Cooking Cooking and more Cooking !!

Panner butter masala, Gobi manchuriyan, Dal fry, palak panner, aalo Gobi masala etc etc. sounds delicious right? Yes! Eating all these is not a big deal, but how to make all these? Always we cannot rely on restaurants. Off late I developed little interest in cooking, but never wanted to try out in a full fledge as I am scared of kitchen work. Initially I had this impression that kitchen work is all worst, its one big time headache blah blah. But nowadays I started liking it. Currently the time has come to show my cuisine talents.

One evening I walked into Spencer’s daily grocery to buy some butter to make ghee, suddenly my eyes stopped to an attractive packet of panner, the cover of that packet had a print of panner masala. It really looked yummy! Immediately I took it and placed it along with other stuffs I bought. On my way back home, I was thinking why did I buy it? I don’t know how to make it, and my mom will also not like doing north Indian dishes. What to do? I never tried north Indian dish by my own.

Then I reached home, without my mom’s knowledge I kept the panner deep inside the chiller. I desperately wanted to have panner masala but I did not know the preparation method. After sometime I opened the chiller to see whether there is any method of preparation behind the pack. Wow!! To my surprise I saw the method, it all looked simple. I needed few extra things to make the dish. Since it was around 9pm, I could not go out and buy the missing items.

Next day morning around 8am I went to market and got the absent ingredients. I was all set to surprise my mom and brother. I told my mom not to come to kitchen as I am going to surprise her. (Thou she does not like these dishes, I wanted to show that I can make what I like and eat happily). This is the foremost time I am trying a north Indian dish completely by my own. I started to cut vegetables; onion, tomato, ginger, coriander. Eyes went real red after cutting onion. After a while I washed my face and continued to do my work. With the help of few links from internet I somehow finished the dish. I am all set to garnish the panner masala with some coriander and ready to serve.

And this is how my recipe looked :) (camera mobile, clarity will be little low)

Now I am yet to taste the recipe and all set for the first taste of it. Trust me; I was really scared how it would taste. I was praying all God’s before I was about to go for the initial tang… oops! I am afraid to taste, what if it tastes bad:(. I decided to give to my brother first, let him taste and give me the remarks.

I quietly went to my brother and showed him the dish and gave a spoon to taste; I closed my eyes when he went for it. There was silence for 10seconds and then I opened my eyes, he was so damn amazed and said “I never expected you to do such a wonderful thing in the first shot! Wow!” my face was brightened with joy, and then I felt like tasting, yipeeeee, it was awesome; next mom had a savor of it and was happy to know I can cook well. I felt very proud of myself.

Later I was all tired after doing the recipe, it is not a big work but for the first time it was bit hectic; and then I realized how mom used to feel tired after doing so many dishes. Really great. Hence I learnt one thing; eat what you like by cooking on your own, it will taste better and the best. :)

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Here is the method of preparation !

Heat butter in a kadai and add the onion puree and fry till they turn light brown in color. Add Ginger-Garlic paste to the brown paste mixture and saute for sometime. Then add the chillipowder, coriander powder, tomato puree, turmeric powder, garam masala powder and salt and saute for sometime. Now Add the soaked paneer cubes, some water and allow it to cook till the gravy becomes semi-solid. Finally garnish with coriander and fresh cream. Panner butter masala is ready :)

Sand conversation!! Lovely Bessie

“Hey frds 2day pucca at 5.pm Bessie; barista meeting point”…. This is the SMS which goes to divi, pri, cr, chand, anu from me, as I am the Bessie planner… friends are too studious in such issues, lol.. They will reply immediately for confirmation… I used to organize and usually I will be the last to come.

