Kyunki Main Us Din Bilkul Free Thi

This is what happens when a deprived woman like me has the house TV to herself and no work on hand. Watched TV nonstop and discovered the following facts of life:

1. Little boy Aditya Narayan has grown up, lost weight and turned horror film hero
   
2. Katrina's hand wave in Rajneeti is exactly like you know who (yes I didn't know even that)
   
3. Poor Arbaaz has finally got Malaika to do some naach gana with him in a film cheesily titled Prem Ka Game. Chee chee
   
4. Ze famous Barbara Mori doesn't look all that hot. At least to me. Think this will be a big dud.
   

GK lesson over I switched on to the serials to see what depths our society had plummeted to and got thoroughly confused. Every second serial featured a havan or a mandir or a heavily veiled bahu with too much sindoor or a tense looking boy trying to talk to a tense looking girl in churidar and choodha. If you do not know what those italics are, do a google search. I'm too lazy for translations. Anyway, all that mandir and mangalsutra overdose made me wonder if serial writers ever met people from other communities and religions. Probably not. They probably also attend the same school of headlines serial titles. That explains the names which sound suspiciously same no matter which channel you switch to. You could almost make up a story with these. Since I'd nothing better to do, apart from updating myself with Anandi's wellbeing in Balika Badhu (very updated with the serial after Mint's plug last week), I suffered surfed Colors, Star Plus, NDTV Imagine, Star One, Zee and wrote a weird letter. Read at your own risk. And if you are a TV moron like me, yes, these are all names :

Sabki Ladli Bebo,

Hum hai Do Saheliyan: Kismat ki kathputliyan. Waise to Sasural Genda Phool Hai par Kabhi to Raja Ki Ayegi Baraat aur tum kahoge Saajan Ghar Jaana Hai. Kyunki har ladki ka Sapna hai Babul ka Bidaai. Jaldi hi tum banoge Do hanso ka joda. Ab na rahega tera kagaz kora. Kyunki tumhe Rehna hai Palkon ki chaon mein. Kyunki Sabki Jodi wohi banata, bhagyavidhata.

• Have lost all readership now.
  
• Alwida
  

 

 

 

Made payesh (Bengali for rice pudding) the other day. Here it is:

Nothing monumental about it except that I'm now officially my mother. Growing up, payesh was the answer to everything in our house. Birthdays? Anniversary? Overnight guests? Is-there-anything-sweet-at-home cravings? Payesh it was. To be fair to mom, she also baked cakes, made fish in white sauce, malpuas and various other things but payesh was and still is her signature offering. Post marriage, when I started calling up mom to get recipes in my usual loving manner (but why do I beat the butter and sugar together? Why not everything? Why do you make everything so complicated?) I would steer clear of payesh. Or for that matter macher jhol (Bengali fish curry) and anything standardly mundane that I scoffed at as a kid/teen. It's different now of course. Age has taken over and is fast turning me into my mom as I keep repeating stuck record like. Macher jhol is made at home at least twice a week. The only difference with mom's is that hers is more regularly made and tastes a hundred times better. And now there's the payesh. It's a good thing I thought while stirring it that day. Stays in the fridge long enough to keep the hungry husband happy and doesn't look too bad when served in a nice bowl if there are guests. Now let's see what else is there in the mother's repertory of the mundane that I haven't tried yet....ummm...aloo bhaja? Is there something your mom made that you scoffed at as a kid for being too regular but found yourself cooking later in life? Am I the only one?

Search me

Thanks to God Google (term not invented by me) I learn new things eveyday. For instance, yesterday I was searching for 2009's bestsellers to send somebody a list and came across an entire world of books that were unknown to me. Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was a vampire hunter? Nah? Then how about Elizabeth Bennett? Did you know she was part of Zombie warfare? Well I didn't. And while I was hiding under a rock, a guy called Seth Grahame-Smith was putting zombies in Mr Darcy's pants and bloodsuckers elsewhere and striking mega deals worth $575,000 with publishers. Oh and he also went on the New York Times Bestseller list says the Guardian. Strange are the ways of the world indeed. Shall bare my fangs the next time anyone makes fun of my collection of Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella or for that matter, Georgette Heyer.