. They are used to it. But me coming from VTU, where a question like- Derive Euler's equations- can be found in Pg 150 of one particular text book, its difficult to answer a question such as-Derive the condition for Euler's equation-the condition unfortunately pops out of nowhere in all the books! You are given a hint and the rest is left upto you to use your brains! These guys are terrific in math. I mean real math! not mere arithmetic. Series functions, PDE, ODE, are all second nature to most of them here. We hardly used them back in India. We were only aware of its existence!

You could say because of this factor and also me underestimating the exam standards, I have done hopelessly here. the main reason I have transformed to a new leaf in the 3rd quarter!

Hopefully it goes better from here. Got so many more differences to list, but I need out now. I will continue this post soon enough!

aeroyogi

4/2/2010

A lie...

The yellow of the leaves, strewn on the streets,

Bespeak of the dour glowering gloom,

The ripple in the puddle when my foot heaves across,

Elicit my nerves to a frightening bloom.

Smell of the wind, fresh off the barn

The spirit of battercakes baked beyond,

As full a promise it might seem,

Takes a toll on the kernel within.

Departing from a lie, did I dream so forth,

Envisaging a life of ecstacy and gold,

Riches spent on another falsity,

The gusts of merriment could speak out bold.

I erred and I look, now, for I find the truth,

I clipped my self to the lie I had brewed,

A life now I see marred by swamps,

I cannot walk without a stain on my back..

My hair trips across my face,

Stings like a mother redeeming her tiddler,

Frozen, I brush aside the afro and held,

I see them standing with a smile never so rare.

Overridden with guilt and shame,

A drop of tear escapes my essence,

I pity my term, and look for escape,

From the fear, gloom and the made mistakes.

And yet they say, you will return,

The stain just admonishes your further trials,

I hope with my heart they are true to the core,

For the fear of failure is nibbling the lesions galore..

aeroyogi

28/01/2010, 11:21 pm

Life in Netherlands-Part 3-Hoi Mr.Weather!

Moving towards the north pole didn't come across as a threat when I was basking in the tropical sun.. Little did I know of the effects the temperate zone climate would create on my happy little brain..

Here seasons are so well defined unlike in India. You realise you are breezing through summer or falling through autumn very explicitly.. You see the vivid colors in fall and leaves strewn all over, lest fall on you while your biking on the road unlike in India. Atleast in Bangalore you could hardly make out when the rain sets in and when the heat decides its his turn!. Forget winter,..you have the sun blazing all day long,.

When I first reached here, I was taken aback with the phenomenon of cold winds rushing past your face during summer! I braced my jacket then and always hoped the wind would die down.. The temperature in summers do not cross 20-23 degrees! And that was maximum in winter back home for me..People are so ecstatic about the summers here that everyone is outdoors and dressed as minimum as possible.. I did not understand when I landed here why people were so freaky about summers like they'd never seen sun before..Only when autumn set in I agonised on not enjoying the sun more couple of months back.

Happy , sunny initial days...

This is kinda a fair in the square set up during summer..

Lots of events, outdoor activities and parties are held and people make it a point to attend them. Now that I have witnessed the autumn and winter here I am sure I too will during the summers.. Sunlight is precious here..a rare commodity! I had a very short time with summer here though.. Hope I get to enjoy full summer next time.. I wanna go visit places too as they say summers are the best to tour around Europe..May be I can write more about it then....

Once autumn started setting in, the sun slowly faded away.. so much so that we live here without seeing the sun for weeks! No exaggeration. I never was a big fan of sunny days in India. I loved the showers there, had made it a point to get drenched every single time.. but here, a million efforts to like the rain here went futile.. Rains in India meant hot saucy Chinese Bhel puri at the near by chat shop and a hot cup of granny's coffee. While rains here only bring so much fog, chill, dampness and make you relive your past...its like the dementor effect!! You do not feel like cycling out to get a bite of your favourite hot Vietnamese Loempia even though every cell in your body is begging you to have mercy on them!

Rains in India always had a soothing effect.. it would clear your brain and ease the frown on our face but here it just did the opposite. Cold drops of rain that sting you all over sending shivers in the oddest of places especially if you are not in gear.

Nothing stops life here unlike in India where you get a holiday for heavy rains or where your allowed to skip classes when the weather is too bad.. everything works as normal as ever. When the weather was bad, it meant you were allowed to wake up late.. Still unaccustomed here I have woken up late so many days that there is one course that I have missed altogether because of the early timing. Not that the teacher was great and would have instilled "knowledge" in me if I did attend.

But come on.. you don't wake up when it still looks like morning 4 or 5 just because it is indeed 7 or 8 am! ;D

Trust me when I say the flash has added a lot to these pictures!

