Read at your own risk!!

I didnt know what title to give this post written in the middle of a Sunday night (if 11 o'clock can be called middle of the night ;) ) It might be a depressing read so proceed at your own risk!! So, I gave the warning in the title :)

Why is life full of difficulties? Well, it has its share of happiness too. But sometimes I think about this a lot: why life? I really cannot understand why millions of people exist on earth and each one goes through similar hardships and ups and downs, one birth after another, if the reincarnation theory is to be believed. It baffles me, why god, if there is one, wants not one or two but millions of people to go on living completely insignificant lives. I mean ok, some people have made history and all that, but fine, I fail to see the importance of all of this.
I wonder why I am alive. It wouldn’t make any difference to anyone if I was not born. But now that I have already lived a few years, some people would be sad if I am not here but they will recover sooner or later. And to think, people want to give birth to bring more people to live through miserable lives!! The kid would fall sick, cry while going to school, get bullied at school, get depressed at not doing as well in exams as the other kid, worry about getting admission to college, struggle to get a job, find a spouse, learn to adjust into married life, become a parent, struggle to take care of finances, child’s education, parents health, his own health, grow old and suffer all the aches and pains of old age, and then die only to be reborn and live through all of this again!! Sounds very terrible to me.
The saints/gurus say that happiness/bliss is within you and all that stuff. It sounds good to listen to. But what bliss are they talking about. And it is within you! Are you serious? I can only see misery, tensions with a bit of happiness here and there.
Well don’t get me wrong. I am not unhappy or leading a very miserable life as per the normal standards. My life is pretty much above average: I have wonderful people in my life and there are a lot of people to care for me and look after my happiness.
I haven’t even completed half of my life; considering average human lifespan and I already feel like I don’t have much more to do in life. I don’t want to go on living just for the sake of it. I feel like vanishing somewhere. Hey, the Himalayas sound like a good idea ;)

You know, I think I found why I feel all this. Maybe it is because I don't like to face hardships or difficulties or anything which requires more effort. I love running away from difficulties and I want difficulties to run away from me. Is there any way I can do that? other than going to the Himalayas and getting buried under the snow :)

Weekend stress buster - Bandipur and Gopalswamy Betta

This weekend was not a long weekend. But the itch to go somewhere was strong. We had a few options - Bandipur and Gopalswamy Betta, Nagarhole and Irupu falls, Yellagiri and optional Vellore. Finally at the last moment, we picked Bandipur and just packed whatever we could lay our hands on. We had had a lazy Saturday morning and an even lazier lunch of yummy mango custard and brown chana sprouts. It was 5:15 by the time we could leave home. We filled petrol and bought water bottles and we were on NICE road by 5:45. A break for tea and a dosa at the restaurant behind Coffee Day after Channapatna. We were at our hotel room in Mysore by 8:45. The room was small and nothing great but still cost us Rs 700.

Next morning, we left the hotel at 4:30 in the morning. We took a break by the road side to eat the biscuits we had got with us and reached the safari office at Bandipur at 6:45. The van was already filled and ready to leave. The driver cum guide told us to join him in the van. We got to sit on the wooden planks next to the driver's seat which offered the best view. But there wasn't much to view. There were lots of deer; some bison, some orange mongoose, some peacocks and one of them was dancing with his feathers spread out. There was also a lone elephant eating some leaves. We had more elephant sightings on our Ooty trip than this safari. The van had a noisy family who just couldn't keep quite in spite of the driver reminding them again and again that we are in a forest and should maintain silence. That was the irritating part.
With the safari done, there wasn't much else to do at Bandipur. So we had a nice breakfast at Pugmark restaurant and had a walk around the resort.

After that we were ready to go to Gopalswamy Betta. It is about 20 kms from Bandipur on the way to Mysore in Hangal village. It was nice to pass through the sleepy little village. Most of the fields had a “machan” because wild animals come to the area after dark. At the forest gate 25 Rs fee needs to be paid to climb up the hill. The road is open only from 7 am to 5 pm. It was nice to experience a couple of steep curves. It reminded us of the Ooty trip. At the top of the hill, we were greeted by some amazing views and a temple. After going to the temple, we sat at the temple compound for a while soaking in the greenery and the silence. We are suckers for greenery and silence ;) Finally at 11:30 we left the temple and were on our way back to Mysore.

At 1 we were near the bangalore by pass road and for some weird reason, we decided to take that route instead of going through Mysore city. That route seemed nealy 10-15 kms longer!! And it got quite frustrating when the White Orchid restaurant before Srirangapatnam said they are booked and cannot allow us to have lunch there. It seemed the Punjab police had booked the hotel as there were lots of police cars standing there. There go our plans of eating a relaxed lunch in a nice place. We were thinking we could have found an A/C restaurant in Mysore and had a good lunch. On the way we saw Fun Fort which had a restaurant. We decided to find out if we could have lunch there. The sun was beating down hard and we just needed a break. Thankfully, for restaurant entry they charge 50 per head which would be deducted from the bill if the bill amount is more than 100 Rs. Otherwise the entry fee is 275 per head. The restaurant was called seafood restaurant but we were assured of getting vegetarian food. Thankfully, we got vegetarian food which wasn't too bad.

