Lost & Found!!

It has been ages since I have been active on my blog. I didn't have time to update, wouldn't be the right statement to make, it's just that my writing took a backseat or rather I pushed it to the back letting some insignificant things become an integral part of my life. I had forgotten or rather ignored how happy & contented it makes me to write, play the Veena, dance.. Sometimes I secretly wish I dint have a smartphone at all, though I feel connected to many people I think I have lost the connection to myself or for that matter encroachment of any technology into our lives does the same. But then it has also become indispensable.

My mother is someone who has always pushed me to do creative things be it performing arts or any form of art. She has always been a very artistic personality. There have been days as a kid where I have cribbed about going to my singing classes and discontinued them after a point(though that was after a long struggle with my mother) but now when I think about it I do regret not having heeded to what my mother said, coz I have realised over time that I am drawn to music and if I had pursued it maybe I would have been good at it. But am glad I dint discontinue dancing, That's one thing that I enjoy doing all the time and any time, gives me a whole new perspective. Sometimes I have just let it slip it through my hands, it would have been a terrible mistake if that had been the case. 

So is writing, the joy I get out of writing about something whether it's great or not, gives a sense of satisfaction and takes my mind off insignificant things. I often secretly wish I had half as much a vivid imagination as Ms. Rowling and could write some decent stories. It's still a struggle for me to come up with an interesting bed time story and my mother could do it with élan when I was a kid. And writing this post after almost an year is like learning to write from scratch, I could only imagine what would have happened if I had forsaken it. Nevertheless I have tried making this post sound as meaningful as possible to me as well as the others and in the process I guess I have found back whatever I lost. 

Take over!! Boom Boom Pow!

     I had mentioned in my previous post that I would try out cakes yet again to justify my assertion on the faulty old All-purpose flour/Maida for my cake failures.  So I dared to go for it again. This time I made a mix of jowar/sorghum flour with wheat flour for the orange cake batter. Jowar is from the grass species raised mainly for grains but is also used as fodder for animals and is grown in dry and warm regions around Asia, Africa & Mexico. It is widely cultivated in northern Karnataka and other dry regions in India. It requires very little water and is an excellent source of nutrition too. It is a staple food eaten in the form of Jolada Rotti (jowar roti) in northern Karnataka along with aubergine curry, chutney powders, curd and other spicy delicious accompaniments. Since it’s very good for the health I used organic jowar flour with the wheat flour to get a healthier cake. My favourite fruit ever since childhood has been orange, I love everything about the fruit, its tangerine colour, citrus smell and the tickling acidic juiciness and since it is orange season in full swing I went for fresh orange juice and the marmalade which gave the cake its signature titillating citrus smell and a tinge of tanginess. And who doesn’t love chocolate flavour especially when it makes an excellent combination with orange so cocoa powder went in to give its contribution to the cake with its flavour and colour. The rich aroma of the cake wafted through the kitchen and it definitely looked like I was on the winning side but one never knows what one might end up with. I baked it at 150 degree centigrade for 35 to 40 mins to avoid cracks on the surface and voila it definitely came out whole and pretty. I had also had banana puree instead of eggs to hold the cake together but the best thing was that it added an extra sheen to the browned beauty.

The wondrous healthy choco orange cake

 I waited anxiously for the moment of truth, for the moment that would prove that it was all along the Maida’s fault and not the recipe nor me who followed the recipe. The small piece that I cut out looked very porous and felt extremely light in the hand. As soon as I popped it into my mouth I was glad that I took up this challenge and didn’t just throw away my baking skills. Though grainy (jowar is grainy) it tasted perfect with the right amount of sweet & sour and fluffiness. I just felt I had crossed the finishing line leaving my opponent far behind at the starting line itself. So there was an admirable testimony for my latest acquired baking skills as well as my undaunted spirit to keep going on. I couldn’t have been more satisfied about the perfect timing, gave me the much needed boost just before joining my new workplace as designer. Everything happens for a reason….

Fluffy & utterly delicious!

The sunny side up!

