Diwali!

Best wishes from the blushingbasil household...
(Diwali classics in the pic - Mullu Murukku (lentil fritters), Almond Halwa and Mango Shrikhand)

Oh man! We did it!

As a principle, I wouldn't want to write about something that has been/is going to be written about a lot but today I can barely contain the enormous rush of feelings towards ARR, Resul Pookutty and Slumdog as a movie in general. Millions are the diehard fans of ARR (like me) in India and scores of us right from the moment we heard Chinna Chinna Aasai in Roja way back in 1991, but the very realization that this adorable wonder-boy from Chennai has transformed himself into a leaf in the history of India is simply mind-blowing. The sheer delight in being able to perform on a stage as prestigious as the Academy Awards by itself is an achievement of a lifetime for any Indian. I'm sure fellow Indians would agree with me, we would consider that as pride unequalled even if ARR hadn't bagged any award last night. Seeing him exude his trademark unassuming, soft-spoken, very-common-man-like persona in a ceremony which is probably the ultimate showcase of glamour, riches and beauty was a breath of fresh air that serves to strengthen scores of age-old adages.

Resul Pookutty and ARR - we salute you! Jaya Ho!

P.S. - The only other truly remarkable thing about last night was getting to see that "the three kids" got to attend the Oscars too. What an indelible mark in the hearts of the families of those endearing kids who live in the Mumbai slums!

Candlelight Vigil for India - I

Posted from my drafts - written a while ago- of course there have been many developments after this but those have been saved for part II.

It's been a while since I posted something new around here and I was bubbling with so many delightful incidents to spin my stories around. But alas! The past five days have left me too sober to think about anything other than the state of affairs in my home country. It is a rude awakening for folks like me who tend to complain (or crib) at the drop of a feather. For the past few days, I have been looking at my life with the eye of an insufferable on the borderline of indulging in self-pity. But all my little misgivings with life have seemed to have shied away in the wake of the magnitude of what happened at Mumbai. This entire Thanksgiving, I have been glued to the couch in front of the TV and after the international telecast on CNN got cut, I have been drinking in the inspiring journalism on NDTV 24X7 Live. Sometimes my heart feels so numb that my mind starts playing tricks on me and I drift into a trance where I am certain I have imagined it all. If only life could be that fair!

In the past three decades, "We, the (Indian) people" - think we have been through it all - from watching riots break out outside our homes on various occasions including brutal assassinations of at least two prime ministers, having some of the most terrible politicians history could have ever seen rule over our land, observe passively one tragedy after the other engulf the country - Bhopal gas leak, religion/caste centric riots, slanders and wars, natural calamities like earthquakes and tsunamis claiming thousands of lives, - to being thrown in a world where the air we breathe is deemed unfit according to international health standards. Of course, Indians are a very resilient lot. How else could we have borne all this? Whatever happens, L-I-F-E goes on. Correction - Life has to go on. We are a developing country after all, who cannot afford to take some time off for ourselves for mourning, can we? Whether that is a good thing or not is debatable but there is no refuting the fact. So deep down in your heart, when you have this smug feeling about adversity and wonder what could be worse, along comes a reminder of terror that sweeps you off your wit's end. To hear about "something" that happened in the news is one thing and to actually experience it live as the horror revealed itself little by little over three excruciatingly long days is a different dimension of fear altogether.

May be that is what makes our heart wrench when we hear the words 9/11 to this day many years later and it is the same familiar feeling that is gripping our souls today about Mumbai.

May be that is what has rekindled the flame of revolution in the hearts of the youth in Mumbai.

May be that is what the media has decided to showcase in their fight against dirty politics.

The "media" have been typecast as news-hungry gossip-mongers since forever of course. But akin to all other things in life, "not all" media is bad, right? We expect radical changes, then we'd better get used to the fact that positive journalism can act as a fast-acting catalyst. After all, life is all about taking risks and shattering the umbrella of "conventionalism". If I may say so, the only lucrative outcome of this tragedy is that India has learnt to recognize "both" of its worst enemies - the "religion-less" terrorists themselves and internal politics leading to costly mistakes. The citizens have risen and taken it upon themselves to ask precise questions - "Why were the intelligence reports from the U.S. ignored? What took the NSG commandoes more than 7 hours to reach the location? Why aren't our cops better trained/equipped to handle chaotic, dangerous situations?" The past has to be dug up and cleansed thoroughly in order to usher in the new "tomorrow". Security analysts in the U.S. admit that the stand that U.S. has always taken against India-Pakistan tensions cannot continue to be played by the rule-book anymore.

