CAKE RECIPE

Many of my friends, (especially the "nudge-nudge-wink-wink" college spinsters to newly transformed adorable housewives) had been asking me about the recipe of the scrumptious chocolate cake i prepared last week at mom's place for a hen party, to share it with my "Framily" (Frenz and Family). So quite simply, i gave them the link of this page and at the same time thought of sharing this simple and time-saving recipe with my; as Amitabh Bacchhan popularly calls them in his blog, the "EFs" or Extended Family..:)..

There you go -

Ingredients -

2.25 bowls Wheat Flour
1 bowl Sugar
1 bowl Milk
1.5 bowl Curd
1.5 teaspoon of Baking Soda
1 teaspoon of Baking powder (Sodium Bi-carbonate, different from baking soda)
a pinch of salt
one-fourth slice of butter.
Flavour - chocolate syrup, vanilla or any other

Preparation -

Mix the ingredients n keep it for five minutes in the microwave..n Tada!! You have the recipe selling like hot cakes!!..:)

it's the last Monday of the "Sawan Somvars" and the temple near our house is scintillating with colourful lights and lamps..and in fact it's not just the lights but the sound too seems to travel at equal speeds..the sound billowing out of loudspeakers, lashing out at unimaginable decibels actually seems to reach God quite conviniently, screeching the ordinary ears of human beings..interestingly the only thing to laugh off was the tunes on which the bhajans were being played..the famous tunes of "Pankh hote toh udd aati re..." from the movy Sehra and "tutak tutak..." picturised on i guess Neelam?? a movy buff like me can only think of Sandhya in her famous dance moves when i hear the tune..anyways, but i seriously think we really need to do something about the relentless rise in noise pollution..

kids, who come to play in the nearby garden even during the exams, are giving a scared expression on their faces..maybe they're wondering why the people from the surrounding residential area haven't turned up to shoo away the people (like they always do with them) making these screeching sounds at such ungodly hours....probably the kids are seeing the same people adding to the racket... n so they have turned to some peaceful place to frolic around..hopefully the noise would disappear when they return home...

बातों से बातों तक

बातों से बिखरती कुछ नई बातें, उनमे से उल्हज्ती और उलझनों को सुलझाती हुई और बातें, अंगडाइयां लेती हुई सुबह-सी बातें, रात की गहराई नापती धुंधलाती बातें... युहीं बातों से बातों तक, उन सभी लम्हों को समेट कर मेरी आंखों ने इस झील के किनारे रख छोडा है..इन बातों को किनारों से उमड़ कर झील के शांत पानी पर लहराते देख रही हूँ ..उसी बातों के पानी से अपना चेहरा छूकर जब मैंने झील में झाँका तोः एक नही, दो चेहरे देखे, एक मेरा, एक तुम्हारा...

my previous post and the responses it gathered, egged me on to post some insights regarding the facts of being balanced and at the same time being creative..

our creative geniuses like Eienstien, Shakespear and others were highly balanced individuals!!

Eienstien himself stated once -

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”..and it was this attitude of his of always being on the move to keep his BALANCE working, that made him what he's known for..

in a management training program called "a balanced mind" that i was a part of, it was taught that a fully active and balanced brain adds energy and creativity to the individual, which is a necessary ingridient of a successful leader and that only a balanced mind can think of some creative or rational solution to a given problem.

Got to meet Mr. Shyam Benegal in a recent inaugural ceremony of Cinevision Film Club in Indore. in spite of so many questions being asked, .some sensible, some tacky, he was very patient in fielding all of them with great maturity..

i fortunately got a chance to raise a query. ..i asked him how he managed to arrange for the finances for the art films he has devoted most of his career to...he said that though after toiling with the initial phase and so many years later in the film industry, it is now not a big issue for him to manage for the finances..

later in the evening i managed to catch him in a rather informal mode and asked for his blessings for our new company and took his autograph/photograph on one of my favorite books on poetry, which includes some of my compositions too...:)

Beware or you might fall!

Life makes us encounter many crossroads, all bevy with carrots dangling to attract the traveller. And overloaded with extreme emotions, we might choose the wrong way. But there's a saviour, a solution which disentangles the confusion of choosing the right path.. and that according to me is BALANCE. It is what we lose to gain nothing and what we gain to lose nothing..We all are leading our lives in different ways but one thing is shaping our lives consistently in a particularly distructive manner; and that is IMBALANCE..

