Food ahoy

Reliving fond childhood memories through a staple Maharashtrian breakfast called 'misal pav'

On this glorious morning in beautiful Pune, my heart made a beeline to a small stall serving this dish, and the last I remember having this was in past life.
How long has it been since I came down here. About seven years.
The last I was here was when I was managing a tour of a few Eastern European Dj's and there's little I remember about that time except getting exasperated over trivial technical issues.

But today, today in the middle of a watertight schedule I'm going to permit myself to gorge on all that I remember.

Whut

I don't even..

Roosting

Ah also..

gong xi fa cai

( happy new year)

cockhead

In this year of the cock (rooster;) ); waking up to a steady coco-a-doodle-doo sung in chaotic unison by over half a dozen roosters.
Just as one screaming rooster paused for a breather another would start and so on and so forth. Something like a cackling Dominos of angry poultry.

Alas, roosters have little concern for worldly manners and this be their year, meaning etiquettes might be fairly lax. On the other hand one might fathom a lot more chicken intake.

Cool are the days. Bright is the light. Wind a muffled chill. Life obstructed by mists white.








Sent from my iPhone

Hairless

You might be going bald fast but not nearly as fast as Rafael Nadal.
Vamos Rafa

G'day

Odd all night dreams that were a collage of me trying to make a space craft, looking for leftover noodles and finding peach flavored face cream instead.
It was surreal and tangible still; so much so that I could reach out and pluck the strings of that dream and create harmonious sleepy music.

Then, a marauding mosquito who was decidedly an anopheles Pavarotti commenced a rendition of its national anthem in my ears and thusly woke me up at an odd hour of 2:30.. what's strangers still is that I woke up fresh - probably comes about with sleeping at 9:30.

Ho hum. Not nearly 10:00 and the day is half done. The kitchen is alive with sounds of cooking lunch. Yes lunch. Because breakfast was done almost a couple hours back and in a short while everyone will be asleep.

Imagine wading through a syrup with lead boots. Monotonously slow and slothfully bored.

Lol

I laughed and laughed and laughed some more.

Fog

In a mist of suspended drew drops cool and white, the day unfolds.
Opens into a scenery of tintless neutral.
mise–en–scène a pellucid whitewash of benign purity; bleached white are the skies and the life.

Warbles and nightly excursions

Somewhere between deathly bored and making peace with life, I find myself oscillating with all the zeal of a dead earthworm.

Clocks tend to make a lot more tick tick noise than my existential dread would like to hear.
Each expired second that comes with a reproachful tock filled by an irked tick that lays waste to another minute.

My skies full of conceptual skeletons left behind by abstract demise of time gone by, the very air I breathe a constant reminder of all that's gone past never to return, no matter how zealously I might want it.

Sigh to end all sighs.

Hearts

Byebyeblues

Partings are uncommonly heartbreaking that fill you up with a longing that takes time to ebb.
Woof.
Inconsolable.

➖

..and in a canvas of cosmic realm a speck falls in love.

Vanity roomba

Am I the one for coffee? Usually not. I do like a bit here and there and only a good cup suffices; though having said that I do drink one cup almost every day, excepting the one week when I'm purging caffeine from my system, but that's not happening now.

Most coffees that I drink as I've mentioned in some forgotten archives from my memory system are drip coffees, a single cup, mostly fitted with a paper filter, holding ground beans soaked with hot water that peacefully drip down into the bottom of a lucky mug.
What I absolutely love, however, is a cup of fresh coffee poured out a Mokapot spout, and even though the traditional aluminum ones have their own vintage charm, I confess to favouring ones that aren't as traditional or aluminum.

They're easier to clean, their inner surface does not tragically turn into white dust/powder that looks like a rather uncouth layer of aluminum leavings when left unused for a long time.

This looks as nifty as it's efficient, unlike aluminum mokapots these can be used over hot plates and works extremely well.

Spicetopia

Chilies made in vibgyor heaven.
These are rather special don't you know.
Not found anywhere and grown in a particular area only. They're juicy but not watery. The skin is taught with healthy life force and what is made out of is a stuffed dried ochre coloured rusty looking chilly.

This is a recipe more than four generations old in my mothers side of the family and is passed down word of mouth.
Today, or rather tomorrow I will learn this recipe.