By the time I reach barista everyone would have come and they would blissfully be chatting (obviously veti talks). There I see my gang, I usually spot my gang by cr’s smile (not that she has smiling face, but her bunny teeth will strike you for sure)lol relax cr ;)

From there we go to our usual place ie: round sand conference ;). Here the conversation starts by our genie anu “hey temme some gossip” actually there won’t be much to gossip but we will speak some crap, on the other end cr will be quietly listening, but beware she is up to something; what is it?!?! Yeah, her ususal masala kadala and molaga bajji. We all have to go with her to eat molaga bajji else she will kill us ;)

I would not prefer going to the stall as soon as we enter beach, hence I generally drag her to water, cursing me she will come, most of the times madam would take care of slippers but every time I pull her to water. Oh yeah!! Here comes our yap yap girl, pri!! “Hey lets take a foto yar” her standard dialogue, hearing this I generally try to run away, as she will grab my mobile and asks to click for her posses. By and large her posses are similar either tilting her head to right or left and EEE her teeth ;) not to forget that she is glued to cr while taking pics.

In all this hungama anu will be in one corner; doing what?!!? Well madam will be over phone, I used to wonder why she came to beach?!? With lots of expressions she will be talking, talking and keeps talking, till when!? Till either her charge gets over or the other persons credit gets over, which ever is earlier ;)

Now comes divi, almost doing nothing but operating her mobile, she is never on call as she will not call any single soul on earth, she only messages. There comes a future predictor, she sees divi and says “madhavan mari unaku paiyan varuvan ma” she will be fascinated by it and gives her few pennies. (This is what I call business tactics) ;)

Usually divi and anu will not come near water. Myself and pri are the brave girls to stand in water; cr will gain the poise after seeing us. Standing in water is real fun, especially when cr is there, she will go backwards when tides come in some 100km, for that she will jump and go back, comedy only she does. Hehe...

After all water joy we dust our pants and head back to the pavilion. There cr yaps for molaga bajjai, certainly even we love eating it, but she always gets enthu when she sees those long long molagas hanging like designer pearl, till we get our royal plates we will be seated in plastic chairs and again we will start chatting, nearly it will be some love stories or about our class… usually when our sand conversation ends the mighty girl chand will come, number one lazy I must say, darling loves to play truth or dare. She is a pucca sport and does anything, but we should be equally ready to play with such a sport. Madam is our standard sponsor especially for ice creams.

Skies gradually turn to dark blue and we are forced to draw a closer to our lovely sand conversation. Now it’s really time to get back home, most of the times Myself, divi and chand use to walk back. When we cross frankiee shop, I will look at divi, she such a cutie pie understands from my face and offers me a frankiee. We both owe so much to each other may be crores ;)

Some how 2 to 3 hours will go with all these fun and joy don’t know how it goes just like that. CR, pri, divi, anu and chand the most precious friends I earned during all these three years of my college life. Thanks to all of you.

But there is always a special mention for CR and PRI for being there whenever I needed them. Thanks sweeties. :)

Sigh!! What a great fun we had in beach, ragging each other, laughing for silly jokes, talking everything from A to Z and always being together and united. It’s always blissful and such memories always have a special room in all these young hearts today, tomorrow and forever.

Now all are waiting for next Bessie meet and there goes the SMS……….. 1 message received :):)

Morning journey in 29C !!

Green dusty and smoky bus getting out from the fog at around 7:15am what is it? Yeah obviously it the well known ‘MAJESTIC’ 29C starts from besant nagar and reaches Perembur. What is so special about this bus? well, its nothing but the college rush which you can see from 7am to 8am in that bus. At sharp 7:15am a 29C will come the entire bezant nagar will enter into that bus, behind that another one will come but none will go in it. The reason is previous one is white board and the next one is express, it costs two bucks extra to reach your usual destination. Uuuff.. too much, people cant even spend two bucks extra and travel comfortably. Yet, the fun is same in the bus. Almost all my friends travel in that bus and we catch up at every stop.