            After a disastrous baking day in the kitchen a few days ago, trying to get a citrus cake done (wasted some yummy fresh orange juice), I was quite let down that I had not turned out as good at baking as I had thought I would. I had wanted to indulge in some sinful citrus calories for the hot summer for quite sometime, so I baked a cake with all purpose flour/Maida moving away from my healthier version of wheat cake just so that I could get a spongier cake. Alas I was hugely disappointed. Though it looked pretty for the camera, it didn't go down so well with the tasting buds. It had a rubbery feel, was dense and definitely didn't taste like cake. Though I slept through the night, this mess up was biting my head off the next day to find out what had actually gone wrong with the recipe (remember, one needs to be precise to bake a perfect cake). So I went for it again but this time with smaller batches for citrus cupcakes instead of a cake. It was a good start with the batter tasting  just fine, I went ahead without any change in the recipe and put it to bake. I expected a super fluffy, honeycomb structured cupcake but out came an extremely white set of cupcakes with glazed brown surface. I have seen my mom and aunts bake cake with only Maida and I swear I have never seen a whiter cake as this one. though it tasted good, it still retained that rubbery feel to it. Now this drove me up the wall as the same recipe previously with the whole wheat flour had turned out perfectly well and much fluffier. There I went again racking my brains for where I could have possibly gone wrong. For some strange reason I turned over the All purpose flour's packet to check the date of manufacture, thankfully I hadn't used expired flour (now that would have become an actual disaster) but it was pretty old flour (Maida is rarely used in my kitchens) and old flours result in bad cakes. I heaved a sigh of relief and I am pinning my hopes on the old flour for my cake failure and not myself.
So I am yet again going to try the citrus recipe with wheat flour to assure myself that I was not the wrong one but the old flour indeed. Failure does strange things, well sometimes it just gets the better out of you and I have definitely learnt to take failures in a positive stride. :)

My Baking Blues..... Cracked

                     This would be my first attempt at writing about food in my blog. Food has always been a great part of my life, ever excited to try various cuisines and breaking down its nutrition factor. I was never the eager kid helping my mum around the kitchen but rather the one having it and burning it all playing outside. Being born and brought up in a Havyaka Brahmin household I have always been associated with healthy & nutritious vegetarian food. Havyaka cuisine is one of the few kinds that use healthy fresh produce and almost no oil to make excellent scrumptious food with taste and nutrition never being compromised for. There was never dearth for nourishing food and the knowledge of what it does to one’s body. Hence I have always looked up at the bigger picture of having wholesome food with occasional indulgence to satisfy my taste buds. As an outdoor person, always away playing in the grounds, my kitchen visits were very limited except for those rare Maggi cooking sessions and helping mother in baking cakes (I guess, No pain no gain & the only kitchen activity that excited me). Contrary to all this I enjoyed watching cookery shows & contests. It was during my stay in the hostel that I realised my folly of never having tried my hands in the kitchen. Nevertheless being a foodie has its own perks, as it goes ‘necessity is the mother of all inventions’, I began trying to cook up with a few resources I had back then and lo & behold there I was putting together a decent edible meal. However it never held my interest for long nor did I have the patience to slog in the sweltering kitchen. 

I have always had a big sweet tooth (well it runs in the family), treating myself with all kind confectioneries, Indian sweets et al, though I knew that these ephemeral joys from the loads of sugar could do me more harm in the long run. Consequently I have always striven to find healthier supplements for my sugar cravings. Incidentally I loved watching people present dainty & tempting three hat restaurant standard desserts & confectioneries in cooking contests. Julia Taylor, the ‘dessert queen’ of MasterChef Australia 4 whose delicious desserts enthused me to experiment with my culinary skills, but with an entirely different emphasis on finding a healthy alternative to the sugar loaded delicacies. My mother and her sisters have always eliminated egg from their cake recipes replacing it with curd & butter so my first step to making vegetarian confectionery was quite easy. However I still wanted to get rid of the superfluous calories from the butter and nutrition less all-purpose flour. So I started replacing it with whole wheat flour and oat flour as the nutritious replacement, but I couldn't think of or find healthy substitutes for curd and butter (though ready-made egg replacer are available in the market it’s not a very feasible replacement) until I came across flax seed meal in the internet which is not only highly fibrous and beneficial but also makes the cakes puffy and fluffy. This not only manages to satisfy everyone’s palate but also nutrition wise is much better than cakes loaded with calories. Though I used olive oil initially I eventually substituted it with water and got an equally good cake. So finally I have the perfect basic recipe which can be implemented to almost any confectionery recipe which is equally nutritious, delicious and Vegan, so you don’t have to count in the calories when you have your sweet cravings. So here I go with my healthy tasty recipe for vanilla cupcakes.

Ingredients:

3/4^th cup whole wheat flour

3/4^th cup oat flour

2 tbsps. Flax seed powder + 6 tbsps. water

3/4^th cup of powdered jaggery/unrefined cane sugar/white sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup water

1 tsp. vanilla essence

 Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius. Mix the flax seed powder with water and keep it aside. If you are okay with dairy products take a cup of warm milk and add a tsp. of apple cider vinegar and allow it to curdle instead of the flaxseed meal and water.

Mix all the dry ingredients. You can dry roast ready to eat oats, powder it and use it. Mix the wet ingredients together and slowly add it to the dry ingredients and mix it well together until completely incorporated. 

batter in the cupcake mould.
I got in funky moulds to make the
process all the more fun. 

Line the cupcake tray and pour the mixture into it and bake it for 30 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean. Cool them completely on a rack and voila it’s all set to be devoured.  

