Happy Holidays :)

                                                                       

And its time again for people like me who live thousands of miles away from their family to get back home. Beg borrow and steal a few leaves from our busy lives, take 30 hour long flights just to get home. Oh yes! its holiday season again. Apart from the fact that a whole year has gone by without me doing anything that was really thought provoking or world changing ( holiday season is  definitely not a time for reality checks..) its time to be back home again. A time for family dinners, to spend hours decorating Christmas tree and hanging those silver bells and tiny trinkets and baubles on  it, a time to spend evenings chatting with friends who you have most probably  met after a year and in all probability will see again only after a year, a time when you love Christmas carols no matter if you actually know the words to them or not. You smile when you sing them, hear them, play them whistle them out or just even think about them. A time to believe in Santa again no matter how old you are or how many times you have seen your dad put presents under your pillow a decade back. For me its a time to interrogate all my friends take an inventory of the sweets that have made and then chalk up a schedule to go and hog on all those delicacies in record time. My personal favorites are little somethings called as rose hooks. No they don't look like hooks and nope they are not made up of rose petals but they make you take a trip to heaven every time you have one none the less.

Its also the season when you love putting on a few extra kilos from all the joy you share without being chastised for it.  A few extra cups of steaming sweet hot coffees/ chocolates that you get to have in the cool winters that are so loved and much appreciated by people in Mumbai where anything below 55 degrees  is winter. A time to watch all those Christmasy  movies you get to watch on TV where the north pole and thus Christmas is on the verge of extinction and is saved by that one naughty kid who would topped Santa's list had he not gone all out and saved the happy jolly man and his pack of reindeer s.

 Christmas is also a time for love. To spend time with those you love. A time to see smiles everywhere, brought on by little kids wearing Santa caps and running around or by millions of people that travel home through Jam packed airports and security lines that run miles long to hug and kiss those who come to get them at the airports. 

Christmas is also a time to thank someone up above for a wonderful year that has gone by. For all the things that went your way and all that did not. A season to forgive and learn to love again. A season to give and feel that warm tingly little feeling in your heart that tells you ' you did the right thing' by helping out someone or just doing that something you have been meaning to do for the past year but never really did it. 

Its also a time to see the town bathe in a new glow from all the decorations that are put up everywhere, a time to hope it snowed in Mumbai to see a white Christmas with your family. A time to hold on to your loved ones to make them stay just a little bit longer in the evening. A time for slay rides or just may be dream bout them. A time to hope that the Christmas magic exists, that all's good in the world and that dreams do come true. A time to hope life would be like movies and even if it doesn't its still a time to smile cause this might be the closest it will be. 

Cheers to all the Christmas joy and love. Merry Christmas to all my friends and hope you have the happiest of the holiday season :) 

PS : Pic of b-town bathing in the Christmasy glow and all the louuu or maybe i just have my Christmas glasses on.

Cooking lessons...

One of the dreaded things , at least for me before i leave for my masters, is the cooking lessons i am subjected to at home. I should say more than cooking lessons they have turned out to be a torture of a poor soul who is exploited because the angle cant cook..  :p

So since i cannot cook complete meals as yet i get the task of cutting onions, potatoes,chillies,tomatoes,lady fingers,cabbage,cauliflowers etc etc.. and basically any other ingredients you have to cut before you cook them.. :|  After i have cut most of the stuff i get the task of cleaning up. If by chance me and mom are watching TV together .. miraculously ...just out of the blue.. (I need to find which puts these shows on air) a cookery show starts...The lady blabbers n blabbers and cooks some yummy looking dish, which my mom was some how looking for from a few days...and instead of writing the ingredients down she interrogates me to know the ingredients and the method.She calls them revision lectures. And i have to repeat. Its like De-ja Vu..reminds of the vivas during my engineering days.Making tea in the afternoon,breakfasts for sunday mornings (if i am not making it..i still have to stand and watch), fast fix recepies when mom wants to go someplace all have cozily snuggled into my daily timetable.

I am proud to say i can now distinguish between curry powder, garam masala, asafotida and various other similar looking powders that sit in our spice box. And no matter how much i crib i have to admit somewher i have started enjoying making these simple meals and experimenting with them. May it be Dal Tadka,spanish omlets,bhendi fry or exotic spinach Pasta. It definitely tastes much much tastier when you know you have made it and it gives a lot of pleasure to see your family relish and praise you for your 1st attempts even though sometimes i can taste the extra salt i have dropped in :)


PS: Image of the really delicious Spinach Pasta i had cooked along with my sister.Trust me its tastes better than it looks :)