Let there be light

With a ghost barking white
In the middle of today
amongst greens and sunny light
of chirping symphony from a hundred birds
my morning delight

An Amazon of household familiarities; cocooning warmth of known comforts.
In a grassy river under blue paints above.
Sunny geometry on skin that filters through foliage patterns.
Spotlights streaming unhurried rays in patches; a mere figment of cosmic imagination.

〰

It's easier to be aggressive than stay calm.


Sigh. What a fucking pity.

In the zen of weathers

In a time zone most familiar. In a place most deserted, I sit and watch as nothing goes by.
Tittering birds, mooing cows and a dog that seeks attention.
Rainbow coloured cool of blue skies and white tufts and not a smidgen of biting wind.. The kind that begs a picnic or expects one to sprawl in a garden and soak up little pockets of nippy currents that are but a whisper of fragrant winter chill.
Smearing crimson, dotted gold..a disc of ombre orange lighting sky, brightening skin in a effulgent aura of warm kisses.

A new day today..and hearts amiss.

Arghhh..I kill

The flight was five hours late.
I should've been home by now asleep in my bed. But I'm here filling a $#%*€>< form for money declaration because now I've to get all this currency changed in an RBI and right now I'm at customs.
Fuck demonetization!!!
Can't wait to get some with all this and reach home
Imma roll the biggest j ever.

Guilty as charged

So flight is pathetically delayed due to airport mismanagement. This should be expected from this airport in particular.
Anyhow we were handed a Burger King coupon and I'm ashamed to admit that I ate one big burger with fries, Pepsi and now sipping on coffee.
I'm on my knees begging forgiveness from the workout out gods in muscle heaven to ignore this reprehensible mistake on my part.
My only excuse being I was hungry and most other shops that served some kind of decent fare like dumplings and noodles were out of most things because of this serious lag at the airport.

Burger king being the only option; not to mention I was holding a coupon that made kinda mandatory for them to work double time and serve all passengers who were suffering.

And I was suffering. I was so hungry I could've eaten an aeroplane and this was after all soft buns enclosing crisp deep fried mystery meat with rashers of bacon and ham. Spread generously with sour cream, topped with tomatoes, pickles and molten cheese.

Yeah it's same old chain restaurant garbage but the last time I had this garbage was eons back, and so famished was I that I dug into this vile concoction of processed food like a starving tapeworm.

And now..now I feel guilty beyond belief. Like I could be at the gallows and I'd silently hang by the neck kind of guilty.. no complaints.

I worked out almost 1 hour this morning so I could be in top condition when I reached home. What did I not do?
A full body toning so to speak. Arms, abs, glutes, thighs, booty, back, legs and a twenty minute yoga cool down, and look what it ended in.
A full on binge on processed carbs and Pepsi. Gasp.
But in my defense my lord I had a cold drink after almost a year and I'm loathe to confess that it tasted heavenly.
Sigh.

Faux pas

Correction on my previous post in music.
The band positivia was mistakenly wtitten, it's a song. The name of the band is 'slo burn'
Sorry about the confusion. These things happen you see when you're writing super fast.

--
Also I now remember why I didn't like using Gboard. Because 1) I live in China 2) Swype (ugh)

Cat adieu

To say that I'm feeling sick to the stomach, leaving that cat alone to fend for himself in this cold bleak dark world would be a sentence too trivial.

He's lounging in front of the radiator currently and so satisfied is he with this warmth he knows not comes from where that I shudder tho think of all the days he'd spend in the winter outside.

What's he going to eat? Well of course he'll hunt birds and rodents of the like but oh, I'm knotting up just thinking that he'll be all alone.

Many a times when I've not heard his meows I open the door to find him seated in a position most zen on a welcome mat, and welcome he is always and forever.

My constant night companion who never leaves me alone. Loneliness has become a word distant since he's come into my life and to think he'll be the one lonely for a while.

I feel horrid leaving him to himself.
:(
Imma cry.

Nighttime longings

And while I lay down to sleep
hoping that this night would keep
some sanity intact
or be demented as it should be
for I am not fussy
asking for one too many dreams
but perhaps one would do
or one that I could remember
whose smell or touch I could feel

In a subdued ocean of thick curves, gently immersed.
Testing cold waters of fabric folds. Linger a while to feel the warmth and slowly drown.
Anchorless on a bay, awash with night unsummoned that approached, embracing in its hold musings and miseries and thoughts unwelcome. Now isn't or perhaps is the time to stray.

