Pinku-Enchanted Life

It was a lazy Sunday. It was a really lazy Sunday. So lazy infact that we couldn’t get ourselves to don some proper clothes and go out to the market to pick up some onions. However lazy or not a Sunday lunch minus non-veg was not a possibility, so I thought maybe I could do something about the chicken in the freezer which would not involve onion and therefore not necessitate going out. Started out with de-freezing the chicken (by now you must be wondering what kind of a household has chicken but no onion. But well that’s the way we are.) While the chicken thawed I looked around at my spices wondering which ones could come up with an acceptable concoction. I wanted to eat it with parathas so it had to taste desi, couldn’t try any continental or oriental options. I settled for a recipe I had heard for mutton when its cooked for Ma Kali. The format demands that no onion or garlic be used since its part of the ‘bhog’ for Ma. Marinated the chicken with curd, cumin powder, salt, ginger powd...

The Voices of Bahai performed at the Lotus Temple auditorium on the 25th of June 2010. We had escaped respective work dreading calls from work calling us back to our desks at about 6:30pm. The program was to begin around 7pm. We walked into the lounge area to see the doors to the auditorium still closed. Lotus temple is known to be an Indian place so delays of about ten fifteen minutes are taken as a regular feature. However this friday the minutes ticked on with the doors still shut firmly. By this time the entire lounge area was filled with people, mostly the old and retired who had difficulty standing but were reluctant to leave. The volunteers finally after half an hour brought out chairs along with the information that the program was delayed due to technical issues and would start in another fifteen odd minutes. We waited while wondering what a large contingent of North east students were doing there. The usual audience to these programs always tend to be atleast three times thei...

Life is still in turmoil and the near future will also be the same way. Police stations, society leaders, political clout holders, we keep visiting them by turns hoping to find a solution and more importantly find out why this girl is doing what she is doing. She comes from a lower middle class family, her father needed help from all and sundry to get her married off, in a scenario where we had no demands. I really doubt his ability to support her for the rest of her life. She had not wanted for any material comfort in the two months she was in our house, from a house with two bedrooms for eight occupants, she had come to one which has four bedrooms for a total population of four. She had no responsibility nor chore expected of her. Yet she went ahead and ruined our life and hers too. I am still searching for the reason. On monday back from another visit to the Police station, drained of hope or strength I had opened an old book to find a handwritten note in it. I read it and found yet...

I have been meaning to write for a long time, a film here, a feeling there have all begged to be jotted down. However life has been extremely busy since the beginning of the year and the way it looks, it promises to be so till the end of the year and beyond. January was when I was on the weekdays frantically trying to achieve the numbers at work and shopping for my adopted brother’s wedding on weekends. Early February was when the marriage took place and I assumed life would now become easier with a young girl in the family to look after mom and brother so that I could concentrate on work and my own home. Me and mom and tried our best to make it a wedding complete in all respects. Both of us for various reasons had not gone on a honeymoon when we got married. We ensured the new couple did. We tried to give them the space and time that most new couples complain about not having. And yet we could not ensure that they be a happy twosome. Frequent quarrels and unnatural demands erupte...

Below is a conversation I just had with a person I would call more a role model than a friend...we were discussing a bengali film we both had happened to see. The film is a national award winner with an 'intellectual' star cast one would normally think before pointing fingers at but this was a private chat between people who don't mind calling a spade a spade and it made for an interesting read, so I thought I will share with you. I have added a link to the film at the end for those who may get curious enough to want to know more. :) A do u watch rituparno ghosh films - then u may not like antaheen its based on saumya vishwanathans story but just too many stories happening 1:22pm Priyanka i do watch those films....infact i have seen antaheen...just wanted to know what u felt about it A or maybe i am not used to watching adhunik bong films 1:23pm Priyanka same here......we normally catch a lot of world cinema where this story within story format is carried on fairly well....

The partner has spent some time in Arab land and I am a sucker for anything that promises subtle flavors and a lot of meat ;) We had some chick peas soaked and that gave us the idea that perhaps rather than having a Punjabi chole yet again we could try making a sort of Lebanese dinner with labneh, hummus and some bread and meat. A simple meal we thought and yet that’s when the adventure began. We thought we could get some marinated malai tikka and grill it at home. Past experience had taught us that of all the ready made stuff available in the neighborhood shops, malai tikka or afghani chicken were the only ones which went well with the subtle tastes of hummus and labneh. A visit to the nearest meat shop brought a nasty surprise. The predominantly vegetarian neighborhood was fasting for the Mother Goddess and therefore the meat shop was closed. Whether in fear of the wrath of the goddess or her worshippers being anybody’s guess. We moved off a little further in search of the e...

Reading has always been a passion. Something that both my parents supported wholeheartedly, so while as a child my friends were happy to gloat over their latest Barbies or video games I was happy in the world of books, some bought, others borrowed. Reading for pleasure continued through high school and college, greatly aided I must admit by Arts and later English as my subject of choice. This passion however took quite a beating post setting up my own home and climbing up of the corporate ladder. Having always lived in a meticulously clean home, the choice was between dusting and reading and I must admit for the past couple of years dusting had taken precedence. It has finally now changed thanks to a friend setting up a site bookmeabook which allows you to borrow books and have them home delivered at your convenience. The link to her site brought back many happy memories and also the means to getting my hands on books that I would love to read and just didn’t seem to find the time to ...