(You could also check my Amsterdam pictures)

Even after turning your clocks one hour back to save day light you see "light" only for 5-6 hours a day. Note I am not talking about sunlight.. Its just the left over light reflecting from the sun shining in some other part of the world!

Biking during the rains is anguish in its own right.. A terrible pain in the wrong place.. And as nature always conspires against me, it rained worst when I had to bike the most. Fridays!! darned fridays...I had to bike to and fro to attend classes at different faculties and there I had Mr.R(P)ain Casanova feeling me all over even with my protective gear on..

And don't even get me started about the profound effects the gloom has on your psyche.. I as for one suffered home sickness in varied forms, hallucinations, desired for things/people that never existed in that form, depression, self pity, self hatred so on and so forth..

Just a week back when the sun showed up all of a sudden full and bright with no clouds along the horizon, I was so sure I was still asleep. I had only expected it to the gloom to grow worse for winters. But lo! I was in for a surprise...I opened the door and the sun was standing right outside my door with a mischievous grin something that said- "You there lassy.. did ya miss me??" Yes Yes Yes!! Only the light years stopped me from kissing the sun! ;) I stood outside for half hour doing nothing but soaking in all the vitamin D that I possibly could..

See... The sun in my room! :):):) Yeah I have kinda grown romantic about the sunlight...;)

Couple of days, it started getting colder.. The small canals around started freezing and soon even before we realised it, it started snowing. All my neighbours here and me celebrated the first snowfall in Delft with so much enthu in the middle of the night..It was F.U.N. period.

I love the snow..Absolutely! After a all night session of playing in the snow, building a snow man the next night, and walking quite a distance in the snow at around -10 degrees; I am satiated.. :) A peculiar oxymoron in this weather is that its so damn bright when it is snowing. The sun is out in all splendour and yet it shows minus degrees on the temperature scale. Its comparatively less windy too.. I really like it.. Its all white around you and you have the sun adding on to the brightness too...

I fulfilled mychildhood dream of building a snow man too along with my Dutch friend Anouk.. Building snow man is quite a task. Not as easy as I thought. I suffered from a muscle pull in the night and a bad backache the next day.. But it was worth it all. I finally built a snow man and yeah he looked good for a rookie! ;)

Today there is heavy snow fall and its few inches deep on the ground. Its utterly fantastic to see this color waking you up.

Outside my doorstep.

View from my window that I woke up to in the morning today.

And the cycles covered in the snow are so beautiful. Its quite a task to recognise your bike amidst those many, all covered by the white fairy..:)

To avoid this confusion and to de-freeze my cycle locks , I have had to accommodate my bike as a guest for few days in my room! sigh...

But I am perfectly loving this weather..Though it requires layers of clothing and yet sometimes gives you the chills, its much better than the rains.

Waiting for the canals to freeze a little more so that I can go walking/skating over them!

That's the effect when you throw a snowball on the frozen canal.. Isn't it sort of spectacular as though shot in split second of a blast?? Its actually taken almost a minute after the snowball was dropped on the ice!

Spring is yet to come..but when it does, I'll be all ready to let you know about the beauty of Europe!

As of now, I'm getting a call for a snow fight.. ;)

Tot ziens!

aeroyogi

20/12/09

Life in Netherlands-Part 2-Ms.Nalapaka!

Whoa! Its been a hectic start of the week.. And I'm already drained out.. I need a bit of my writing therapy.. :) So I thought Ill let you all know a chunk about my life in the land of cheese!

I have been getting repeated questions about what I do about my food, especially how I deal with the 'boon' of being a vegetarisch (Dutch for vegetarian) in a country where everything starts with a 'kip' or a 'vis'! (Your right, I know these words cos I try to identify them first on the menu! It means chicken or fish!)

Well, well, I manage beautifully and how! ;) I do not miss home food and all thanks to the spices mom has sent and my culinary skills within the 3X4 feet kitchenet in my spacebox. I do miss eating junk on roadside though.. :'( The outside food here will come to you in another post!)

Thats an awfully maintained kitchenet of mine!

When I first landed here, Schipol airport smelt like pancakes.. sweet sweet pancakes.. For many this may be a flavour to drool but I hated it instantly. Let me get this straight to you all, I hate sweets, I hate the smell of it, I don't eat chocolates or the wedding confectioneries except peni, chiroti and doodh peda; even that has a limit of just one 'stuk'. ;) If you don't find chilly powder or chillies glaring evilly from your plate, then I haven't brewed your meal! I am the Mistress of Spices! ;)

The Dutch survive on bread and cheese alone of various forms. Naturally pancake smell wasn't unexplained! For them spice means salt. If you ask them to spice it a little more all they will do is add pepper to it and wrap it in a neat paper with a smile! I was petrified of the very thought about spending the next 2 years or so here.. I wasn't too sure of my skills in the kitchen except for making crispy, tasty akki rottis and that's hardly a thing you can do daily when you are supposed to be managing studies and a 'house' of your own!