Wire listen heart pump

The few songs I've already transferred are by

Positivia - I like the rock and roll meets reggae rythym to it. Fabulously melodic.

Stoned Jesus- I'd found this while stumbling on stoner rock on YouTube and I'm hooked since. Awesome metal meets doom chords rising from some desert. (Black woods being my favourite song. It's unbelievable)

Kyuss- because of course it's kyuss

slo burn- I found these songs on an old pen drive. And I've been hooked since. It has a kyuss vibe and a vintage aura that makes these songs out of the world. (July is one track I'm in love with)

The myrrors- (warpainting being the one song that I love and found on a YouTube recco) I doubly love it because it came recommended to me the very day I discovered it. It's imprinted with sweet memories.

Color haze- another old gold. Absolutely stoner psychedelic and an entire discography in a pen drive that turned out to be a treasure trove of songs. I think I'd copied these from a pile of unlistened songs and the folder specifically mentioned 'weed music ' so of course I had to have it. (house of Rushomman) sounds every bit deep as it sounds.

Rob Dougan- absolutely essential travel music and it may sound horribly cliche but I can't ever seem to get enough of 'clubbed to death'

( of course apart from these there are other songs by bands mutually admired and known and not really worth repeating, except yes there's Dethklok, yes there's Metallica, yes there's Tristania)

---

The first time I listened to tame impala's current I think I jumped on my seat with bubbling joy and today while transferring songs I kept trying to remember the name of the band that had the song 'currents' and I couldn't for the life of me remember that name.
In fact I searched for it, scrolling pages upon pages but nope..and look..how it came. :) (kisses)

I've already transferred O by De staat. Hah. :)

Ok, I've never much glanced over at sting and never much bothered to hear his music because I just never thought it to be my type but surely I can get over this and try something new. I'll get the songs recommended .

Jaydiohead sounds good and maybe I'll give a few recommended songs a listen and transfer

Carnivores retaliation sounds like something that might be happening in my casa pretty soon and I'd surely like to give it a try.

Whoops, now suddenly I have a whole lotta songs and man is my flight tomorrow gonna be exciting or what?

Red red redemption

There's a misshapen red chair in my room.
One that assumes a natural aura of gloom
Obtuse, bromide, stoic.
abhorrent, vile, obnoxious
elephantine, herculean, titanic
withdrawn, unaccupied, detached
comfortable, convenient, handy.
Scarlet, sanguine, satisfied.

music wants

So here I am pushing songs in my walkman.
 for the long travel plans up ahead. Tomorrow evening to be precise.

Deleting old ones, heard ones, repeatedly loved ones.

Looking for some more new.

Recommendations welcome. 

Technical limbos and blank spots

Today? Don't talk to me about today.
My screen froze to a blank black while I talked on phone and when it was time for bye bye's I couldn't even hang up.
The other person on the other side of the line of course thought I'd hung up and didn't bother with the hanging up for the next hour or so, which was the time it took me to send mails to people asking them to drop a line to the other person to please hang up.

Why was I mailing?
because my screen wasn't responding. It was pitch black and didn't turn off, didn't do anything and I could hear all the conversation happening on the other side.

So what do I do?
Well, for about half an hour I screamed out my frustration, after which I headed straight to the repair center where I'd earlier got my screen fixed and vented out all the pent up anger.

Well then?
The screen was replaced with a brand new one for absolutely free. Of course it had to be free, it was their fault wasn't it?
Not just, I got a complementary screen guard too.
So that's a plus.
Also provided was a hot cup of steaming coffee, which I gladly accepted and sipped while watching 'day after tomorrow' that was playing on one of their Mac machines.

Now what?
Well I'm typing seamlessly. The screen does look better. There's no freezing nor interruptions and my keys are working fabtastic.

Am I glad or what?
But of course I am. Couple days back I'd reset my phone and for a moment these problems had disappeared and I thought resetting was all that as needed.
I'm happy that the phone did a number on me or I'd have stayed in reset dark. Imagine if it'd gone blank while (wink wink) or during my transit and travels.