At 3:45 we were on the road again. This time there was some Sunday evening traffic along the entire stretch between Srirangapatnam and Bangalore. With nothing else to do, I started reading the sign boards along the way and found some funny ones "Sri 'some name' parboiled by rice" !!! , 'Sachin heir saloon'

We stopped at Kamat for tea. And as soon as we were about to finish our tea, the rain and wind started coming down heavily. So we waited for a while for the rain to subside a bit. We left from there at around 6 and were home by 7:30.

Welcoming the microwave oven

Last week, we bought a new microwave oven. So, this weekend, I made complete use of it. I baked a brownie using this simple recipe. I didn't use the brown sugar and orange zest and forgot the salt. I also used the normal wheat flour instead of maida. It was good enough but slightly overbaked. First I baked them for 15 mins at 180C but it was slightly undercooked. Then i microwaved it for 3 mins and it got overcooked. Next time, I will try out the egg less brownie recipe by tarla dalal. I also made rice in the microwave and I think it is better than the pressure cooker for making rice. The grains puff nicely and are seperate from each other. I boiled potatoes in it and also roasted peanuts. I made mint flavoured peanut butter also for the first time. It is pretty simple. Just put peanuts, mint leaves, sugar, salt. I added a bit of chilli powder and run it in a mixie with little oil till it looks spreadable.

Brownie Update (4/28/2008) :
I did make the brownie using tarla dalal recipe. I added flour, curd, baking pwd, baking soda, cocoa pwd, walnuts and oil. That called for a lot of replacements like replacing butter with oil, dark choclate with cocoa pwd and flour with a mix of whole wheat and refined wheat flour. But after all this, the batter still looked a bit dry so I added milk till it looked wet like cake batter. This time I just microwaved it. It was done in about 6 mins and was moist. I think the moistness was majorly due to the added milk otherwise this time too it would have dried out. But the problem this time was, it was a bit too choclatey...more bitter than sweet...and thats not the way I like it. Either the sugar I have is not sweet or the recipe proportions are not correct or brownies are not meant to be sweet....
Well....hope to have better luck next time. :)

Food updates

Some of the things I made. Theres gula chi poli (jaggery stuffed chapati), til gul (sesame and jaggery ladoos). This I made in January for Makar Sankranti. Too late to be posting it!! I know but I always fall back on the proverb "Better late than never" ;) Then there is the home made equivalent of tandoori roti and chole. Also featuring my version of vegetarian momos with homemade sauce. I know they hardly look like momos...blame that on my poor photography skills....but believe me I followed the googled momos recipe I found on the net to a large extent. ;) These are half moon shaped momos which are steamed and lightly roasted on a tawa.

Ooty Conquered !!

Good Friday holiday expects us to go on a long ride. How could we waste a good long weekend like that? But the weather was playing tricks on us. We had taken permission to leave early from office on Thursday afternoon and had decided to go up to Mysore and take a night halt. But just before our scheduled departure time, the rain gods were out in full force and there was much indecisiveness about whether to go or not. By the time we were able to get out of office and try to decide whether to go or not, it was already 6 in the evening and we didn't feel up to the ride with the tiring decision making and the fact that we worked overtime in office in order to leave early. So we decided we will get up in the morning and check the weather and decide whether to go or not. We filled up the tank and the wallets and went to sleep.
We are up and ready before 5. The weather looks good so we arrange the new cramster bags which we had bought to avoid any luggage problems which we had faced before. The bag design is a genius (that's an exaggeration). I mean, it fits so well on the bike, has enough room to stuff a lot of things in it, and it has a design element for each requirement like some easy access compartments, bottle holders, rain protection and the like. It is an absolute must for people who are serious about going on long trips on their bikes.
Ok, so the ride is on at 5 in the morning. The weather is nice and cold with early morning breeze. It was a smooth ride till Coffee day at Channapatna. After half an hour break for the essentials we are back on the road at 7. There is a light drizzle and all through the way till Mysore, the rain gods were threatening us with a few drops here and there but I guess they like us and so they didn't bring forth a huge downpour. I was thanking the Gods for that.
We reached Mysore by 8:30 and didn't take the bypass road to Ooty and entered Mysore so that we could have breakfast. After searching for a hotel, we finally found a small one and had our staple travel breakfast of idlies and tea. We left Mysore by 9:15 and went through Nanjangud, Gundlupet. The road from Gundlupet to Bandipur is in a bad state. But in the forest, the road was good and the surroundings beautiful. We spotted deer and peacocks near the road but didn't stop to take pictures. The forest on the Tamil Nadu side is called Madumalai Wildlife Sanctuary.
After the sanctuary, there are two ways to reach Ooty. One is through Gudalur and the other through Masinagudi. The only thing we knew about the 2 routes is that the Masinagudi one had 36 hair pin bends while the other didn't but was longer by almost 30 kms. And that most people still took the Masinagudi route. We stopped to decide which one to take and finally decided on '36 hair pin bends' route. The hair pin bends and some portions of the road are quite steep. Even our 350cc Enfield was having trouble climbing at some places and it didn't help that Anurag and my combined weight was around 150 kgs and some more weight for the luggage. We saw even a few cars, specially the smaller ones having trouble climbing. The 25 odd kilometers of ghats took us nearly 2 and a half hours and some stops to let the bike cool down.
At 3:15 we were finally in Ooty in the hotel room. We had booked Hotel Villa Park through Makemytrip. It was slightly cheaper through the site than direct booking. It is a huge place with all types of rooms. We had taken the standard room which was slightly small but very clean. The bathroom was big, neat, functional and very clean. Trying to decide on a hotel in Ooty is very difficult if you are using internet as the source. Every hotel has some bad reviews written about it.
We had to wait till 4 for the restaurant to open and then we had some nice dosas and went back to the room. It was very cold and it was a good thing the hotel provides heaters in every room. We sat with our feet facing the heater and then went to sleep. We got up at 6:30 and decided to go for a walk around the market place near the bus stand. It was very near from the hotel. It was like bone chilling cold and I could feel my nose turn into ice ;) but it was really nice to walk around in the mist and clouds. No sooner did we reach the hotel, it started raining. Thank you again, rain gods!

