Rice Payasam

Rice Kheer or the Rice Payasam – I hate it, there I said it. I really really hate it.

Payasam or kheer, is as such my least favorite sweet dish. I prefer the barfis, the gulab jamuns, the rasgullas, basically something which can linger in my mouth for a few seconds, and I can squeeze out all the taste in my mouth, before I gulp it in. With Payasam or kheer its just sweetened milk, with something additional in it, either rice or dal or semia or sabudana or rava or even broken wheat. So the moment it goes in your mouth, its gone thru the food pipe. What the fun in that?

I remember, it was always a torture during festivals, when I had refuse these payasams. Mom would give some reason for me drink, and when you visit relatives, they would tell you hundred other things on why you should have this tasty drink. One of my aunt’s even used this wonderful trick. “If you don’t drink this, then it means you don’t love your mother” (Bah!!!!) as if I would listen to that.. I would just tell everyone, I don’t care if you think I don’t love mom, but I do, and I don’t have to prove it by drinking this. Slowly people stopped forcing me to drink it.

Even today, I do make the payasam or kheer on festivals, but I hardly taste a spoonful, just for the sake of it. I don’t mind sevai Kheer to some extent, if its thick enough, like made from milk maid, or if its in the rabri consistency, and I alos don’t mind chilled channa daal kheer, again that’s coz it tastes like icecream to me. I cannot tolerate the khus khus payasam and most of all, I don’t like the famous “Rice payasam”. And I am totally aghast or give a weird experession, when somebody declares. I love Rice Kheer!!!!

Happy Diwali 2009

Deepavali or Diwali, is the festival of lights. It’s a time to wish our loved ones and ones around us for prosperity. Its time to clean up the house and mind to throw away all the dirt. Its time to burst the crackers and celebrate. Well, this time we dint get to burst any crackers, but we did manage to do the rest of it.



This was our first Diwali together. Last year, we were in different places, so this one was really special for us.

Saturday morning, started with a small Pooja, and an early brunch. Initially, we thought of going for a movie, we took a small nap instead. Evening was supposed to be a visit to the temple for a view of fireworks and then a potluck dinner at a friend’s place. We had decided on taking bisibele bhat for the dinner, so after our tea, G started on that. Around 8.30 we started for fireworks in the SwamiNarayan Temple. Well, by the time we reached near the temple, the fireworks were nearly over. So we headed back, so that we could have dinner. Since it was a potluck, we had lots of stuff to eat. There were so many sweets, rotis, dum aaloo, mix veg, gajar halwa, bisibelebhat. We were back home by 12.30 AM.



Sunday wasn’t a busy day, we just went for a movie and then dinner, with friends.
Monday, we had invited friends over for dinner. Its always a nice feeling to have people over for dinner. Also, decorating the house on these special occassions has always been my passion. Earlier, mom and I, would get new floating candles, new sheets for the diwan, new cusion covers for the sofa. It would just give a fresh look to the house. Well, I plan to do a lot of these things, but for this time, I got a lot of candles and flowers and tried to decorate a little bit.



The dinner was good too. Although this time I made limited quantity, as everytime I would have lot of food left over. But I must say, I was satisfied with the taste and so was G, I think our friends were too. I made vegetable cutlets, poori, mutter paneer, vegetable rice. G made awesome fruitsalad custard. Since it was a weekday, we had to wrap up the get together pretty early.



I must say I will cherish our first Diwali forever.

Krishna nee Begane Baaro

Krishna Janamashtmi has always been my favorite festival since the time I have known myself. This is one day in the whole year, where I can sacrifice food and even water until dinner time. Last year we were in India for this festival. At G's place its not celebrated at a grand scale. The previous night G dropped me to mom's house and the next day, it was celebrated at the usual grand scale.

At home its usually celebrated like this. This pic was taken in 2005, the first year I missed the celebrations.

This year, I wanted to celebrate it with as much resources available here. And it was not bad at all. We set up the mantapa, decorated with flowers and fruits.


I made doodh peda, coconut burfi and kachoris for the pooja.


We did the panchamrutha abhisheka and then the pooja.


On the whole we had a nice pooja, and I was very happy.




At first, we thought of inviting friends that day for dinner. Since I was busy in the morning, preparing the sweets and making the other decorations, we thought it would be better to invite the next day.
The next day we had friends for dinner. It was complete fun. I had made vegetable puff, paneer-cucumber-tomato salad, bisibelebhat, veg-tofu fried rice, puliogre. And, I hope all of them enjoyed the dinner.We played UNO (card game). After dinner, we played Dumb Charades. All of us had nice fun. After the tiresome, Friday and Saturday, we had quite a relaxing Sunday, and we ended our weekend with a movie.

