Making the valley green

On 29th May night (2009) in Shopian in Kashmir, two girls Nilofer and Asiya were raped and murdered. The administration tried to prove that it was a case of death due to drowning. The valley erupted into severe protests. The favorite slogan of the protesters from last several years has been, Hamen Kya Chahiye-Azadi (what do we want-Freedom).

Read the entire article here!

Paw Bhaji Recipe

Me and one of my friends - Parth wanted me to make Paw Bhaji; He used this particular recipe making this entree. So I thought may be I should share it on the blog with you guys!

Here goes nothing:
Ingredients:
1 small head of cauliflower, cut into florets (about 3-4 cups)
3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
2 tbsp oil
1 green bell pepper, minced
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp chili powder or red chili paste
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
salt to taste
2-3 cups tomato puree
1/2 cup peas (fresh or frozen)...optional
1 tbsp Everest pav-bhaji masala (or more to taste)
1 tbsp butter
Method:
1. Boil the cauliflower and potatoes till tender and set aside. I usually do this in a pressure cooker.
2. Heat oil in a deep saucepan and saute the pepper. Add ginger-garlic paste and saute some more.
3. Add turmeric powder, chili powder to taste and salt to taste. Saute for a few seconds.
4. Add tomato puree, peas, boiled potatoes and cauliflower, pav-bhaji masala and butter.
5. Keep sauteeing and mashing it together till it is a smooth mixture, adding water as required (you can use a potato masher to help you along). Be aware that the mixture can spurt up as it boils, so keep a lid on it while you are not actively stirring it. Simmer for 20-25 minutes to really get the flavors to meld together.
You have to keep tasting and adjusting salt, masala and tomato till you like the balance between the tomato-ey tang and the heat of the masala.

Serve with:
1. More pats of butter (as much as you can dare really, don't be chicken now),
2. Finely sliced/ chopped onions, minced cilantro and wedges of lemon.

3. The genuine pav-bhaji is served with real Bombay laadi pav...slabs of bread, so named because the rolls are sold as entire slabs and you break the rolls off as required. This bread is so yeasty and terrific! I serve it with any crusty bread that is chewy on the inside, like ciabatta or country boule or French rolls. I don't recommend burger buns at all...they are too soft and pasty. Try and find "real" bread in a bakery :)

Variations:
1. Fry the bread in some butter first. For an even spicier result, make masala pav...melt some butter in a skillet. Sprinkle pav bhaji masala in it, then fry the bread in this spicy butter until sizzling and golden.
2. To make cheese pav-bhaji, top the pav bhaji with some shredded cheese. In India, the brand used is Amul cheese...in the US, Monterey Jack cheese comes close to this. Or try Cheddar. (Thanks Anon, for reminding me of this variation)
3. Some readers have suggested frozen mixed vegetables to increase the veggie content of the pav bhaji. I think beans and carrots would work well.
4. A reader named Manasi suggests the addition of some garam masala to the bhaji to give it an even more authentic taste. She also recommends MDH brand pav bhaji masala.
5. Another anonymous reader suggests adding Priya's Tomato Garlic Pickle for added pizzazz.

I hope you enjoy this taste of Bombay ! I thank everyone who has tried this recipe, and takes the time to leave their valuable feedback, often with great suggestions and variations!

Irrespective posting

Out of my not so-called blues and erratic behaviors is that my inner self will eat up my time and my head if I don't give into it's demands :) I see it as demands, some people see it as the Souls calling. The book by James Hillman infused questions in me to an extent that my befuddled mind lost it's control and direction. My intention, originally while opting for reading this book was to discover my true calling, however as I sailed through the glutinous chapters my already present souls calling got lost. It appeared to me that in the process of discovering my real souls calling, I dug too deeper and too much intricately into my soul that I confused it.
On the lighter note, I finished reading this book and I still haven't figured my soul's code. However one cool thing to do was to put that into my LinkedIn profile. I assumed that people who read are more likely to be seen as constructive people in their "free" time.

By now you must be wondering why this calling ? and why now?

Stepped answer - I read this article at one of the premiere news website(s) for India i.e. Times of India. For some of us who don't want to navigate to other web-pages which we think might be new or not secure ( Who cares for that when reading free news over the world), some of the excerpt's that obviously caught my eye are presented here -

"There was a 27-hour delay on the Paris-Mumbai leg of the flight due to two technical disruptions on the aircraft which first led to an aborted take-off and then a return to Paris airport after the flight had taken off on the second attempt . While there were 169 passengers on the Paris-Mumbai leg, with 55 Indians nationals aboard this flight."

Consider this

"They were confined to a lounge with too few seats, so many sat on the floor. There was one loo for 55 people. "We were only given a sandwich and a bottle of water each," said passenger Kalashree Sengupta."

And the last one...

"The 55 Indians alleged ill-treatment and racial discrimination because they were made to wait for ten-and-a-half hours with poor facilities at Charles de Gaulle airport while the other 114 passengers were put up at a hotel."

Wait there is more, but I won't make you read it. By now you might have figured what i am trying to say here. Of course you have - "Racism or Racial Abuse" . The country I live in protects me ( a temporary non- native resident) from racial profiling and abuse, but I guess France doesn't have anti-racism rules. Now this would be menial to blame a nation for an act of its national airlines. Right? I agree too. But some people dont believe this.

Consider this - "World: Europe France tops Euro racism poll" ( See link here ). This survey published in the Paris Newspaper, Le Monde said that racism was most common among farmers, shopkeepers and tradesman and least prevalent among young people. Also, It is said that "38% percent of the French people described themselves as Racist".
I was surprised that Time magazine offered this survey. It is for the people who think France is untouched by racism and my critical intentions are unfounded. An interesting read for sure.!!

Now the situation is that looks like this - Indian nationals, not one, but 53 of them were treated "differently" under no special request or condition by Air France. Air- France didn't apologize to this group of people for what they did. They don't even realize that they did something wrong. It is apparent to me from the above report in the light of the racist report by Times of India website that the national Air carrier Air-France employs NOT young & educated people for their operations. Alternatively I think it entertains Farmers, shopkeepers and tradesman for their operations at all levels and disgust themselves at operating international travels.
However if that wasn't true, this incident might have not happened and they might have expressed apologies for what happened even if they didn't wanted to be a part of this. But this is not the case I guess for Air-France.

This is astonishingly weird conclusion that I have drawn here. Well, people can say you are limiting your opinion on the basis of one report or may be two. But if a country can top the Europe's racist poll, I am guessing this can be expected out of this country's infrastructure and institutions. My sultry arguments are not for French sympathetic or natives to feel bad or start a hate group against this Asian nation, but to see this as a wake up call for racism.

The inner contention is not to incite hatred among other groups of people belonging to a particular nationality but is to encourage people to give up the hate feeling. Some of the research reports have concluded that Xenophobia is a plague that spreads through one's mind and then eats up the whole nation and the entire world. As the world keeps on shrinking and more and more individuals irrespective of color, age, and sex move around countries, there seems to be no place for it.

For how long are you going to treat people differently just to be treated equally when you come to other country. This world is going smaller by the minute and one must learn to respect everyone irrespective of color, age and sex. But I guess that is too much to expect from the country of Napoleon. He once said - "If you want something done well, do it yourself." This quote has been with me since childhood and continued to inspired me to do things on my own and do them today. I am thankful to Napoleon for this quote. But Napoleon's nation's national airlines owes a humble apology to the passengers.

So I am taking initiative to make this world hatred free and racism free. I remember my folks saying to me that charity begins at home. So I start my little campaign against racism or as it said- the hatred due to color"