Diwali at Different Age....

Diwali or Deepavali !! what does this mean? A festival followed by most of the Indians? Well if you wanna know the history then go here. I have been celebrating Deepavali since my childhood or rather everyone would have been doing the same thing, but wat so special in that!! Its the way you celebrate this festival at your different age. At each stage of your life what does this festival mean?

When I was a kid, It was just a festival full of crackers, new dresses and sweets..., least bothered about why it is celebrated. I remember I used to get a crackers worth Rs. 20 (It was more than enough at that time) There used to be a kind of reel pataki which is normally put in a small pistol and we should burst it at a stretch, which would take hardly 2 mins to complete. But as all kids think other way, my objective was to break each reel into small pieces and burst one by one. This was taking longer time and was giving more joy and satisfaction of bursting more crackers.

As I grew up, my knowledge about the festival, reason to celebrate the festival also grew. Obviously the amount of crackers we used to burst also went up. The varieties got increased. The fear was lessening. Even tried bursting crackers by holding it in hand and just throw away when it was about to burst. Sara pataki, Hydrogen Bomb, Rocket, Kaage/Gubbi Pataki, flower pot, vishnu chakra and most popular was the Laxmi Pataki and susurbatti.


During college days, though the enthu in celebrating the festival didnt diminish but the interest in trying out all varieties of crackers started to fall. It was more limited to the crackers which small children at home cant burst on their own or rather they fear to do so. But nonetheless the interest in trying out the new dresses was still alive.


When we just started to work money was in our hand and we could able to afford to burn those expensive crackers which couldn't have been possible in the childhood. To name of a few serial pataki's (10,000 or 50,000 in number) and the flower pots which will spread colors in the sky.

Nowadays, we are thinking more about the nature, the pollution that is caused by bursting crackers. And we are in a stage where we are only seeing people bursting the crackers and enjoying ourselves. However, one possible solution could be to just gather in a group at one place in a locality and burst the crackers. This will not only reduce the amount of crackers but also reduces the pollution.

Nevertheless whatever it may be, the elan of celebrating Diwali should not get destroyed. The "Festival of Lights" should be celebrated with more lights, diyas and more sweets & happiness... :)

Snow Fall !!!!

While I was in a deep sleep I suddenly woke up in between and checked my phone (which is now like more of Alarm types than useful for talking) it was still 5:05 in the early morning. Not that my alarm rang so early, but some how it was a like a nature's wake up call from some one (you can guess) at that time to experience the most beautiful thing in life.

I went back to sleep again and after one hour or so i got disturbed which made me to open my eyes and look at the phone. Still it was not the time what i had set it as wake up time. But finally after few catnaps i woke up. I didn't realize something is happening outside. As usual i started to get ready and move to office. When I finally reached the Balcony door and took a glance outside It was that moment rarely few lucky people will get a chance to see in their lifetime, live in front of them. (And I am the one among them :) ) . It was a beautiful white "Snow Fall" mixed with a bit of rain. This was my first experience which I have never dreamt also...

I was bit confused and I was not very sure about whether it was actually a Snowfall or Hail Storms as both has similar definition or I have prior experience to both. No mood to go to office but kya kare paapi pet ka sawaal hai! manager will not be convinced so easily if i say i will work from home. So had to go to office and with great difficulty I made it coz the temperature was almost touching 0* C. My hands was getting freeze.

It was not the usual scene in office also. Everyone was talking about SF only as it was not predicted by the Local US whether Dept. which is supposed to be more accurate and it was so early also for those who are staying here. So work got started but the concentration was on the other side. Right next to the window if you are sitting and if such a beautiful fall is happening who the hell in this world will concentrate (except few workaholics) on work. And i am not the one among those workaholics. Every minute rather more frequently I was turning towards window and enjoying the nature. I tried to catch the snow also but as it was not thick couldn't do it. Suddenly an idea came to my mind that why don't i capture this in my sweet cam. Then I started heading towards my apartment. If you wanna read further go ahead as it is not a typical bollywood masala script.

I went back to my apartment. The excitement was at its peak (coz for me this was the first time) I was about to take my camera and capture it, then suddenly the snow fall stopped. I waited few more hrs but it didn't start again. As they say in Kannada "ಎಲ್ಲ ಹಣೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆದಿರಬೇಕು" .
Nevertheless it was unforgettable moment experienced at Lansdale PA, US. Wat say??

Cooking Biryani!!

Its just that it was saturday and after two days of veg food I thought of trying out something different and something good to eat. Not that I cook very often, but just in case if u dont like the bland US food u have to cook on ur own. Off course with some help from my roomie also.. We had this dish in our mind "Shahi Chicken Hyderabaadi Biryani".

So we started around 8:30 in the evening. First we saw a video on the net how to prepare as we had a rough idea of it. So we collected all the materials, cleaned up chicken and started preparing for the marinade.. We did add proper quantity of spices and prepared the marinade. By this time it was 9:15 pm. There are many ways u can prepare this dish but we followed on among them as my colleague in kitchen suggested this one. After preparing marinade we had to prepare the rice half cooked. Se we kept that aside for cooking. Then we realised we didnt have proper container to have all these and we shud buy some aluminium tray and we bought also..

The clock was showing as 10:00... Then we thought we shud start cooking the chicken and we prepared the contents and waited for the rice to get half cooked. After few mins we kept that inside the oven after searching for the right temperature and time in the net..Since many experts had given their own comments and their own way of cooking we calculated and fixed the temp as 200*F and time as 1 hr...By this time it was 10:45.

After one hour we opened the tray and realised that rice is not cooked properly since it was on the top layer over the chicken layer. So we increased the temp and reduced the time. Forgot to tell in the beginning only In between preparing this dish we were watching the Kannada Movie "Mungaaru Male" as my roomie wanted to watch one kannada movie. Although the subtitles was there he couldnt catch up with that speed, so in between I was translating few dialogues.

Coming back where we had left the chicken, after like 20 mins we again checked..its the same condition again. The time was running like anything and it is 12:20...The hunger devta was knocking our stomach. Finally we decided to separate the chicken pieces out and cook only the rice, since pieces got cooked properly as it was in bottom layer..We added some water to the rice and tried to cook it. Somehow it got sticky kind of thing with constant stirring we were able to cook rice finally. Later we mixed both rice and chicken pieces and the time was exactly 1:00 AM.

Even murghi would have laughed on us seeing wat we prepared and the way we prepared. Remember we started with an Idea of preparing "Shahi Chicken Hyderabaadi Biryani" and the final product was "Chicken Pongal" :)) But the taste was good just that we have to adjust for it.

And we had a brilliant idea of making this as a video on put it on YouTube. Just that it will not be a short clip, but it will be complete Hindi movie kind of thing. what say ;)