Ganesha banda kaayi kadabu tinda.. chikka kereli bidda dodda kereli yedda

Usually Gowri and Ganesha festival come on consecutive days but this time it was on the same day. The best part was it was on a Sunday. The whole of Saturday went in cleaning the house. In the evening, we went for the festival shopping. We even got the water immersible Ganesha idol. I was extremely happy after this.


Sunday morning, I woke up around 7. After last minute cleaning and a nice wash I started off with cooking. I was juggling with cutting vegetables and cooker and rice and coconut. I can say that I was in a mess and totally confused. I was just thinking how mom did all these things at home, and I never even realized it all these years. Anyway I was nearly done by 10.30, so got ready for the pooja and by 11 AM we started the Gowri Pooja.


This went on for an hour. After this G did the Ganesha pooja. After both, it was lunch time. I had made sambar, mango rice, channa daal kheer (kadle bele payasa), kosambari (carrot, cucumber salad)and Modakas.


G's friend had got sajjige (rava ksheera). We had our lunch and then headed for the temple. Since the temple was a bit far, we took a small nap on the way. In the evening we did the visergane and went to friend's place for dinner. On the whole we had a wonderful festival. An extremely hectic day had come to an end.


A few years back, the festival meant only fun. Previous day we would go with a basket to the nearby shops. They would have so many colourful Ganapathi and Gowri idols made of mud. We would spend time to check the idols and selecting the idol was one major task. Then, the basket would be filled with hay and very carefully both the idols would be placed in the basket.
The next day, early morning we would be woken up and shooed into the bathroom for a long oil bath (this was one thing I used to hate during festivals). Once this is done, our new dresses would be ready and we would be completely ready for the pooja. It was always me, who did the Gowri pooje and bro who did the Ganesha pooja. And when the time came to offer prasada to God, all the items would appear from kitchen magically. We would never know when mom prepared all this. After the yummy food, we would either play or watch TV. In the early evening, we would go to our uncles and aunt's houses for Ganesha Darshana. Then visit the temple. Finally late in the evening we would do the visarjane.

On the whole, the festival was fun back then, its been fun this time too. Just that, the roles have changed in life...

Raksha Bandhan

Courtsey: Google

I have always loved this festival. Although being a south Indian this is not in the tradition. I think I was in 7th when we started this at home. Mom had got the rakhi, I had no clue what it was, that's when mom explained this to me. I was thrilled, if not anything else but by the gift part. My bro was super excited coz he could show off in class. Well this was what we both felt the first time we celebrated the festival. But as we grew, this became more important. Ofcourse a thread wasnt required to stregthen our bond, but it would just be like re-emphasizing on the bond we share.

When in school there was one year, where I tied Rakhi to a few guys in my class too. But after that never ever did I tie Rakhi to any guy other than my brothers (including cousins). I always feel that, when we cant just give the place of parents and spouse to any random person, even brothers and sisters cant be made just by tying a rakhi. Once a friend of mine wanted me to tie the rakhi his sis had sent. I told him my reasons of why I wouldnt tie it to him. Thats when he said "You are my sis here rite?" Somehow that felt very genuine and I tied him Rakhi. Today we are not in constant touch, but we do know whats happening with each other... and yes every Rakhi I do wish him and ask for a gift :)

Well back to my bro, I am very lucky to have A as my bro. He has been my friend ever since we know each other. We have fought with each other like we would kill each other. We have pulled each other's hair. We have covered up for each other in front of mom. Ofcourse me being the elder one was more protective of him. Most of the time I would protect him from mom's scoldings. My theory was "I am the only person who can scold or beat my bro". As we grew older the age difference between us is reducing. I can have a conversation with him, which I can with my friends now. He is a pretty cool headed guy, I have hardly seen him getting angry. Sometimes I feel he is more mature now than I was at his age.

He is also very protective about me. He will make sure that I dont go through any trouble. There was once incident which made me realize that my bro is now protecting me. We used to go for Yoga classes probably when I was in 11th. It was a long walk from home. That particular day me and bro were walking holding our hands. There was nobody else on road. I always walked toward the roadside and he was on the innerside. We saw a cyclist coming in our direction. Me and bro were talking about something. When the cyclist was nearing us, bro very smoothly left my hand and came to the roadside and held my handside so that the cyclist wouldnt even get an opportunity to go past me. I was so touched by this incident. Even now he is still the same. Ofcourse he's lost the smoothness and tells me to come aside or move aside (as if I dont know). But sometimes its nice to be bossed around by him.

He is my younger bro, but at times behaves like a elder one. Till date I have never heard him call him by name. Its always Akka. Even if he has to scold me. A few cousins of mine still tease him, but that doesnt bother him. May be after so many years I am so used to it that I wont be able to digest if he calls me something else.
I miss him a lot. Both of us know its no longer possible to be together, but we know we will always be there for each other in any circumstances. That's my promise to him. I thank God for giving me such a wonderful brother

Happy Sankranti - 2009!!