So now?
I'm hungry and sitting in a Chinese restaurant called 'Kung fu' and eating something they said was fish.
I'm going back home and hitting my exercise mat for an hour long Pilate workout, because I can and because I'm happy that this annoying phone problem is resolved.

Soon..

Crunching eggs

If only life were as velvety smooth as perfectly scrambled eggs without the slightest hint of a speck of stray egg shell..
Sigh, in each life some egg shells must fall.
If one isn't cautiously treading on an egg shell strewn path then probably they're chewing on it between spoonfuls of silky scramble

Page turning

I've been thinking about giving reading a different genre a try. Something I'd normally not read.. Something like fantasy fiction that I leave for aural pleasures only. Of course I'm simply thinking on it.
Was about to grab a book that's pending still from that time I was about to start reading it. A book by Keigo Higashino.. And of course I could begin with that but ah, perhaps I'm looking to read something that brings me close.. something to mutually love..

łł

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and sometimed the longest too. Oftentimes silence is the only mode of transportation to travel this space.

threading through death

A kiss to the sky bearing a most venomous streak, clad in apocalyptic chic, morning was dead the evening looks bleak.
Waiting to explode in a thousand little curses, here in a sanguine grotto of wintery leisure. Contemplating semi hibernation, for what good are dead days when one can't play at being lifeless?

Here in my handy little book of excuses part 3, expressly stated under seasonal laws: article rainy days 'immoderation, indulgence, idleness is the key to surviving rainy blues'  and thus I rest my case.

As the sole tomb resident knocking about loneliness strewn carelessly around, I hereby proclaim this day to be officially defunct.
Cadaverous really, in wisps of metaphorical breaths. laying prostrate on anatomical chair anticipating dissection into minutes, seconds and moments.

Abundant this sepulcher cave with intact thought bubbles that'd need a two factor authorization to break in, and even then a key to creak in.. and a key there isn't, save a secret chant my darling.. for today is dead, and the winds rustles with sighs, moans and apathetic cries; that mean little yet live as a mandatory.

Lilies

In the pink
on the brink
of subtle veracity

ass ass

There's a reason why ass was spelled twice in assassin creed.
The movie was unforgivingly shitty.
If I were a part of some space time compendium, I'd ask back for my lost hours.

Wether

There's something to be said about rains in winters, like having boiling water poured over you while you sit getting engulfed in flames.

An ode to dewy petals of water then, ones that come uninvited, wetting the cold; permeating frigid air with humidity.
Something akin an icy hamam.. or kissing something dank with a clammy skin and sodden breath and the impending gloom it brings.





Sent from my iPhone

Nooose

Those rare annoying moments when a so called news channel 'times now' plays on tv and I watch because strumming on a tablet typing words is a strict no-no, more like regarded as an attempt to ignore *people*, which of course I've no intention to (winks into eternity)

Wait, I lost my stream of thoughts..one of those rare annoying moments when I let my ears get polluted by the worst form of screeching journalism that could ever exist and realize with a pang of painful awareness mainly come about by a cacophonous chaos of raised voices in a discorded tenor of harsh conversations that 'arnab goswami' has produced his clones all over media.

Almost every journalist at least in the news channel that he befouled has taken to talking like him, in high pitched outcry; more like a shrill statement on how these so called journalists are always right., cuz god forbid if any invited speaker can get a word in sideways.. how they love the sound of their own voices.

Female journalists included. Case in post this lady called ' Navika Kumar' who sounds like she's taken to battering audiences with her words. She'll invite people over for debate but ends up being the only person talking, with a voice that could blunt a chainsaw.

My ears bleed. Save me lord.

Silliness galore

Idiotic things I'm contemplating buying

- coffee machine
- coffee roaster
- electric dehydrator

Why? As if there's any logic to the why's of this world.

Coffee machine and roaster because I don't mind a good cup of coffee every now and then, considering I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but whatever I drink I'd like for it to be good.

Electric dehydrator because I'd like dehydrating a lot of fruits and vegetables to change their texture into a nice crispy crunch without the frying.
Imagine all the potato chips, banana kale, bitter gourds and what not I could convert into chips for munching on without the calories and even as addition in salads and what not..
.. of course I'm just contemplating for now.
There might come a day when I'd impulsively end up buying something even more silly and end up writing about it here.

