Onion Corriander Rice

Which is basically pulao made out of leftover corriander chutney. :P

You see, it was just me and my mom for lunch today, and since it was just me at home past two days, there were not many vegetables in the house.

I suggested I make some pulao for lunch.   You see, after the gas leak incident yesterday, best way to kick the stove fright was to cook something. 

So here's what you'll need to make this amazing pulao.

1 cup rice

1 1/2 cup water

1 onion, chopped

garam masala powder, red chilli powder, pinch of turmeric, salt

2 spoons curd

2 spoons corriander chutney.

1 spoon ghee

1 spoon ginger-garlic paste

Soak rice in water for about 2/3 hours.  Apparently, that is my mom's logic, because this is 'old rice'. I think that means rice stored during last year's season.

In a pressure cooker, heat some ghee.  Add chopped onions and let them become pink/transparent.  Add ginger-garlic paste and mix well.  Add the spices to it and mix well.  Add curd and mix well.  Lastly add corriander chutney and mix well.

Now, add the rice and 1 1/2 cup water.  And pressure cook it for 2/3 whistles.

Eat with curd, or plain.  It tastes yummeh even when it is eaten plain.

Things you may want to keep in mind:

1.  Ask your mother about rice:water proportion - they know better than the internet. :|

2.  You may want to see that you have closed the pressure cooker properly.  I didn't.  So a lot of steam went off and well, some rice got burnt and stuck on the bottom.  It was still pretty good.

3.  You could've added capsicum, beans, cauliflower, carrots, peas, potatoes and other veggies to it, but since I didn't have them at home, I didn't.  It may taste better with the veggies.  Especially capsicum.

Anyway, here's how it should look. (except the bottom part where it is burnt)

Hariyali Pulao

Okbai

Gas Leak : How I Almost Died

So my parents have been travelling last two days.

About an hour back, I went to the kitchen to fix myself some lunch.

I smelt something strange.  The smell of gas.

I checked the knobs on the stove and one of the knobs was put on "simmer" instead of "off".

I immediately turned it off and opened all doors, windows, switched on the exhaust fan and well recovered from shock.

At around 9ish, our domestic help, who stays with her family in the quarters at our house only, had come to the kitchen to boil milk and ask me about my lunch and dinner plans.  (apparently, no one thinks I can take care of myself)

So, after the milk was boiled, instead of turning off the knob, she ended up putting it on simmer/low flame.  Incidentally, the moment she did it, the flame went off, so she thought the gas was turned off.  I was watching a movie till 11:30 and then some more tv after that.

At around 12:30 when I went to make myself some khichdi, I smelt the gas.

I was so scared.  I still am, a little bit.

I was in a house where gas has been leaking since past more than 3 hours.  It would have lead to a huge explosion, where I could have possibly died.  And when that realisation sunk in, I cried.

I'm kind of shaken up and scared right now, and have lost my appetite.  I told the maid what she had done, and she still doesn't get it how she put it on low flame instead of turning it off.

I've not told my mom yet, because she will get worried unnecessarily, and will probably scold the maid, which I don't want - it was an honest mistake and anyone could've done that.  But I will have to tell her, mostly because she needs to know that the stove is a little faulty and she should be extra careful with that one till we get it fixed.

But a chill goes down my spine every time I think what if I had ignited the stove.

What if I had died?

ps - pipeline gas doesn't smell as much as LPG cylinders do. :|

Where did he go?

Having someone stay up all night and watch you sleep is one of the most romantic (and at times equally creepy) thing anyone can do.

It is not everyday I wake up because I felt someone's eyes piercing through my skin.  You see, I lock my room from the inside, just in case any ghosts feel like haunting me in the night.  Even balcony door is closed and locked from the inside.  No ghosts are gonna haunt my room without my permission.

Anyhoo, so yesterday I felt someone was looking at me.  (yes, yes, my senses are super even when I'm asleep)  I opened my eyes and there was the faint light of the streetlight falling in the room.  But the light was enough for me to feel someone else's presence in my room.

I removed my light saber switched on the light and that's where I saw him.

My first instinct was to find the water bottle and hit him hard on his head or send a slipper flying across the room.  The idea of the slipper appealed to me more.

I bent down to pick up my slippers, taking my eyes off him for less than 2 seconds and by the time I looked up, he was gone.  Vanished.  Almost as if he was never there in the first place.

I looked around desperately trying to find him, but he just wasn't there.  Despite the fact that the doors were all locked. 

Where did he go?

And how am I supposed to live with the fact that a spider (we can never be sure if they have any superpowers or not) and I live in the same enclosed room and we are breathing the same air?  I live in the constant fear of spotting him again and not having my slipper handy again and he will again pull up a vanishing act. 