Looking ahead...Many were the images of carnage that moved us to tears but one of the most striking images that brought with it a breath of fresh life-saving air is that of the citizens (people) holding candles in the dark of the night (some until as late as 1:00 a.m. in the morning). Their glowing angry faces represents the future of India, I thought. I hear them talk day in day out in what is now being called as "We, the people - Citizen's Movement" and I'm transfixed by how lucid they are in expressing their opinions. Why does the voice of the common "man" whose average intelligence is much higher than people-who-shall-not-be-named get buried beneath all those bureaucratic blankets? Not anymore, I pray! The vigil has begun inside the country but what can we, who are away in greener pastures, do? The inability to do anything has been ravaging my being. I say to myself - there could be something we could do to bring about a radical change too. I examine my conscience to look for answers to whether I've inadvertently stepped into the shoes of the clan of the younger generation that decided "enough is enough" a long time ago and fled to greener pastures. I have an urge to not just sit around pondering over this but actually do something. I realize every small step will be one step closer to the goal and the flame that the folks in Mumbai lit up, is blazing through every Indian's heart.

May the flame remain immortal!

A chef and an obsession...

Baking is an art form in reality. In most other styles of cooking, it is easy to undo human error. Undoing in totality might prove to be difficult may be, but surely the dish can be salvaged by using tips from experts. Digressing a little, Mrs. Mallika Badrinath - rendered a top chef in Tamil Nadu - offers a bunch of SoS tips in almost all her books. I have the whole series of her books sitting on my book shelf. It is interesting that I never purchased even one of them. That is not to be mistaken that I did not intend to buy them, but what I meant is even before I heard of her fame and glory, I got gifted a couple of her books by her son who happens to be a good friend of mine. I started experimenting recipes from her books and within weeks I was hooked! Peps (as we call him) must have realized how much I adored them 'coz he gave me the entire series as a wedding gift. Her recipes are tried and tested ones but what makes them valuable is, they are described in a surprisingly simple way with ingredients right off the kitchen shelf. There is indeed something in them that makes you want to start making them, the moment you set your eyes on them. Three cheers to her!

So baking, I reiterate can turn into a gruesome nightmare if some of its vital ingredients were omitted or forgotten or a pre-processing step skipped. There are some "cool" and handy recipes which fall under the failsafe category while some others can prove to be very finicky. When we lived in IIT Delhi, we had this family living in the apartment above ours, who had returned back to India after living a few years in London. Uncle was a professor in IIT and auntie was a homemaker. After living a few years in India, they decided to go back to London again and that's when they decided to get rid of all the stuff that they couldn't possibly take back with them. We, who were pretty good friends with them started to become proud owners of a lot of "Made in England" stuff. Assorted things started becoming new members in our household which included travel guides on London, some very adorable dolls, a sandwich maker, pens, knife-sharpener (which lived true to its name until its disappearance some twenty years later) and an electric cake oven. One of the dolls that I christened "Goldilocks" still lives in my home in Chennai though she only has her head attached to the torso now. Her hair was and is a point of fascination to me to this day. You'd probably mistake me for being slightly soft in the head if I revealed the things I've done with her hair like shampooing and using the drier to style it. She's lived through it all - the pretty Miss. GL. My mom was an epitome of experimentation. She never ceased to try out new stuff - be it picking up a new art form like doll-making, knitting, crocheting or trying out new foods, collecting new recipes, stitching new patterns of dresses from fashion magazines, learning new beauty treatment techniques or baking new cakes! The oven that we inherited from our neighbors easily became her obsession. We are looking at the early 80's here before the times of food blogs and the internet. She didn't have a recipe book on baking or cakes either. She just followed her instincts to start trying out different combinations of flour, eggs, baking powder, baking soda, butter and flavoring essences to come up with some truly delectable cakes. I was a kid and to me, her cakes looked and tasted very different from the ones we got from the bakery in neighboring Hauz Khas. I loved them for their freshness and ambrosial flavor. Many years later, some time in 2001, I baked my first pseudo-cake. Pseudo because it was from an instant packaged mix but the experience was gratifying. I was a grad student and I didn't have a baking pan back then. Following my friend Anu's suggestion, I ended up baking it in a heavy- bottomed pressure pan and it still turned out great. A series of instant cakes followed but it was not until the fall of 2003 that I tried baking a cake from scratch (again acting on Anu's recipe that she had gotten from her cousin in Dallas). The difference was instantly obvious and the flavor reminded me of the home-made cakes my mom used to bake. That triggered a saga of obsession with baking ONLY from scratch! I wonder sometimes if I inherited the crazy-about-baking gene from my mom 'cuz today if I go without baking something (anything!) for a couple weeks in a row, I start getting panic attacks. x-( Baking being a very healthy substitute to frying gives me that extra bit of adrenaline rush.

When I started writing this post, I wanted to follow it with a cake or muffin recipe but for fear of having to post something ridiculously long, I stop here.

Welcome!

It's happened! Today I begin my blog journey on the culinary front. Though this has been on my mind since long, I have never mustered up the courage to do so. Call it a busy life or simply chickening out (!?!) whatever! The thought process is working overtime to find where to start from the ubiquitous collection of recipes I have managed to maintain over the past four or so years. Rest assured, I will be posting my first recipe very soon. :)