⟴

A rhapsody of sore aches that engulf each sinew of every muscle as I breathe.
This is probably what love feels like multiplied into infinity, minus the tricep dips, the pilates pulses, squats and lunges.

on this slow moving one way traffic to life another day nears demise, one that wouldn't count nor matter, one that began just as it ends.

Devoid of sunrise, bereft of sunset; in a foggy haze of abstracted daze.  skilfully coalescing into another shade.. like a swatch of paint samples in ombre grey to ominous black.

Garlicks

As you're aware I'd hosted a dinner party on Saturday and my appetizers were a cuisine ménage a trois, in that I'd served garlic breads (not focaccia, considering kids would love a garlic bread more), quesadillas and money bags.

I'd made such a surplus of garlic breads that I gave them away as bye bye gifts to the guests and now I've been bombarded with messages requesting its recipe.

So now I'm writing it all and sending them through.

Small things to make you smile.

In the thaw of things

There are times when your body plays the treacherous villain and refuses to acclimatize to temperatures of the very house it resides in.

Case in point my very own roguish skin and bones which absolutely declined to come to terms with today's weather.

What with waking up idiotically early and donning layers of secondary and tertiary skin to lay conquests on morning kitchen I realized with a shudder that through all these activities my body kept a steady shiver.
In fact once everything was done with I stayed lazing on a couch, my body still gasping from a shock of frozen jolt.
Was I not wearing enough armour to ward off winter sorcery? I had enough layers to survive a Siberian summer, yet here I was feeling oddly cold and worryingly uncomfortable.

Yikes, I thought to myself. This might perhaps be a warning or symptoms or even the advent of an unbecoming seasonal flu.
No, this can't be..and so I thought and marched into my bedroom to wrap myself in layers of beddings so as to keep myself from feeling like a tropical lemur in Himalayan forests.
Five minutes past and I was slowly swallowed by a second wave of sleep I'd so sworn to stay away from.
I'd a few dreams in the fifteen minute wink..that of sailors eating in McDonald's, of a fitness guru telling me what kind of food items should and shouldn't be frozen, of a claw piercing in my eye and to that I woke up, thinking that a nearby cat was trying to wake me up..but it's wasn't so.

I was alone in the house, wrapped in thick layers of warm cotton and the chilly shiver attempting at surcease.

To throw back the warm covers, jump out of the bed and headlong plunge into my daily chores was for me the work of a moment.
Slowly I realized that I was beginning to feel normal.

It was cold, yes. This is the winter season after all and my spine a few short hours ago indeed felt like it was replaced with an icicle, but somehow after the initial awkwardness at making friends with everyday cool house my body had begun to warm up.

However it is a rarity to keep feeling cold when your system is so used to the same weather.

Each day something new I guess..

oh you

In this pool of sulphur darkness, in front of plasma backlit box idiot, I yawn and think of thee.

--/\--

Going to a church/temple/mosque to pray is like going to the gym to work out.
It's perfectly doable at home but you need the motivation to love something, or at least to keep telling yourself that you're dedicated.

things

something random that'd made me smile.
anime: planetes

whoops

Oopsie today.

I played the hookie from my schedule, at least partly.
Didn't wake up early to fix breakfast and lunch; stayed in bed asleep till sun shone up and the clock reprimanded me with a steady tick to go with a hearty tock.
The bed was empty, the house emptier and a sense of almost vulgar moratorium gripped me while I calmly contemplated adjourning each second for a long moment of nothing.
I stayed in this suspended moment of procrastination for a while as a centrifugal force of acknowledgement gathered my senses to a waking stupor and jogged my faculties into life.

Groaning, aching with phantom pains that comes about with sleeping too long, or rather from forcing yourself to stay glued to a bed even though you know you need to wake up and half drowning in the second wave of sleep that comes with I realized a small furry darling sat on my duvet and looked hopefully with eager eyes, enthusiastically waiting for a pet..which I obliged; soon after which the cat was asleep and I was awake.

Ahh, everything delayed by a couple hours, but what of it I ask?
 So here I sit, straining at the screen, watching beautiful words dance in front of my eyes, replying in kind and kissing in virtual waste..

Garb

Inuit chic

Porcelain frolick

Dry bathing in empty bathtubs once his human's done drowning.