The next day, the weather was bad with rain and mist all through the day. So we had booked a van tour which would show us coonor and some spots in ooty. At most viewpoints, all we could 'view' was clouds instead of tribal villages ;) But they were beautiful views nonetheless. The tea gardens looked so beautiful especially in this weather.
At Dodabetta peak, I thought we have reached subzero temperatures (exaggeration again!)
We didn't go to the Botanical Garden and left the van there. We went roaming and exploring on foot. We reached Charring cross and saw a nice looking restaurant called 'Sidewalk Cafe' or something. As soon as we entered, we saw Rocky and Mayur and their team. These are the guys who go around eating food on highways ;)!! They come on NDTV Good Times channel in a show called Highway on my Plate. We really like the show and so we were happy to meet them. After some more roaming around and some shopping, we were back to the hotel.

The next day we had a nice Ayurvedic massage at the hotel. After bath and breakfast, it was already 10:45. Anurag went to an Enfield mechanic to show the bike as it had a strenuous ride up to Ooty. The oil needed to be changed and all of that took nearly 2 hours. So, we could finally check out after 1:30 only. We had lunch at the hotel after that and then left at 3. The mechanic had told that Gudalur route is a curse for the shock absorbers and so we went through the Masinagudi route again. I had my heart in my mouth for the entire 30 minutes it took for us to climb down the ghats. I had clutched the seat so tight, my hand started paining. I used to breathe a sign of relief for every hairpin bend that we crossed. Phew! I am glad we made it after all. Climbing up took us 2 and a half hours but we came down in just 30 minutes!!
While crossing the forests, this time, we saw lots of elephants close by. One tusker was almost standing on the road. We stopped at JLR restaurant after Bandipur for tea and reached Mysore at 8. We saw the lit up palace and hunted for a descent hotel. Finally found one and crashed for the night. Next morning, started at 5:30 and were home at around 8 and back to office at 10 in the morning.
Every ride we take on feels better than the previous!

yummy soup!

These days I am trying to have soup for dinner so that I eat less chapatis and also eat something nutritious. I made this really yummy soup yesterday. I sauteed 1 onion, 1 long red carrot, half of a capsicum, 2 tomatoes, few cauliflower florets and half katori yellow moong dal in little bit of olive oil. Then I pressure cooked it with some water and salt. Ran it through the blender and seasoned the individual servings with pepper. I absolutely loved it. I guess the cauliflower played a great role in the result though I didn't add a lot of it. Even the small bit of capsicum goes a long way. This resulted in a lot of soup and since I am the only one who enjoys soup (Anurag won't eat more than 2 spoons when forced), I am looking forward to drinking it again today and tommorrow :)

Its Spring!

I know it am noticing a bit late that spring is here. But atleast I am glad I noticed. On my walk between home and office, I see beautiful purple flowers in full bloom, leaves turning red on the trees. Everything looks so beautiful! I am making an attempt at being a more positive person and so it is nice when you encounter something beautiful in the daily grind and more importantly, you notice and appreciate it, without being lost in the humdrum of daily routine. I will try to keep my eyes open to notice more of such beauty even if it might be rare in the concrete jungle.