Happy Sankranti. G woke me up in the morning. I had slept late after making some preparations for the festival. I love festivals in which we give gifts to other people. The whole excitement of shopping for them and letting out your creative juices to flow in the process is just too good.

Flashback:
Tuesday evening I went shopping. We don’t have a car, so I had to keep in mind that things I buy don’t weigh too much and should be easy to carry. First I went to a shop where I could find some plates on which I could decorate the stuff. I was looking around and found some cute little cards (for personalized messages) and some small bags. I picked up these, some mixed nuts and a few chocolates. The next destination was for fruits. I had thought of 5 fruits, but then I was giving these for 10 ppl, so getting 5 fruits and 10 each would be heavy. A little bit of searching and I found mini apples, mini pear, strawberries, raspberries and bananas. So except banana everything else was light weight… Hurray!!! Mission accomplished. Now the last thing left was to go home and pack.

Me and G conferenced and called both the homes and wished everybody. By the time the calls got over it was 8.30 PM. I still had to start the packing. This went on till 11.00 PM, had dinner and then continued with the personalized notes. By the time I had everything packed for the next morning, it was 12.30 AM

Sankranti Bagana


Another one


A sample bag


Another one


Close up of all the bags


All the bags finally

Rolling back to Sankranti day:
All of us had to come ethnic that day. Out of which 5 of us even agreed on a saree. So off I went in the bus wearing a saree, with a bag full of goodies. It was a fun day. So many of them had got Pongal (Sweet/Non sweet). I had decided to take it the next day. Later I gave the gifts to all my friends here and they were extremely happy with this. After lunch we people even had a photo session. My mom said doesn’t look like you were not in India.
It was so much fun. Finally for dinner we had rice, sambar and sweet pongal.

Merry Christmas

From the time we came to Banglaore. Christmas meant, mom would get us a special cake from the bakery in the evening. We had a very small cute little tree like showpiece which looked very similar to the Christmas tree. I used to decorate that the previous day and keep lot of the toffees which we used to get for 50p. And if any kid came home we would give some chocolates. New year meant we would go to MG Road and most of the shops would have Santa Claus dressed people with loads of chocolates in their bags. We used to go there to get those chocolates from Santa. Ofcourse we knew Santa was imaginary, but who cares as long as we were happy with such small illusions. Things have changed, but mom still gets us the cake like every year, and we wish each other on that day, like how we do for deepavali, sankranti, Ugadi etc.



Last Christmas I was in India. I wasn’t at home though, I was at Hyderabad coz of work, and since Christmas was on a weekday just stayed back there.We dint do much that day, than sitting idle at home. But previous 2 years was fun. The actual Christmas Day was a part of the long weekend, so it meant going to one of the beautiful places in US. But other than that, Christmas celebrations used to start off everywhere atleast a month before.

My First Christmas in US (2005)

A few weeks before Christmas, all of us in our office were given chits and asked to write our names and 3 things which we would like as gifts. All of us did with so much excitement. A few days later, we were asked to pick up chits, so we would know whom to get the gifts for. I was so excited. We did shopping and on a particular day, all of us exchanged gifts in front of the Christmas tree.


My Second Christmas in US (2006)

At office, this time it was a little different. We all bought gifts and kept it under the tree. We were given numbered chits. We were to pick in the ascending order. But this had a catch. The person who got chit #1 would pick a gift open it. If person with chit #2 liked this, then he would get it and #1 would get another chance. Now #3 could choose from #1 or #2 or could pick a new one. This passing on too had a catch. A particular gift could be transferred only thrice. Then the third person who got it, would keep the gift. It was fun. I had got a nice Starbucks mug, someone took it away from me :( I finally got some body lotions and stuff.
But it was fun to play around.

On actual Christmas time, we were in Washington DC. This was one of the amazing trips we had. DC happens to be one of my favorites coz its so clean, calm, whitish, creamish. It gives a fresh look. We could even see the famous christmas tree in front of White house.

My third Christmas in US (2008)



Christmas Day I will be G. I surely am waiting for that... All the places have been lit up so well here. Last week we were in San Francisco downtown... The streets are lit up so well. The union square has a huge christmas tree completely lit up. In front of it was Macys. The decoration was mind blowing. First thing that came to our mind was, insite of economy being so bad, everything was so lit up and decorated. Malls everywhere were decorated too. They have these center places in the mall, where they create Santa land, and people can take pics with Santa. There are christmas trees everywhere... Its such a festive moment...Of course how can we miss the song... We wish you a merry christmas,We wish you a merry christmas,We wish you a merry christmas and a Happy New Year



Merry Christmas everybody!!!!