Starting from divi she is real cute teddy friend who enters the bus first in the journey to college. Most of the times she will get seat as her bus stand is one stop before the terminus, madam will comfortably sit and give a missed call to me, which means ‘she got the bus and its coming my way, wherever I am I should reach the stop and get in’ that’s the indirect message from that one missed call.(waaat a communication nah :P) The wonderful chariot will come and I will get inside to see where divi is sitting, there I will see this girl sitting in the other end with the window seat empty, it’s reserved for me, she knows I like to sit there. From bessi we will start our usual chat “hey you know what?” this will go on for sometime and the bus will reach adyar, there my another lovely friend will get in, pinky she is one ultimate big time chatter box, keeps on saying something or the other, me and divi will not have a choice but have to listen to her, but many a times this girl is very sweet and tells us heaps of gossips… uuuuff… one day will not be enough to listen her talks, yet we do lend our ears as she is our lovely chatter box… our talks will go on till mandaveli, there gets in another friend of mine CR, my best friend in class by the time she gets into the bus the bus will be half sliding and she will be in some corner of the bus but will try to reach where we are sitting by pushing all others..hehe.. she will give that sparkling smile, it conveys almost everything… now its four of us in the bus, its enough to make some noise, giggle, scream, sing and what not. We start chatting from new movies, to posters stuck on compounds, to banners, commenting about people in bus, cursing people who irritate us in bus and lots… Now our chariot will turn towards cathedral road, there gets in another friend of us anu, she is our news bulletin, but more or less she will be standing in steps but will some how manage and come and join us.

Great!! now all are present in the bus, the chariot will enter Gemini…aaahhhhhhhh. Fun and enjoyment comes to an end, time to get down and climb five floors :(

With all those joy, however the bus may be we love the journey in 29C :)

Wat do u thnk of thz SMS lang?

Technology has undergone many changes from time to time; likewise English language is also seeing many changes. Short message service (SMS) a telecommunication protocol allows sending short text messages up to 160 characters or less. Due to this modern gateway, English language has been witnessing many modifications among the youth.

SMS has affected the proper and correct usage of written English in the current scenario.
SMS is developing rapidly throughout the world. There are quite a lot of inconveniences due to this technology. The main thing is that people tend to forget the right spelling and more or less misunderstand the message they receive which leads to perplexity.

So, where does the real trouble start? The actual dilemma starts when a single letter or a digit replaces words or sometimes even sentences. For example ‘be’ becomes ‘b’, ‘great’ becomes ‘gr8’, ‘ate’ becomes ‘8’ , ‘as soon as possible’ becomes ‘asap’ and so on. While composing message, punctuations are removed to shorten the message. Most of the times vowels are not used. For example: ‘between’ becomes ‘btwn’ . Furthermore, capital letters are generally omitted.

Look at some of these messages: >>>

gud mng...ve a nic day (Good morning, have a nice day)

2mro ll meet n coll (Tomorrow we'll meet in college)

gnsd (good night sweet dreams)

don 4gt 2 msg (Don't forget to message)

plz cal (Please call)

c u @ beach (See you at the beach)

sry i cant cme (Sorry I can't come)

hw s lyf? (How is life?)

i lyk ur coat (I like your coat)

i hv sum prob wid my comp (I have some problem with my computer)

my sys s nt wrkin (My system is not working)

k c u 2mro (Okay. See you tomorrow)

Today’s youth generally do not care about their spellings but it’s a great concern for people who read their messages for the first time in a different language altogether. “I think it is unnecessary, it more or less spoils your vocabulary and I do not use SMS language,” says Dhivya, a student.

“I usually recharge my mobile by sending an SMS message to the service provider. When I said 'I want 2 recharge', he promptly sent me two recharge numbers! I had to pay him twice for one recharge. All because I used '2' in place of 'to',” says Aishwarya, a city college student, whose father has bade her not to recharge her phone this way and end up paying through her nose.
“This is totally horrible and half the time I do not understand what people try to say, simple abbreviations are fine but making it incoherent is something I am totally against,” says another student, Varsha.

On the other hand it is useful as you can restrict your word limit to 160 characters so that your message is short and crisp. A few people have a different idea, like they think the mobile phone does not support T9 dictonary mode and so they tend to type in short forms or they may not know the correct spelling.

In contrast, many feel that it has at least helped people to communicate effectively in English.
“Moreover people use these short forms even due to peer pressure and anxiety, they really cannot type in full words when they are in some real tension and want to convey a message,” says Swathi, a student.

