The Spicy Indian Blog

I do not know how I intended this blogticle (that's the term I have coined for a blog article) to be... When I started to write this one, I might have wanted it to describe a weekend I would consider to be ideal. Now I do not know what has been churned out. Anyway's here it is... I leave office earlier on Friday. Thus starts the weekend celebration. (Not to say if I went early to office). I come back home. Then I have a cup of tea (with milk - the Indian way), and some snacks. Doritos would be ideal here. After freshening up then, I would head down to any cafe, or say Starbucks, to start the winding down. If it was Erlangen , one would probably head down to Bogarts, or one of the streetside cafes at the sqaure front of HauptPost, and savor a Wiesenbier or two, over the next hour and half, preferably with a juicy and tasty Vegetarische Baguette. Somehow, the sandwiches, and burgers I have had, were infinitely more tastier in Germany than anywhere in the US. I don't know wha...

At 9.45pm, I was standing in my balcony, watching the last light of the day fade by ever so slowly. And yet, at this time, when night has long past approached in other 'normal' parts of the world, a waft of heat instantly drove me back into the house. The concrete of the balcony incessantly radiated heat as if it was his moral responsibility. It was 44 degrees Celcius yesterday. The highest so far this summer. It is getting worse than even most parts of India, I seem to know. A trip to Walnut Creek and back at 6.15 i n the evening yesterday, left me not comfortable even till morning next day, i.e. today. Some people feel strange that I am not used to the heat, coming from the orient. However, that I am not used to is a fact. It is a veritable torture to venture out (whether walk or by car) any time of the day. And this thing continues till August-end I hear. Anyways, there would a letup in this heat wave after the weekend, as per the Weather channel. So let hope for the best fr...

How many times must have we said ''How Time Flies By" ... so much that it might need to be categorised lower than a platitude. But time does fly supersonic, and every time we pause to realise it, we are far ahead in time, from where we were, well, just a little while ago....! Yesterday, 17th July 2006, was my Grandpa's 99th Jayanti, or Birth Anniversary. Implies he would have been 99 yesterday, starting 100. He passed away when he was 81. Implies 19 years have passed since he left. 19 YEARS...! And it seems like not much time ago... But it is. I have vivid memories of Nana, as we all used to call him. He was absolutely a very meticulous and disciplined man. He looked after himself almost till he breathed his last. Making his bed. Going about his daily ablutions, that included neatly cleaning his set of dentures. His discipline and meticulousness helped him in tiding successfully, times, which were not at all that affluent. He, at times much earlier, performed two jobs,...

It is the wild fire season in US, and particularly California... There are more than a dozen wild fires going on the rampage right now. Wild fires spring from a variety of factores like the high temperatures combined with dry grass, and sparked off sometimes by lightening too. And if the fire is more fortunate than the affected area, it is fanned by high winds. In all the national park areas in the US, we have the fire danger probablities displayed for the day. Here is an interesting picture I took, when I was on my way to Los Angeles, on the I-5. I don't know how exactly this grass fires was triggered off, probably by a truck which seemed to have exploded to smithereens. But it sure had spread over a huge acreage. And the fire services had a hard time reaching it bypassing the long-weekend traffic. In this photo, the haze developed by the smoke from the fire, interacts with the exhaust trail of a gone-by airplane, and combined with the setting sun, proves to be a very interesting ...

Me and Mugdha completed 6 months in the USA on the 5th July. A significant part of these six months, included setting up new processes for yourself in another country, and taking up new initiatives. With these six months, I also overtook the maximum number of days I have stayed abroad earlier, which was precisely 180 earlier, including the days of travel. These six months also included our first Wedding Anniversary. Also Mugdha's first birthday after our Wedding, Birthday; this day we spent in touring San Francisco, and yes, a cruise on the Pacific by the Golden Gate Bridge was included :-) . But, believe me there is a huge difference in six months in Pennsylvania, and six months in central California. More about this in the next blog.

Never ever have I had so many Glucose biscuits after probably the first five years of my life... The days when my maavshis would hand me over a 'glucose cha puda' when I visited their house were long long over, or hardly ever in my life... I used to get that glucose pack when I was about to start from their house. I guess it used to be an incentive for me to leave early the next visit, me being so notoriously mastikhor in those days. I never had any particular affinity for Glucose biscuits. Though, I shared a particular fancy for freshly baked Marie biscuits with my grandfather, whom we used to call 'Nana'. He used to have Marie biscuits bought loose, from a particular shop on Ranade Road, and could make out from the crispiness whether the biscuits had indeed bought from that particular shop. One day, my mother was surprised to hear me ask the same question "Aaj Mhambre kadun naahi aanli vatta Marie". This was probably the only attribute I shared with my ver...

I guess it hardly gets warm in San Francisco any time of the year... Even when it is disconcertingly warm in Concord (East Bay Area) with day temperatures hovering around 40 degrees, it still was chilly, around 14 degrees in the evening, in San Francisco. It would have even fogged out, and ruined the July the 4th Fireworks display. But it did not, fortunately. It was a rush visit to San Francisco for the evening, to watch the fireworks display. We were cut-to-cut , however managed to watch the fireqorks from the famous San Francisco Muni Cable Car, as we descended from the ChinaTown Area. We covered the Market Street from the Embarcadero BART Station to the Powell BART Station, we crossed a real nice typically american downtown area. It was really cool, with its skyscrapers all around, however not as intimidating as New York. I really liked what I saw. Though I had been to San Francisco earlier, I had not travelled through this area. I got to appreciate it just yesterday. I will update...

India has stopped exporting food grains... So, here in US, we have to end up paying nearly 2.5 times for the price of daal, and other food grains. A 10 lb packet of Tur daal used to cost around 10$, now costs 25$ ... I gotta say now... "Yaha daal dal par dollar ki pudiya karati hai basera..." The perils of a global economy getting to us... :-) Effects never localize themselves anymore... I guess, the solution would be shift to dinners like these, (see attatched picture), and succumbing to the American food habits... :-) ... By the way, we had prepared these sandwiches, or whatever you may call them, at home... They look delicious, don't they? The bread was gotten from Foodmaxx (4 for a $) , and fortefied with Ranch sauce (which Mugdha likes a lot, to my surprise), boiled and scrambled eggs, and cabbage. The sauces by the side are mustard, and Heinz ketchup. Bon Appetit... :-) ...