We all must strive to maintain an equilibrium..because it is actually the elixir of our lives, the guru-mantra for dematerialising all our pains..

Some, like my husband Sanskar, have it by birth...he has the capability to keep his cool in even extreme situations and doesn't let the situation hang his head in sorrow...I am learning this art from him...as most of the time in life we need to shed our egos, deal with our anger and project a calm and composed self to the society..It's bad to lose our temper and suffer drastic consequences. .It's better to deal with it and choose a greener life instead..

आज यू लगा कि जैसे सर के बल खड़े होकर दुनिया देख रही हू...इतने दिनों से जो तेज़ धूप ने कमरे की खिड़कियाँ बंद करने को मजबूर कर रखा था आज उसी धूप ने मानो दुनिया देखने का नजरिया बदलने की ठान रखी हो...सूखी ज़मीं पर बूंदे पहले भी गिरी है, मगर आज बूंदे गिरते ही ज़मीं नहीं मुस्कुरायी...पहले एक, फिर दो, फिर कई सारी बूंदों ने मिलकर ज़मीं को मनाने कि बहुत कोशिश की..पर ज़मीन थी की मुस्कुराई तक नहीं...शायद इस बार तेज़ धूप ने जो तबाही मचाई थी, उन चंद बूंदों की मनुहार से धरती कहाँ मानने वाली थी....धूप भी क्या करती, उपर से आये हुक्म की तामील जो करनी थी...

वो खुशबू आज भी मन में समाई है, जो पहली बारीश की बूंदे मेरे कमरे की खिड़की पर दस्तक देकर बिखेर जाती थी....फिर मानो इशारे से छत पर बुलाया करती ...माँ की रसोई के लिए बिखरे पापड़ जो छत पर सूखा करते थे, वो तक जलने के बजाय, भीगना ज्यादा पसंद करते ...इसीलिए मैं उन्हें समेटती नहीं... युही रखे रहने देती...माँ जल्दी-जल्दी सीढियां चढ़ती, चिल्लाते हुए की "अरे पापड़ समेटे या नहीं?? कपडे फिर गीले हो जाएँगे...सब समेट कर नीचे ले आ"...नीचे तोः मैं ले आती सब समेट कर, मगर उस समेटे हुए सामान में, पहली बारिश की ख़ुशी और माँ की प्यारी सी डांट को न मानने की शरारत छुपी होती थी...

आज माँ से फ़ोन पर बात करुँगी, कहूँगी की माँ मैं जल्दी तुझसे मिलने आउंगी, तोः शायद प्यासी धरती मान जाये और फिर उसी खुश्बू के साथ सबको महका दे....

my birthday present...

There are a few things money can't buy and for every such thing there's love, dedication and hard work! My this year's birthday present was an amalgamation of all these...My sister sketched in a lovely collage of sorts, me in my different states of childhood and youth...a simple white piece of cloth was transformed into a metaphor for the days i spent in my maiden home, with mom, dad, cha n sonia...the time frozen on this piece is a special one for me...



the wrapper doodled by her with a lovely piece of thought...


hand-made accessories again gifted by Sonia...


a sweet greeting card telling me how grilling and torturing it was for her to be in the Que of the shop to buy the card for me n funnily she says in the end that she had to steal it...:)

Thanks sis for the cutest gift ever!

me with my Grandmother-in-law....

Today on the occasion of Gangaur, i tried designing a mehandi on my left hand as the professional designers were busy with overwhelming appointments in their parlour....everyone in the family liked what i decorated my hand with.... i stole the moment of completion of my design to pride myslef on my instinctive creativity inherited by my Grandmom and Mom and the contagious talent droped religuously on me by the presence of my super-creative sis...i just said to myslef - "itana toh mere khoon main hi hain..."..and i stuck my nose up in the air...:)


my right hand flaunted the innocent doodling of my sweet li'l sister-in-law Sakshi...she very fondly wrote "S8" and "SA" for the first alphabets of the members of the family and "SA" for "Sonia and Abhinav"...how thoughtful and cute!

me before the pooja...