Month: August 2011

Anna Hazare.

That is a note that my grand niece and Padmum’s grand daughter Uttara, sent on behalf of her sister Madhura and herself, to Anna Hazare.

Her obviously very proud parents have this to say about it.

“After writing the note she asked me how we could give it to Anna. Before I could think of a suitable reply, she had ‘offered’ her letter to the TV broadcast ‘Here Anna, my letter'” – Vandana her mother.

“If 5+ year old Uttara can be passionate and is hopeful that “the Governmint has stopt caroppthan” (corruption) then there is hope for my country!” – Jai her father.

This is the four of them.

Time – 2.

When I wrote my post on Time I did not anticipate a sequel to it. At that point it was just a rant to get something out of my system.

Call it synchronicity or serendipity or coincidence or whatever, I have now come across a fantastic interpretation of Time that I wish to share with my readers.

I shall not write much about it, but will let the first link to Roman Opalka and the second link to Stefany Anne Golberg‘s write up on his work.

And not to stop there, I had a new reader/commentator Susan come to my blog and on exploring her blog I came across her post, How Long Is Now, which led me to a fascinating writer whose book I have just ordered for.

Time sure is funny!

Mula-Mutha River – II

Earlier this month, on the 2nd of August I had written about the river on the bank of which our township is located.

I had an occasion to cross the second bridge on that post this morning. This is what it looked like earlier this month.

And this is what the Mula-Mutha looked like this morning.

Incessant rains have played havoc in some parts of our city and some families have had to be evacuated.

The rains continue and hopefully will start abating from this week.

Aleemuddin Carpetwallah.

My readers would by now be familiar with the variety of pherrywallahs that ply their trades on our streets.

This post is about another such pherrywallah who finds his place here not because he supplies me with his ware regularly but, for the sheer novelty of his business. The very nature of his product makes his trade high value low turnover and infrequent purchases from the same clientele.

Aleemuddin the vendor, and his younger cousin Altaf are originally from Shopalpur where there is a small carpet making cottage industry in its last legs. His family have been weaving carpets for generations going back to Mogul days when they supplied carpets to the ever moving armies in the Deccan plateau. Today, that cottage industry faces extinction due to competition from machine made carpets and so Aleemuddin sources carpets from other centers in India in the northern parts as well as from his own family’s dwindling output.

You can see that to switch from a manufacturer to a trader, Aleem has brought in man made carpets as well as smaller items like door mats to sustain himself.
He is not very verbose, but maintains that he makes enough to sustain himself and his immediate family of a wife and one child with another on the way. He however says that he will see that his children get proper education and go on to other livelihoods rather than the family business of carpets.

Baby Blues.

My virtual world betrothed Ursula does not believe in Synchronicity, but has agreed to at least look into it as too many things are happening in her life to remind her of my obsession with it.

Here is another case Ursula. I read your post on Gerard Depardieu yesterday and chuckled at some old memories. This morning, the funnies section of our local tabloid has this:

You will get to see a larger version if you click on the image.

And as if that was not enough, I got this in this morning’s mail from a friend who thinks that I need to laugh more.

A Chef’s Satisfaction.

Reading my recap on Indian style pesto, some of my regular readers of my Weekly Recaps wanted to know how it is made. What can give an amateur chef greater pleasure than sharing his recipe with others? So, here it is.
Ingredients.
Peanuts
Sesame seeds
Coriander seed powder
Cumin seed powder
Turmeric powder
Red chilli powder
Chopped onions,
Chopped garlic pods
Chopped green chilli
Chopped tomatoes.
Salt to taste
Refined sunflower seed oil
Grated cheese of your choice.

Method.

Roast the peanuts and sesame seeds to just when they start to brown. Keep aside and cool in an open dish.

Take a generous quantity of oil. I use refined sun flower seed oil, but have used olive oil too, but somehow for the Indian flavours to come through, I prefer the former.

Heat the oil in a pan and add the chopped onions and garlic and saute till the onions become translucent, add the coriander, cumin, turmeric and red chilli poweders and stir well till they start sticking. Add a bit of water to unstick. Add the chopped tomatoes and green chillies and keep stirring till the whole mixture becomes thick. Add salt. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool.

Run a blender on pulse and coarse grind the roasted peanuts and sesame seeds. Remember, they have to be ground to be very coarse.

Add the ground peanuts and sesame seeds to the mixture and mix well.

I call the dish Indian Pesto! Others are likely to call it a funny chutney.

When the pesto is spread on a slice of bread or whatever, sprinkle grated cheese on top. I prefer this bread called Brun here. It is hard on the outside and soft inside.

Enjoy with fresh cut green salads. Particularly slices of thick hard tomatoes and cucmumbers.

You can also eat it with any kind of Indian roti, but I would not recommend parathas with it.

I would really appreciate hearing from anyone trying out about their observations.