Butterflies all set to fly ;)

Perfect with tea or coffee

PS: Tastes best as an evening snack with your beverages, you can top it with nuts or cream (if you are extremely skinny) :P

PPS: Hope you loved it & hope to come back with more.. :)

Life... As I know it.

      It has been a while since I held a pen to write about someone who really inspired me and moved me to tears at the same time. The reason I am back to writing after such a long hiatus is because I thought that the story of this particular person must reach everyone of his times and after his times. I was desperately in need for a push to come back here and start all over. An artist/writer goes around looking for inspiration that makes him bring out the best in him, but what he accidentally stumbles upon is what brings out the best work. That is what I hope has happened to me now. To me, more than just writing an impeccable piece, it’s about reaching out to everyone with Mr. V.Chandrasekhar’s story. How many of us know about Mr. V.Chandrasekhar other than people of his times who also have sadly forgotten him?

I didn't know of his existence until I came across a special episode of ‘Kannadada Kotiyadipathi’ (kannada version of KBC) where Indian cricketer Anil Kumble mentioned about raising funds for Mr Chandrasekhar’s Table Tennis Academy in Chennai. But until they showed him in person thanking Mr. Kumble and wishing him good luck for the game show, I thought him to be a normal sportsperson (of which I had no clue of either) who was trying to get recognition and aid for his game, in this cricket obsessed country. 

Mr. Venugopal Chandrasekhar is a former national Table Tennis player & Arjuna award winner from Chennai. He was a flamboyant player back in 1980’s and it is said that tickets for his matches used to be sold in black in TT patronized cities. He was also the first player from the non cricket world to be approached for commercials. He achieved great heights until 1984 when a negligent knee operation in the renowned Apollo hospitals threw every dream and life of his out of the window. A wrong dosage of anaesthesia left him paralysed and his brain damaged. He also lost most of his vision. He was known for his powerful personality, immense talent and also exuded the passion for making TT a forerunner back then. The legal battle went on for 10 years before Apollo hospitals decided to settle for their negligence. His dreams of making it big in TT definitely reached a dead end but his passion for it didn't He went through treatments and today has regained almost 70% vision and most movement of his limbs. He still suffers from a condition called nystagmus because of which his eyeballs cannot focus making it sometime really difficult to walk for him in the dark. As taken from his autobiography "My fight back from Death's door",

"There are times when I stumble on the footpath, and people have thought that I was drunk.
That is when it hurts for it is not my fault. Then I look at the computer in my office and cannot
read the small letters. To be lesser than a normal human being is what pains me the most
But I know I have to carry on. There is no point in looking back."

It is indeed very agonizing to see a legend reduced to almost nothing physically but he hasn't let this get to him instead has started his own TT academy and trains aspiring young ones like him there. He has shown many of us, all that is needed to reach out and make ourselves an identity is determination and the ability to face what may come. He fell down, but raised stronger & even more determined like a phoenix. This is what is for the majority of hale & healthy people with their brain and limbs intact to be learned from people like him who despite all inabilities continue to fight on for their passion and live life on. There are many in this world like Mr. Chandrasekhar whose stories have to come out to teach the many million normal people to live life cheerfully. It is up to us to keep these people alive in our memories and pass on their stories to the future. 

For all the people, you and I alike, not to lose our faith in ourselves when we fail but start fresh with even greater vigour and zeal and leave back the past baggage behind. For all the old and young alike who think of taking drastic steps when they just fall short of their goal; everything is not lost; you still have that moment to live, live it to the fullest coz you cannot relive it again. For everyone alike, be thankful that you are privileged than many on this earth who fight numerous hardships just to see a ray of hope and light everyday. I am thankful that I am one among those fortunate who gets to live each day contentedly without having to put up a struggle. I have always noticed that when I slowly lose the enthusiasm in life, I come across such people or incidents which make me realise I have nothing to complain about. It makes me want to do more for others. 

Man is a greedy animal; time and again it gets proved. Today we have grown intolerably self-centered and crave for more and yet remain unsatisfied. If only we open up a little, we will notice that there are lot of people who don’t even get to live what we do. It most definitely will make you feel very much gifted. It will make you forget for a moment that 'I am most important'. Man may have become everything dark but I still have faith he hasn't lost compassion for mankind at least. We need to keep reminding ourselves that there is more to life and live cheerfully.

image courtesy: www.timescontent.com

The Awakening!

