"Of course, sweetheart, your views, preferences, likes and interests always count.... subject to my approval of it all"

And we set off on the liberating journey that is called life :(

Give me Tagore any day, to pull me out of my disillusionment and keep me grounded in life.

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

- Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore.

the summer sky, in dreams of living light and loveliness.....

and then the storm....

and the calm after the storm :)

the M in my life!

The dreaded letter in my life right now could only begin with - M and end with -E!
Before your mind whizzes to the rather obvious option, let me veer (its veer, not wear! Mind it!) the thought away to more lurid prospects.

With me every sleeping hour; every waking hour;
A juicy bite here and a blood drawing bite there,
no matter day or night,
whizzing and hovering around me, always, forever!
Any exposure would do fine!
I scream, I kick, I shoo, I slap...
But the act continues with alarming intensity.
Flummoxed.
I admit (am)bushed :(

Why can't the damn Mosquitoe prey on newer targets?

A case of low hanging fruit, maybe? :(

WTF!!!

Its 4 years today
since I have wished you.
And I never will be anyway...

Her smile, her warmth, her joy
reminded me of you...
so much so it was a struggle
to be normal and not be overwhelmed
by nostalgia and her generosity of spirit.
Sometimes in the winds of change,
we find our true direction.

Like I read this in an email signature of a friend some time back :
"So often it's a matter of trading in. Old lamps for new. Small dreams for big ones.
So often all it requires is the courage to accept the responsibility of knowing you are bigger than your smallness."

The road,
You shall follow it.

The fun,
You shall forget it.

The cup,
You shall empty it.

The pain,
You shall conceal it.

The truth,
You shall be told it.

The end,
You shall endure it.

- Markings, Dag Hammarskjold

**********
Work up the charm quotient babe! Suck up more. And all the goof-ups are taken care of by the charm quotient. Nothing else succeeds like charm, you see.....

Nah, I don't actually see....

yeh dilli hai meri jaan...

Seems like yesterday when I set foot at the Delhi tarmac on a chilly grey morning in January and almost by the blink of an eyelid, its one month now...And no, I have neither visited Agra nor done the usual touristy things in full measure, though definitely I can be held guilty of visiting Dilli Haat couple of times and hogging momos, dhabeli and misal pav at the food stalls there.

Huh! I could n't resist, after all!

To think I started writing with the noble intention of penning down my experiences in Delhi and not speak of food, but hey, hold on a second...How can one be in Delhi and not speak, think, wonder, talk, smell, listen to or (finally!) eat the food in Delhi? Not unless one is totally indifferent to food in the overall plate of life!

Delhi is truly not just our national capital but our street food capital as well. Life of the common man revolves around food. There is potato and panneer in almost everything. Sample this: Morning starts off with aalu parantha for breakfast, and typically it is served with some dal/gravy which has some pieces of boiled potatoes floating in it. For lunch, the menu is for your asking - rotis (made of wheat flour with a drop of ghee, thankfully!) And along with that is always one of the above in the combination as below :

A) aalu gobi/ aalu capsicum/ aalu matar/methi aalu/aalu jeera ...or

B) matar panneer/ panneer capsicum/ panneer butter masala/ palak panneer...

On some lucky days, I get vegetable korma which is sinfully rich, being made in cashew paste and having a generous portion of aalu and panneer besides carrots, beans and cauliflower.

I got frustrated by this overdose of aalu and panneer and ordered chana bathura one afternoon only to stunningly discover that the bathura had some small pieces of panneer stuffed in it and the yummy chana masala had couple of big pieces of boiled potatoes in it (which of course got the cold shoulder treatment from me)!

Oh, by the way, if you do get bored with aalu and panneer, there is always chole masala, dal makhani and rajma masala. And over and above all this, there is the delectable world of chaat! Samosa, Papdi chat (ok, that also has boiled potatoes in it), bhel puri, sev puri, dahi bhalla, kachori....

Having not one sweet tooth but many, how can I not bring up the gala array of desserts available - the hot moong dal halwa or the gaajar ka halwa, the hot, juicy and succulent gulab jamun or the crisp jalebis, just out of the kadai! My tongue just swirls around the malai and milk based sweets (I can't even recollect their names any more, just their taste lingers in me). Not to even utter a word about the creamy kulfis and the rabri falooda....

If a way to a woman's heart is through her stomach, Dilli sure has captured my heart!

With temptations galore and my succumbing to them with full gusto, am on the fast track to becoming an aalu or a shapeless block of panneer!

Ce n'est pas juste, mais c'est la vie! :(
- 1st March 2009