For the first few weeks, mom's ready to cook and eat stuff saved me from starving. I binged on it all day long even when I wasn't hungry. That was my way of getting rid of homesickness. When the booty baggage started looking empty, trust me I checked for all the compartments a thousand times, I was forced to go shopping. Another time sucking menace that I hate!! Specially when you are spoilt for too many options, it can seriously hinder your decision making capabilities whether or not your a libran like me! So many brands of super markets with price and quality tags of their own and not to mention, the safe haven for all Indian food lovers like me-the Turkish shop..

One markt named Aldi..

Anyways then began My experiments with truth! boy oh boy! some major experiments with standard rules of cooking! On electric stoves that too.. I hadn't gone close to one in India! I defied everything that mom fervently shouted to me through skype, just cos I was lazy/suffered a problem of inattention and hence I brewed and concocted my steps of cooking.. Burnt rice, overheating the pans such that the teflon coating gets eroded, over spiced(yeah even for my standards) 'curries', forgetting what's on stove while chatting with a friend, the fire alarm friggin' ringing its bells off only to get stares from my chinese neighbour, spoiling a birthday treat of a friend(will post it in a topic called "How not to make kesari bath!"), burning hands, cutting fingers instead of onions, overestimating the freshness quotient of food items and having to throw away the yeast ridden saucers were some of the astronomically enlightening results!

However I strongly believe in the phrase "Try, try and try till you succeed". I dutifully tried everyday (and I still do!). I still didn't listen to mom much mainly cos I never had half the ingredients of what she mentioned. Abiding by her rules only meant extra shopping, nah! forget it! not worth it. Saying that I'd never compromise on the quality/taste of food I eat.. NEVER! I'm a connoisseur of food.. ;) Cooking is like chemistry you see. You need to know which ingredient behaves as what when added to another ingredient(s), the catalysts to enhance taste and the splendid products and by products that come out of it.. Tabulating the experimental results in my brain and applying corollary theorems to each of them, I noted a set of patterns in the conventional cooking styles. I deviated here and there slightly to get modified versions of many "difficult" dishes cooked by mom's in India who start preparing for it early in the morning. And all within half hour's toil between classes! I know,I know,,,, I'm smart.... :D

<==Here is one of my creations. Its close enough to Vegetable kurma and tastes yummmm.. believe me or else I wouldn't have survived here this long!

Aha! To the right(above) is is the pic of a bloating roti! that too on an electric stove!!muhahahah... Although I'm yet to decipher why making rotis fat is a mark of good culianry skills, I was happy when mom said its difficult to get bloated rotis on flames most of the time. And yet, there I had a cute bloated roti on the tava standing on an electric stove! Its become a routine these days! What do I say, I'm just good at it! Or else I'd simply not be called the Roti expert by my Indian neighbours! :D I could make good ones even when my "intelligent and nutrition freak" friend added egg yolk to the atta and asked me to make chapatis out of it!

<== There you go, another night's dinner.. parathas and cheese cum spice dipped capsicum!(capsicums here come in orange, red and yellow colors!)Oh yeah I make use of the Dutch items too!

Below is food for a couple of days! Saves me time at the kitchen counter during rough days ;)


There have been lot of innovative dishes tried in my room till now, some terror inducing and some hunger stimulating!

Beans gojju,

pasta with sambhar powder(it actually tastes good!),

carrot spread for the bread, bread-o-nion(its one word,careful, I termed it!),

cauliflower fry,

brinjal twists(an accident-I didn't want it to look like twists!),

raddish treats(it was the worst of my experiments I think...that was the raddish marathon week-one raddish was so big that I had to eat it for a week! a case of underestimation..I haven bought another since then..:D) etc etc and of course some conventional items like

channa masala,

fried rice,

bisibele bath,

raithas,

capsicum masala,

potato bhaaji's,

all types of sambhars

and of course rice. May be plain rice is the only thing I haven't tried manipulating. Its easy and I'll leave it that way! ;) And none of them exceed my time limit for cooking of half to 3/4th of an hour a day!

Indianized Pasta!

Wheat Pakodas! ;) 

Of course mom's parcel of pickles,chutneys n chutney pudis are all there to compliment my dishes perfectly to the last taste bud!

So lay out your plates people, the new chef is in town!! ;)

PS: If you have a phobia to spices even by a tiny percentage, you should stay away from the dining area! :) I am not liable to consequences arising from your foolish confidence in trying my dishes! :D

aeroyogi

2/9/09