Trials and Tribulations by Fire

SRK rocks! Just returned home after watching JTHJ in S2 cinemas aka Theyagaraya with a sense of joy that I got last after watching DDLJ.  JTHJ, a 2012 release, written and produced by Aditya Chopra and blessed by Yash Chopra.  JTHJ is a typical Hindi movie and moves you, makes you empathize with SRK and cry with Katrina (I was shocked!)  The storyline oozes genius and this movie is a fitting finale to the master  storyteller Yash Chopra. Kudos! So, Major Samar Anand completely woos the two women in the movie apart from the other women in the theatre. Katrina and Anushka have done a good job dancing to SRK's tunes. The movie moves effortlessly from London to Leh, India. Songs are shot well and Kat has done the dance number very well. SRK matches Kat well and the audience lapped it up. I sat mesmerized as Major Samar diffused bomb after bomb and made many women's heartbeats miss.  Anushka's on-screen striptease took the men by surprise and I heard a few col

Finally, ended up making my favorite sweet: 7 cup sweet. Also called as 'Ezhu Battlu,' in Karnataka and by my maternal grandmom.  Ok, the '7' in the name comes from the seven ingredients that are required.  Check this out:  This is how the cake looks like once it cools. You should be able to easily cut it into pieces.  Ingredients:  Besan - 1 cup Powdered sugar - 3 cups (I used 1.5 cups) Ghee - 1 cup Cashew nut powder + almonds - 1 cup Milk - 1 cup Method to prepare: Mix all the ingredients and stir well so that there are no lumps.  Now, take all the ingredients in a thick bottom kadai and put on high flame. Keep stirring to ensure the flour gets mixed well.  After 10 mins, reduce the flame to low and continue stirring. You will find bubbles coming out and the mixture starts leaving the sides. Take a square or circle plate and grease it with ghee. After 10 mins, the batter consistency will be thick and you can see the bottom

Deep within, a churning, a rumbling boil threatens to bring down the fortress so carefully I built; A fear creeps up, slowly, steadily up the spine and lodges in the heart, near the nerve; Farther I go, the faster it catches up, I run, to shake it off, it follows like my shadow; Oh! Why are you following only me I ask, you are the best, it says! Dumbstruck I turn, I See my reflection and reflect on my own fallacies and fantasies; Longing becomes painful, yearning becomes a companion;  Heart is where the blood gets cleaned, life is where my sorrow gets a life;

Nowadays, wherever I turn, I see diyas and lights. It is Diwali time in namma Chennai. The colors are resplendent and bright; flames flickering in the light wind.  Ladies decked in their best gold and Kancheevarams, throng the narrow busy streets of Mylapore; haggling with the flower vendors and pot-bellied men selling lovely mud diyas.  How people navigate their large bosoms and butts and reach their destinations is beyond me. I keep getting amazed at the ease with which a scooter wala uncle manages to reach home in one single piece with all his bones and flesh intact challenging the perversion of the organism called the MTC driver. It has been ages since I last boarded an MTC bus. I often drive to work and to other places of interest. I do not even donate money to the next set of perverts: the infamous Chennai auto walas .  I had a chilling run-in with a Chennai auto wala  and after that I swore that I will not donate my hard-earned money to give business to the TASMAC own

I picked up Ravi's   If God Was a Banker   last month. To say I was quite impressed with his story telling abilities would be an understatement.  When I got   The Bankster  as part of a book review program by Blogadda.com I was thrilled.  In this new book, Ravi weaves a plot thick with conspiracy, murders, and money laundering. There are three stories that run parallelly: a CIA agent who smuggles blood diamonds from Africa; a resort owner who loses his son to the Chernobyl disaster is fighting against the opaque ways of the government machinery while setting up the Trikakulam Nuclear Power Plant in Devikulam, Kerala; and the senior management of G2B bank who are up till their necks in corruption and money laundering activities. In the beginning, the three stories seem different from each other and you need to focus a bit to keep in mind the various characters involved in each story. As the story progresses, it picks up break neck speed and converges beautifully. Ravi h