But the usage of SMS language does not stop here: its impact is seen even in exam papers. Students tend to use SMS language in their answer sheets to complete them on time and ultimately lose marks in spite of completing the paper because of silly short forms. It really infuriates the teachers who correct their papers.

“SMS is meant to put across your thoughts in a simpler way and what really matters is whether you convey the message properly or not; if its precise then there is no problem in using this kind of short forms,” says Guru, a software engineer.

The most disastrous thing is that it is being used in e-mail conversations which is immensely absurd. Day by day the English language is being condensed according to the upgrading modernisation.

If you look at SMS as a mode of convenient communication it’s perfectly okay but if you look at the same as language it is outlandish and is no language at all.

Airport inside or outside ?!?!

With the residents of Pozhichalur up in arms, the expansion plans of the Chennai international airport is getting mired in controversy. Expanding the airport means that close to 1,500 acres of the surrounding areas like Anakaputhur and Pozhichalur (a town which is situated north-west of Pallavaram) will be taken over by the government. But the residents want none of it. They want the government to look for a site that would not affect human habitation.

Most of the residents feel that the airport should be expanded in the outer region of the city, say a place like Sriperumbudur. The first advantage would be that traffic congestion will be minimised and the airport can have more modern facilities to handle high volumes of cargo and passenger carriers.

Moreover, it would be close to the IT majors plus in future the area might attract more IT parks and become affluent. Furthermore, heavy cargos can be handled smoothly to create more revenues.While looking at the negative aspect if the airport is expanded within the city, the vacant land which you get may not be adequate to fit in the airport facilities according to international standards.

Plus the passenger traffic would become more congested and with limited space and handling of floating passengers would be a nightmare. Further, air traffic (landing and take-off ) would be affected due to poor visibility - particularly during rainy and foggy days as there would be more number of residential and high rise flats in the vicinity of the airport.

Now the Tamil Nadu government has assured that it will acquire 700 to 800 acres of land near Chennai airport in order to build an extra runway. But the residents of Anakaputhur and Pozhichalur are dead against the proposal. They say there will be enormous noise pollution which would affect the elderly, plus they fear that if there is any mishap in the functioning of the aircraft it would affect the people living near the place.

“We do not have enough money and I’m a retired government employee; how will I look for a new house and relocate at this age,” asks a resident of Pozhichalur.

The state government has always shown interest in a greenfield airport coming up in Chennai in addition to the existing airport and had short-listed two sites, one at Oragadam village and the other near Sriperumbudur.As far as the airport officials are concerned, they feel that any modernisation would lead to privatisation. An official at the airport said, “If the airport is going to be modernised and privatised it would affect the public as parking fee will rise, air fares will be hiked, passenger fee and entry ticket will be also be increased.

On the other hand, employees working in the airport will be affected further as they will lose all existing benefits by the government.”

But there is no gainsaying the fact that the Chennai airport, with its burgeoning traffic and cargo, needs to be expanded. And the best way to achieve this is to locate the airport at a distance from Chennai city, where there would be scope for easy expansion and handling of the growing traffic.

Stress is a silent killer !!

The world is witnessing many changes; we are forced to go through all sorts of difficulties to achieve our objectives, in the process we endure stress which little by little generates mental and physiological reactions which lead to many health hazards.

So, can one control stress and lead a healthy life? Dr Aruna Ramakrishnan, gynecologist, child specialist and general physician, enlightens us on how to go lead a stress-free life.

Stress generally happens when you fail to complete your work on time. Fright and flight lead to stress. When you can’t manage your work you normally tend to feel afraid more and try to escape from your work. In the present scenario, we find a lot of stress even in school-going children as all parents want their child to come first in class and win competitions. These young minds suffer excess pressure imposed on them. Likewise, marketing people ranging from 21 to 40 years of age are stressed to a greatest extent as they are bound to achieve their sales targets on time.

What is it we gain from this sort of stress, pressure, tension and anxiety in life? It is nothing but loads of illness. Heartburns, known as acid peptic disease (APD), is one of the results of stress; secondly, hypertension, which leads to added internal side-effects like temporary palpitation and heart-related problems also comes with stress. Stress also leads to diabetes mellitus, says Dr Aruna Ramakrishnan.

