Painted Away....

The weather forecast on Friday said heavy rain for the week-end... So when i was leaving office for the week-end i never forgot to but some clay pot from my new favourite street vendor in daryaganj....

Painting always relaxed me... it kills me when i wont get time for my fav activities... rain over week-end loads of rest and relaxing need after a really frustrating week, painting was an excuse to stay inside the house... Though it was not a 100% convincing rain, i kept to my plan... and ended up with some more colours in my room... 

That was the beginning of an awesome week-end... It indeed was relaxing... I even took out my poster paints and started on some real painting... but it didnt turn up as good as i expected... but, it was something for me, considering the time since i last painted something good to hang on a wall!!!

Well.... yeah... my week-ends are going to be all coloured up.... :-) I hope so.... 

What i hate about Delhi the most....

There are a number of things i dont like about Delhi; like pollution, the crowd, the education evernthough with a number of educational institutions around, the attitude towards women, and a number of other things which are generally of North India...
But what i hate most; the fact that i am not able to walk on a clean road... the roads in Delhi are horrible... dirtied by the general habit of spitting... Always wondered why cant anyone keep their saliva in their mouth... if they have a serious throat problem, get it all out in a wash room... But Delhites prefer to through all it out in public...
Not only that these are disgusting to the eyes, the amount of infection i can spread... wish people spitting realise any of these...
Initially i thought its the uneducated clan doing these... shocked to see some young students and school kids spitting on road... what are they taught at home or school... they might be just following their parents or teachers....
Delhi metro has put fines for spitting in station premises... Yesterday i saw a guy spitting just outside the metro gate... disgusting... Just infront of the gate!!!!! He is not even think people can walk over it... May be Delhites are used to walking over these filth.... But i cant.... I usually walk along Delhi roads lookingdown, to avoid any of these droppings...
We need strong rules... Fines against public spitting... then only this habit can stop... I look forward to that day when some legislation of this kind happens....

My first 'World book fair'

I am that kind of people, who get a chance, eat up all the books in the world. SO, i was pretty excited about the 'world book fair in delhi. We, Wiley as exhibitors, had the time to spend in the sea of books... 

Got to go only one day.... The fair was in Pragati maidan, Delhi as usual... traditionally the fairs like that happen in delhi only in prgati maidan... its built for events like that...

Wiley stall was small, smaller than i imagined... the competitors had all the attractive areas, so i was bit disappointed with the arrangement... Wiley was focussing on the test prep books - for IIT-JEE exams... so the authors for those books were to interact with ppl (we acted as dummies for the general public)....  and later a mock test for high school students... Students in uniforms, coming in and writing exams, reminded me of the school days... 

the authors came in to interact with them as well... that part was boring, since they kept repeating the same again and again...

Well, once the Wiley interactions were over, i hunted for some books... It was a shame i didnt get time to visit all other stalls... It was all spread out... and there was no order in the way the stalls were divided... Went around only one hall... bought some books... 

To be around a sea books, i felt like heaven... Felt nostalgic when i visited the 'malayala manorama' stall... there was 'balarama', the comic i grew up reading... There was other malayalam stalls, didnt get time to visit them.... blame the length of pragati maidan....

But i appreciate the hard work of the organisers to keep conducting events like that... to give us a chance to buy books (especially the ones not available in normal book stalls) at a discounted rate... Speaking of discounts, there was something i disliked there in pragati maidan... it was the overpriced food in the food court... not just the food court, the ice-cream sellers on every corner -selling their products at three time the price on the packet!!! It was shocking... You buy books on discount - save that money and then spend that in food court... Something the organisers have to think about next time...

Anyway...i was an experience for me in the book fair... got to know our competitors better.... their strategy... Tips for Wiley to improve... 

Looking forward to another book fair like this... :-)

Living under many judgemental eyes....

When you are surrounded by people, who judge your every step, every move.... every word that comes out of your mouth.... life is not so easy....
These days i am surrounded by lot many people like that.... people waiting for a mis-step from me... if i was not among the civilised clan, i could have given them a piece of my mind in a proper language... But as someone said sometime back... 'fighting with judgemental bitches is like fighting with a pig in the mud, after a while you will realise, the pig is liking that'...
So why waste my energy... I am a grown up person, seen life... lived enough to judge myself what is right and wrong.... i dont need any 'old lady' advice on how to live MY life...
The noisy ones least bother me.... but sometimes they do make me uncomfortable... 

And I finally took my painting brushes out...

Those were there on the rack for months, catching dust... I was telling myself, every week-end, i am gonna start painting.... Every week-end comes with something or other... No time to relax... I have unfinished, half-read books in my shelf... where has all the time gone all on a sudden.... Work eating them all...
Being sick last week turned out to be blessing in disguise... Sudden attack of arthritis because of the strong delhi winter.... it was bad, i had to take two days off from work... The week-end following, i cut down all my   trips and, visits, decided to stay in my house only... On friday i came from daryaganj bags full of clay pottery... Saturday and Sunday, i unleashed the artist in my... felt good, throwing colours around... came up with some pretty ones in the end....

Next step is getting back on to the real painting.... i need to get a canvas.... painting is such a stress reliever... why didnt i realise that before!!!

Goodbye 2012... Bring it on 2013....

2012 had been a different year... a difficult one to rate....
Too many ups and down.... lots of laughs and tears...
Made new friends, lost many too...
An year i took many risks in life, went against everybody's wishes.... chose a different career, which angered as well as saddened some people...
The year had been not so easy.... had many challenges, personal and professional.... new place, new work atmosphere, had a tough time adjusting to the ways to people...
I can foresee, 2013 will be even more challenging.... have to make even more tougher decisions... even more heartbreaks and tears will be there... but there will be some space to smile as well... hope!!!
I am ready for the challenges... i am ready to face and fight.... bring it on 2013!!!!

The Baking days!!!

When the season of cakes and cookies were here, all i wanted was to try my hands on baking.... always wanted to jump into this long... But back at home, my mom never let me experiment in her kitchen... when i was in Hyderabad or Chennai, i never got a chance, there was no time... and most of my X-mas time, i spent with my friends...

This time around in Delhi i decided to get the oven, and make my own christmas cake.... I went against the option of microwave oven.... the best cakes are made from the old electric oven.... after a hunt around, i finally found one in an old electric shop in East Delhi...

It looked exactly like my mom's oven and i was 100% confident of getting the cakes right.... 

Now all i wanted was getting a right recipe.... I had modified my mom's fruit and nut cake recipe inspired my some bakers' blogs.... 

To begin with, more to test my oven, started with chocolate cake... it went fine.. though the sugar level was bit low... I had some cake testers in the form of my colleagues... They gave a thumbs up...

The next step was try out the nut cake... Somewhere the sugar level went up and the whole thing came a bit sticky... but as consolation was the flavour was amazing... so thumbs up on flavour from the cake testers... Some lessons learned... pointed noted in my recipe book....

With full spirit and lots of confidence, on Christmas cake i tried on the nuts cake once again... I had a special star-shaped baking tray for that... The flavour in air was all good, and i wont be knowing the taste of it until christmas.... 

I packed my bags for Christmas @ Josephine's... Sigh of relief when the cake was cut... the consistency came right, tasted good, though there was still room for improvement.... Some thumbs up on baker me... 

Thrilled at an amazing christmas time in Delhi... Enjoyed a special christmas cake from Josephine... Have to try out that recipe some day... for now, back to work, finish some pending work before the year ends... 

May be i will start a food blog, on my experiments in kitchen... More to come soon... more recipes will be posted soon....