[~]

On this side of a cosmic corridor I spread about an autumnal carpet to hear footsteps crunch softly without, on over a sheet of fresh fallen snow to know the faint treading crush that approaches where I lie half buried in blue waters' eternal wait.

Kisses

Nighttime nothings

Of repetitive nights and vacuous mornings.
sleep that comes in windows tiny, so narrow their width narrowing with each moment. Take a plunge or be left out on the other side of wasted wakefulness, where eyes alone stay shut and dreams are consciously conjured up.

an entire day of expressing fastidiously in chronological order, time now to manufacture a few yawns in bed machinery plastered clean with fresh linen.. populated by dormant bodies, littered with unspent moans, whispering promises in creases ironed flat to a crisp indifference and rattling snores.

Nights are unpleasant and that is perhaps their only redeeming aspect. Apathetically obtuse, unhinged, unbothered, distressing and forceful.
Invading with a pressure to be something anew tomorrow.
Harbinger of strong resolves that never wake up to see light of the day, for mornings work as a salve to soothe out lacerating wounds from overthought over mused nighttime. A poultice of casual calm to help recuperate into the relaxing arms of a new day.. for what are nights if not the opposite of river of light? Dark deeds that fuel dark thoughts.
Disregard each night, for they mean nothing.

==+

last meal on earth kind of food?

- a plain fresh white bread with salted butter slathered on with a generous flourish to the point of being copiously abundant.

rhymed love

here I scroll
to find things droll
a virtual stroll
running pillar to pole
draining my soul
staring in a hole
darker than coal
strong as a bole
minus the lol

If twere a crime
to kill some time
then I'm suspect prime
for I've built a shrine
painted with slime
of shifting paradigm
smells sublime
covered in grime
wasteful pantomime

now here we are
in this day bizarre
of lethargic bazar
searching my lodestar
which beams from afar
our hearts held ajar
sporting a twin scar
seeping rhythmic tar
ignited in a silent char

facts

Listening to Metallica's new album 'hard wired to self destruct' third time round and I now know it for a fact that I'll end up falling in love with it two years hence..just as it happened with 'death magnetic' and 'St.Anger'

Morning grumble

A morning a morning a bright white sunny slice
a day a day insipid bland sans any spice
A chore a chore house clothes clean wash
a weather a weather droplets of white runny ice
a work a work a lot to write here oh dear gosh

〰

Do I have the zeal and commitment to hate something as much as cats hate water? I hope I do.

Night

This is so ridiculous but I laughed so hard that my lungs popped. Maybe it's just this time of the night

Dreams aloud

I'm already pissed about waking up early tomorrow :(

My dreams last night assumed a rather strange quality.
Somewhere in between dreaming, a cacophonous claw began scratching at serene walls of syrupy sleep.
It began dragging, tearing and ripping apart the thin fabric that kept me asleep and quietly comatose.

A liquid monster grunting unintelligible began to sneak inside of my reverie, like a wisp of smoke materializing from the inner foundation..a wallpaper peeling out in tone deaf growls, and I woke up to that only to realize a steady discord of snores unashamedly emanated from a people sleeping..people who under no circumstances believe when told that they snore.

So, I recorded a good measure of that snore as proof and waited for when the snoring halted to begin sleeping again.

Sigh.. that was as much about my night.
No dreams, none that I could remember.
But tomorrow sigh oh sigh.

Companion tonight

Le chat et moi

Screen bebop

Right, so 25 minutes of driving, fifty minutes of finding a parking spot, thirty minutes of searching a shop and 500 rmb later I'm happy to report that my phone screen is back to being new again.
Well, it's not that I was looking for a shop, it was more picking out that one shop from a hundred other Apple shops in that area which only had repair centers and such.
Right now I'm taking this new screen for a stroll and checking if typing isn't creating any problems or if it's not freezing because in between writing this blog the screen has suddenly frozen on me.

Let's see how goes.
I'll write more here

Carrage

What's the point of buying cars when there's no bloody parking space?
Five minutes to reach a destination and fifty minutes to find a place to park a car.
Arghhhhh!!!!
Kill kill kill

Cheesy hearts

Sigh sigh oh my

dinner and motivation

An oncoming weekend that hits you smack in the face and as you lie recuperating from the wind knocked out of your system a question looms large overhead 'what's for dinner?'.