The whole house being pulled down, newly painted, with my mother running berserk hurling abuses at me, lucky for me being an injured soldier she dint keep breathing down my neck. As for my dad, he had to put up with my mother's scowls. All this commotion was for the welcoming of Radhe Jaggi, who is a kalakshetra dancer other than being Sadhguru's daughter, she was coming the down to Neyveli to perform as a part of her offering to the Nataraj temple. After the whole house was revamped we were expecting her from chennai but she dropped in late due to the alarming hike in the petrol rates. The next morning after the late breakfast we headed to the venue & back in the infamous Neyveli heat. Later in the evening, the performance started with the Ganesh stuthi, then she started with the thisra alarippu which was a perfect combination of adavus & grace. This was followed by the extremely brilliant composition called 'tunga tarange gange'  which she did justice to, with amazing poise & perfect amalgamation of abhinaya & adavus. For some strange reason, maybe because of the presence of a higher power, her performance drew a large crowd & was intense with a streak of divinity to it. Her emotions were very soulful which made it difficult for me to take eyes off her. She ended it with a immaculate Thillana. The whole performance left me yearning, asking for more, start over my passion for bharathnatyam & desire to go dance alongside. I just had lost appetite for dance, I needed the push to slip into my dancing shoes or rather into the 'salangai' & Radhe just did it with her scintillating performance. The day was really phenomenal with the new awakening & new urge to do it all over again. 

The Long wait..... Wholesome experience!

I don't remember when was the last time I had felt so excited, felt the blood pumping into each vein along with the dreaminess of floating in the air with exhilaration. Well, the selection to the hot seat in Neengallum vellalam oru kodi (NVOK) did all this wonders. For people who are unaware of nvok, it is the Tamil version of kaun banega crorepathi hosted by the dashing surya of ghajini fame. I never knew I could make it this far pretty effortlessly. All this would have been impossible without gods grace and my parents. I would like to take you down this memory lane of mine & document it so that I can cherish it 20 years from now. Well as they say a mother knows her child the best, my mother was the one who coaxed me to enter this competition, she realised I had the potential & the knowledge to get through this & because I was desperately trying for KBC when it was first aired though I wasn't eligible. So I went through this rigmarole. First the SMS, then the call from them confirming my details along with 2 computer generated questions & then being called for the ground auditions in Laity auditorium, Kilpauk. I reached the venue as early as 7:00 am on the 19th of March & to my disappointment I found a painfully long queue for the registrations & I realised I had to bunk the whole day of office. It was a whole new experience for me, I have always watched long meandering queues on TV for reality shows & always thought people were crazy to be standing all through the day, but now, that I was in their shoes it din't sound crazy enough. After the registrations, there was a problem with my DL, it all came crashing down. Maybe it was meant to be short & not sweet. Luckily though, the issue was sorted, I got to face the tedious process of filling up the booklets & a round of quiz where I had to answer 10 questions (I did get them all right), later followed by a video shoot. We wound up at 7:00 pm, 12 hours of portal into a different world. Now was the worst part, waiting eagerly for the final call from them. It was indeed a very long wait, during which i had completely lost hope that I would ever get through. But again there is some super higher power whom I would like to call 'GOD' & Voila I get a call saying I have gotten through & that I am supposed to be present on the 7th of May in AVM studios (Kick ass, I must say). I din't know how to react & I have never been this weird. No sign of over enthusiasm, just silence apart from the buzzing of the butterflies in my stomach. As a forerunner to the show,a small video shoot of my crazy activities, hobbies & work were recorded, I guess this was the irresistible hilarious part of the show. Then on the D day, myself & my parents made it to the grandeur of the AVM studios. The NVOK set was both imposing & intimidating.We had a run through with their instructions, rules & then the changing of clothes, make up & hair & a mock fastest finger first. All this added on to the anxiety, nervousness but the Vijay TV crew did their best to make us all feel at home. Finally I make way to the ever dashing, darling Surya, I hold his hand & I just look at him & drool, well its not surprise here, is it?! For a moment there, thought I would forget my line for Surya but thankfully I make it along with drooling. After the introduction, is the FFF, which is the most toughest part of the game as it requires undue composure. I made it through that also & that's when I could feel the adrenaline rush, I went weak in my legs, I couldn't believe when my name appeared on the screen for the Hot seat, that is when I was on cloud nine. My mom couldn't hold back her tears, she was never happier. After all the racket & basking in the glory & attention from the crew, I was summoned to the hot seat after lunch. With Surya in front of me, God was he handsome, just couldn't take my eyes off him, drooling once agin. Then the game begin, started off pretty well, went on smooth with little tidbits of my life. Surya is a good talker, really sweet & assuring.So I sail from Rs.0 to Rs.12,50,000 question, this is when my overconfidence & the game play took the better of me & I lost, sliding down to Rs.3,20,000 but surprisingly I was not dejected, I was happy because the whole experience was entirely new, enthralling,it was never really about the money, it was just a good side of this whole meeting the star & having my 45 minutes to fame experience. I don't know how to conclude this as it all still seems dreamy & far off to me. Pinch me!!