To avoid such trouble, we ought to lead a stress-free life, our internal rhythm should not be affected which is possible by doing some recreational activities. Yoga and meditation help vastly in controlling stress, and doing exercise regularly, laughter therapy, having good food habits like consuming green vegetables and avoiding salt and junk food which leads to obesity in future, all help fight stress, explains the doctor.

In foreign countries, employees work hard for five days from Monday to Friday. They relax completely during the weekends and resume work the next week. We follow many unwanted habits from other countries; we must follow some good methods from overseas which help in reducing stress.

Twentyfive years ago, men were more stressed than women. But with women now working the same hours as men and also managing the household work, they are also stressed out. Further, at present, competition is getting tougher to maintain their position at the work place. Consequently, they are as stressed out as the men, feels the doctor.

On the other hand, men feel that if they devour drinks they will be free from stress, but it is not so. They slowly get addicted to alcohol and in the later stages they land up with liver damage.IT people are the worst hit due to stress. Nowadays women are more in this field and due to enormous stress and pressure, infertility has become common, says the gynaec.
Besides ‘stress incontinence’ occurs where one cannot hold urine which happens after 50 years of age and usually it’s not common.

“Stress is a silent killer,” warns the doctor.When you keep the pressure within yourself for a long time and let it out one day, its consequences will be severe. In this mechanical world, the best and easiest way to control stress would be following our ancestors' rule of being punctual and calm as far as possible.

Vishnu temples that cry for help !!

It really shatters you to see that temples dedicated to Lord Vishnu – when there are prosperous ones like the Tirupati and Srirangam temples – can be in such a bad state of repair. The condition of especially three ancient temples, not very well known, Kabistalam, Thirukoodalur and Sirupuliyur, around Kumbakonam, is really pathetic.

>> Gajendra varadan - Kabistalam

There is no full-fledged pooja in Kabistalam temple which is located between Kollidam and the Cauvery. There are absolutely no ornaments for the Lord, Gajendra Varadhan, or the Goddess, Ramamanivalli Thayar, except a few imitation jewellery gifted by some devotees

“It is so pathetic to see the Lord, Goddess and the temple as a whole in such a miserable condition with no proper maintenance,” says Aravinth, one of the devotees who visited the temple.

On the other hand, Thirukoodalur is also a cause for concern as it is not maintained properly. The Lord and the Goddess, Padmasani Thayar, do not have even ‘pancha patram’ (vessel where water is kept for pooja). The inner sanctum is so dark with no light. Light is shed on the Lord only during mangala aarti. In fact, the goddess’ face was hardly visible when we visited the temple. The priest requested us to buy some camphor to show us her presence!

The income for the temple hardly meets the oil requirements for the lamps.
“There is nothing in this temple except the Lord. Hardly four or five families, who know about these temples, visit in a day. We do not have proper materials for nitiya aaradhana (daily poojas). There is no proper revenue for these temples and I kindly request the bhaktas to donate pooja material,” says the priest.

The goddess was found in an old saree and there was no metal crown for the deities.

The priests, who themselves lead a life of poverty, are more concerned about the maintenance of the temple. Many temples do not have proper electricity connection as well.

>> Thirukoodular - Vaiyamkartha Perumal

There is another temple known as Sirupuliyur, 8 km from Villupuram chord line, and is situated on the northern shore of Kollidam. Here the gopurams, which house the Lord Kripasamudra Perumal and Thayar Thirumamagal Nachiyar, are ill-maintained.

Many people do not know the importance of these temples.

These ancient temples and each shrine has its own history. They stand testimony to ‘Incredible India’. The devotees and the government have a moral responsibility to preserve such treasures and pass them on to the upcoming generations to know more about our traditions, say the bhaktas who visit these rare sites.

They feel that the authorities must also make it a point to visit these temples to know their plight.

Vedavalli, a devotee who made a tour of these three beautiful temples that form part of the 108 Divya Desams, said devotees should show more interest in visiting these temples and contributing to their upkeep. !! >> Gopuram - Sirupuliyar