Is this how you treat the future God? (here God is me, FYI)

Internet and Anonymity

When people you consider friends hide behind the cloak of anonymity and go about saying nasty things about you or play a prank that goes too far, you need to step back and evaluate the relationship.

Why would your friends do that? If the reason is 'just to let you know how internet is an evil place and you should not go about sharing your personal details', then let me tell you, it was not an actual stalker/stranger who did those things that you did, it was you - someone I considered a friend.

Which proves the complete opposite of what they intend to prove - strangers are more trustworthy than friends.

And while I'm all game for pranks and I am a pretty good sport when it comes to taking jokes on myself, there are some things which are stretched too far.

I'm okay with a prank mail which comes from a 'secret admirer', but then, you don't write nasty stuff in the comments section about me and my family - anonymously.  It's a different thing that the nasty comments got filtered out by blogger and it didn't appear on the comments page, but I did get an email notification for the same.  Saved me the trouble of being polite even to mean comments.

I know who you are, but I'm not going to confront you.   You can choose to hate me and go out of your way to be really really nasty to me, I will still go about trusting strangers and being the awesome person that I am.

You didn't affect my life, but from the looks of it, you can't stop thinking about me.

Dad and his Android escapades

Growing up, one of the tasks my sister and I had was to uninstall all those programs that came on free CDs with those computer magazines.  You see, our dad thought it was a great idea to learn new things.  Unfortunately, for me and my sister, it was too much of a headache, considering those were the days of Windows 95.

My father, who works at a nationalised bank, thinks he is the computer expert there.  And I'm sure he knows more than his peers, and he can "Google" things up, but that's about it.  His Twitter account has only two messages.  One to me and one to my sister.  Both say "Hi". (no, I'm not giving you his Twitter handle)

Last month, for his birthday, sister got him an Android phone.  Samsung Galaxy Ace.  His first smart phone.  He had the biggest grin for days.  The phone model was decided by me, because the responsibility of 'teaching' him would fall on him, and though I am an excellent teacher, my dad can be a really, really, annoying student.

So for a few days he played with the phone and these are the things that made the sister and me want to go bang out head on the nearest tree and/or laugh till tears rolled down our cheeks.

1.  "The screen runs" - my dad on trying to go through his phonebook, which had 700 contacts and which he had accidentally copied twice and he is too proud to accept his mistake - so I'm still waiting for him to own up and ask me how to get rid of the extra contacts.  He was last seen manually trying to delete the contacts which appeared twice.

2.  Google Play account.  The only mails he gets are forwarded mails (which he sometimes forwards to the sister and me, which we choose to ignore - I think sister has even blocked him or something) and he has over 3000 unread mails in his inbox.  Despite that, he has 2-step verification password thing going for his account.  Now, this wouldn't be an issue while setting up Google Play account, right? WRONG. Because, he forgot his password.  Just like his netbanking password and his verified by visa password and every other password.  He just assumes I would be able to remember and recollect his passwords at will.  Despite zillions of reminders to write down the passwords in a paper somewhere, he refuses to do that, and he could not recollect his google account password.  This was so frustrating and funny at the same time because sister and I still laugh like crazy people when we go, 'heheheh, pappa forgot his gmail password' - yes, it is that funny.

He created another gmail account to access his phone now.  He does not remember the password. Again.

3.  Apps

He makes whatsapp even more frustrating for us.  He feels bad and sulks if we don't respond to his forwarded messages.  He felt bad even when he would send them as mails and we would not respond.  It's even worse because he just expects us to acknowledge even the talking cat video singing rang barse he sent us on Holi.  Now seriously, Talking Cat is one of the stupidest things ever.  The other day, sister suggested we all block him on whatsapp and he wouldn't even know if we do it together.  We'll tell him how something is wrong with our whatsapp.  I told her to calm down and told her I'll talk to him.  I still have to find a good time to bring up the topic.  Yes, yes, dad is a difficult person to handle, just like my sister, and such things are a big deal for him.  Maybe the next time he sends us a forwarded message.

4.  Internet

Have I told you about the scary spots in our house? Well, they are the places where neither the 3G nor the WiFi will work.  Well, we just discovered few more spots in the house, thanks to dad's new smart phone - their bedroom. WiFi goes out of range in their room and the phone internet goes for a toss too and that frustrates him to no end.  For some reason, sister, mom, brother in law and me find this absolutely hilarious.

There are few other thinsg too, but I can't recollect them right now.  Anyhoo, dad and his adventures with his new phone have added few more laughs to our lives.

But it is a delight to see him get all excited like a child about his new phone. :-)