Yosemite.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Let the midlife crisis begin pre-midlife


     It seems now the craze is photography. Fully grown homo-sapiens (sanskrit word, mind it) are into clicking away happily at whatever things they find interesting. At times its giant mountains of enticing snow, other times its reflections in water, seagulls soaring high or a blank face of a wretched Indian street urchin staring at you while you gleefully click away with your high-end camera. And all in black-n-white, mind it. At first you think something is wrong with them, your friends, I mean (not the hungry people, nothing is wrong with them, just that everything is wrong). People clicking pictures, writing blogs, learning languages, music,  studying way past their 30s. Are these the desi versions of mid-life crisis? As opposed to the good'ol American way of buying a bike or going off to St Thomas to live the rest of your life high and broke with multiple relationships. The same activities you found avoidable while growing up (only nerds took up music or read books or wrote poems) are the ones you feel like doing now. Kahani mein twist.
   But if you look at it from a different angle, you learn a whole lot when you pick up a new activity. It enriches your personality. When you look at your friends' photos you do end up seeing all of them and that too many times over. And its also a lot of hard work. Lighting, exposure, zoom factor, optical/digital, motion, etc etc. Even writing blogs. You might think its not a big deal. Maintaining the crappiest of blogs (like the one you are reading right now) and coming up with stuff to write is some work. Its pointless, why do it? Shit, why do anything. Its all pointless in the end. Point is, having as much fun in between, mind it. But seriously, this is probably what they meant by growing-up. Maturing. Letting go of your anger your ego and focussing on something constructive. So pre-midlife crisis may actually be good for you.
Samapt Dhanyaad.
p.s. Sorry if you actually know me. You know I am bullshitting.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Indian Food


    Indian food is designed to shock your senses. Lot of attention to detail is given to rattle your brains. It is so tasteful that you never have a dull moment unlike when faced with a peanut butter sandwich where every moment is dull and listless. Right from the modified maan-chaau soop to the chicken chilli appetizers to fish curry to the rice and to the cold kheer or garam chai in the end. Thousands of years of carefully moulded culture have mastered the art of shaking you up, andar se. Can you imagine, how many grandmothers must have cooked on how many fires for how many years before a dosa was deemed perfect for consumption. As opposed to the the big Wendy's hamburger which is so fast, effecient, wall-street'ish and ugly. Sometimes, you want to talk to the poor bawarchi sweating in the desi restaurant; ask him where is he from, what do his kids do and how the fuck he got into this shithole. But, you'll just go back to work; your problems are more important. 
    An interesting nomenclature history that we figured - about how the "Bhatura" was invented and named. You know chhole-bhature, right? So the story goes like this. In the olden days a couple was serving some puris to their guests. By mistake, one dumbass cook put a lot more puri-powder (maida?) into the oil. A huge-ass puri popped out. Right at that moment a little punk walked into the kitchen and saw the huge-ass puri and screamed "Its a....its a....its a.... BHATURA"!

Friday, March 7, 2008