sucessful yet simple

was watching this interview that lata mangeshkar had done for cnn ibn, realized how simple a lady she was......... by the way she spoke and the simplicity in her conduct....... was flattened!
when others respect her because of her singing i respect her more because of the simplicity even being an icon of music in hindi cinema , that , i think is unparalleled, I also think that only because of her, they had to speak in hindi when they would otherwise speak in english was great!
............. and yeah, here's the link to the interview (if it's there by the time you read this!!):
Interview

The first successful and original Hindi movie series!!

I felt really good from within that we also have a series of movies which has been original and have been successful till now. (Hopefully munnabhai is not copied!) you see............... i do not trust people at bollywood for their originality and i guess that's not derogatory in any sense for them!........ The promos of the third movie also seem to be great and I eagerly await the movie too!
The whole translation thing simply rocks.......... but hopefully this time they keep the same heroine and move ahead on the same track ......... even if they don't do that , the movie should be hilarious, that's all to it! watch the promo once again, i don't mind watching it once more......... :D
here !

Off the Series Now!

Its one of those days when i want to hate myself for no apparent reason!
Sometimes, something very small goes wrong which you don't think to be very important to you.... or at the least not something to cry over...... but it turns out that you get a little blue over it!
anyways, it'll go as it has come............ but here's a good music piece from tere naam .....

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Foundation of gator nation!! [VII]

We all wondered if there were really any gators (alligators) in UF or not. Since i heard that there were some at the far end of the lake where we had gone for kayaking so i decided to explore the gators of the gator nation. When i went near the swamp area, I saw some eagles , they sure set up the stage for the alligators to appear. I stayed there for a while and finally say an alligator , but as soon as he saw me, he jumped in the water. Then another one did the same and then the third one.
Man!!
it was lunch time and I was in the menu (along with my kayak!) so i tood a U-turn and paddled as fast as i could.
So much for the gators of the gator nation.
It was fun to race against the gators.

Deepaawali @ States !! [VI]

All of us were geared to do something on the occasion of Dipawaali. We would surely miss the family, crackers and all the delicious sweets (and more so for my flatmates! because they had just moved out of their homes) So we dicided to do "something" on dipaawali.
The first thing we did was to go to a "Puja" organized by the Hindu students council here. Since some of my roommates were religious (I mean are religious :D) so i also went along dressed in indian kurta and jeans. Its amazing that even wearing indian traditional (or pseudo traditional in my case as i had put on a jeans with the kurta) feels good in foriegn-land. So we all went for the puja but the real motive of going there was to meet people and socialize (atleast for me, it was )
When me and one other person went into the puja room, we were surprized to learn that the people who were conducting puja were ABCD's (for those who are anaware of the term == America Born Confused Desis ) !! Since we had entered the room (where puja was going on) we had to sit and listen to whatever they were saying! After some time we realized that the people following us did not show up (Damn!!) they must have guessed it by looking at very less no. of shoes laying outside the room :( . They must have gone, I thought, to some seniors house nearby where the dipawali puja was going to happen and there was some prasad (Yummy!!) after the puja! Alas, we were stuck here with ABCD's. Anyways, it was kind of fun looking at them conducting the puja. Later on I realized that there guys and girls were doing it with a better spirit than I ever saw anyone else doing the puja (no offence to anyone! but that's what i felt) The reason I say so is that, they explained the meaning and context of each and every word of the puja and also the context of the other sloks that they recited. I know that some of it did not have the details but it was too good for UG kids !! By this time I realized that my other roomates had also come to the room but were planning to go out because there was very less junta in the room. After half hour I realized that with all the explainations, the puja will go on for long time so i also decided to chip out. But I really admire their spirit of doing puja!!

Second thing for dipaawali was that we baked parathas the menu for dipaawali was= Meethi parathas, masala parathas, bhindi fry, alu parathas plus gulab jamun!! we had bought the frozen parathas and canned sweet but to be honest, they were great!

Third thing was picnic. next day, at a nearby lake called wauburg. We enjoyed boating in the lake(and this time it was not those paddle boats but canoes with real rows) we successfully traced the trajectory of a reptile on the lake surface!!
I think that we could make up a nice goofy cartoon on "How to do boating " in a lake if given a chance!!

Forth thing was a function organized by the Hindu Students Council which had dance performances and vocal classical performances and a bharat-natyam. I am not a big fan of classical dance and vocal classical so was wondering why do I always end up at such places !!
But to my surprize, the girl who did bharat-natyam was so perfect that I did not move an inch while she was performing on the stage. I was, as they say, awe struck!! But I was not aware of what was next to come, a bhangra !!
That too in full traditional punjaabi dress. It was going on great, it was ossom.............. but at the end they performed a trick with a boy and two girls literally hanging on to him rotating in circles...... that made it the most memorable stage performance i have ever seen!!
Dipawali was rocking by then.......... to add the cherry to the cake , good indian food with indian sweets were served. THE END................ one thing i got out from this dipaawali was that if one has the spirit to enjoy, they can do that any place on earth.......... So still stunned by the performance of the ABCD's that night I told my room-mates about the lake( they did not come the first time) so they decided to go there again and i was (by default) in . So I did kayaking this time and again enjoyed it ............... Will continue about this experience in the next blog :D
so stay tuned

The Paradox [V]

I was wondering about what did i expect from the new places that i have shifted to at any point in my life. When i shifted to a city called Kota from Udaipur (my hometown) I expected it to be cleaner as its bigger than my city and I always felt that the municipality did not do its job correctly but it was worse!
Then i shifted to mumbai and expected a lot of pollution there in and around college, there is a lot of that all right in mumbai but my college was as clean and natural as a forest!
I also expected that i would loose some weight and will have a flat stomach because of the mess food but again ..... i was wrong ....... i am still the same and that too surprizingly when i ate little because the mess food was not good. I wonder what went wrong! :D.
At this point i would like to mention that i am a jain by birth so ...... do not eat non-vegetarian food and also do not drink. there are other fundaes but i would not go in details. When i came to america, i expected to have problem with food and thought that would have to learn to cook american food with all american ingredients. But i ended up learning new Indian dishes with american ingredients as raw vegetables!!
and ended up eating very much vegetarian food at some group which serves the vegetarian food in the name of lord krishna!!
At present, i have been scribbling some scrap books with "shudh hindi" too!
The paradox that i was actually wondering was about the best way of living. There was an exhibit outside the library about "organic food" by the horticulture dept. When indians are copying the use of chemicals thinking that since others use them and they give more production, they are good. Americans are moving "backwards". I see people not using lifts as long as they can resist it. while they have invested so much in the lift installations and all!!

Shahi Dinner!

This is about last night, we had a shahi dinner and the most important part is that it was cooked at home!
Here's a pic of the shahi dinner that we made
We had chappatis, chavali (black eyed peas) , dal, and corn .........along with "pudina dahi" ..... I also added one more thing to it:
Its actually lemonade with mint!

I am glad that each one of us cooks well.........sometimes we might mess up a bit but its never to the degree that the food had to be thrown away......... in fact the mango pickle is all it takes to make the food good!
Let me introduce my flatmates while they enjoy the delicacies :D ,
The chef for the day:

Aditya Chomal

Me (the assistant cook) along with Kiran Sir: ("From Left", as they say)

The last but not the least.......... talk of the town......... Sumeet:
Its quite enjoyable to cook here because it doesn't take much time to make the food as everything is canned or pre processed!