Having been asked in various tones ranging from terse to appeal to implore to not cook up a batch up of 'clean food good for health' this Friday, I sit here typing this after punching pizza dough. 

It sits serenely in a warm place, doing its good ol' rising trick while I wonder what kind of healthy side dish I could jeuje up that'd serve as my main course.

Of course there's nothing wrong with eating pizza for dinner, and any experienced sinner might tell you that it serves a perfect dinner meal each night, and a once in awhile carbo mania is nothing if not ecstatic, but it's somehow always good to have a healthier option to fill yourself with, just so you don't allow yourself to dive deep into the molten cheese bread combo, because there's always this fear of drowning and never coming back up because say whatever, everything indulgent tastes far superior than anything healthy.. and this is a sad contradiction we musts live with. Sighs galore.

Having said that I'm no stickler for health food, and I don't believe in categorizing foodstuffs in what's good for you and what's bad. It's just that when you work so much towards a healthier body in terms of fitness, functionality and flexibility it's difficult to give it all up for one night of pleasure, no matter how alluring. 

A once in awhile splurge matters none. If you're good to your body, nourishing it and taking care of it, go ahead and knock yourself out every now and then. Live a little. There are days when one needn't give a singular thought to restrained eating..only remember to get back to taking care of it after a bout of permissive immoderation; what happens however is that weekend tends to shed water all over your plans of fitness and staying healthy. The little devil on your shoulder easily convinces on virtues of having earned an extravagant weekend and how weekdays are always there to even out weekend decadence.. and so the story continues.

Gym memberships paid in full for an entire year, yet gyms are rarely visited and so forth. 

It's not that there is lack of motivation,  just that we're able to justify ourselves otherwise.

It sounds odd but sometimes you have to berate yourself to be motivated. You've got to tell yourself off and criticize and find faults within you and force yourself to correct them. It sounds negative I know, and since everyone nowadays always seems to be on the positivity train these thoughts do come out as harsh, but really they work. 

If you're only always looking at boosting your morale, chances are that you make yourself see you in a better light than you deserve and thus fall back on your plans. 

Positivity in life is important, but not when you're significantly falling behind on your goals. 

Sometimes you just have to feel depressed about being shit and make improvements in your life by ironing out your faults and making better decisions. 

So pizza for dinner is all good, but a salad on the side or baked vegetables and brown rice is even better. 

:(

It always makes me sad to know that I'll miss Delhi book fair 

scary wary

Add Ring movie franchise to the list of movies I'm never watching.
I think we're pretty much done with having a dessicated blue tint awkward girl walking out of idiot box.  This idea has lost its novelty after the first movie and to keep wringing it dry when it's already pretty arid is futile.
Just come up with a good horror movie already.
having said that 'witch' was one of the best horror films I'd watched after 'conjuring'. add 'babadook' to that as well.
The lesser the cheap thrill jump scares the better.

Sunny

When skies promise nothing, suns are best made at home.

forgotten foodstuffs

Here's a few things I've almost stopped or reduced eating/drinking unrealizing

• Bread:  I realized that I've not been eating any bread for breakfast ever since I changed my workout timings. earlier my breakfast would usually have a piece of bread along with other fixings, but ever since I've started working out during mornings my breakfast has since become a lot less elaborate and more focused. usually consisting of eggs and banana or overnight oatmeal with bananas, soy milk and peanut butter or a whole wheat parantha. bread is mostly consumed not more than twice a week. Mmphh.. I love carbs.

• Chocolate: I love chocolates and almost every day after dinner I'd satiate my sweet tooth with a piece of dark chocolate. Somehow for the past month I've not had these urges and a chocolate bar I'd opened weeks back still stays wrapped in its aluminum wrappings, often staring at me with a reproachful reminder to be consumed. I think it's just a phase, I'll soon be craving for it, but until then.. sigh. I love chocolates

• Almond milk: As a lactose intolerant almond milk was one of my more favoured go to drinks since I felt like it tasted a lot better than soy milk and also because it felt lighter on the stomach. But for the past few months I've not been drinking it at all because somehow soy milk machine made making soy milk a lot more convenient than almond milk. I need to rectify this problem and make some fresh almond milk.. but the process is too long and meh.

• Chillies: Bothe green chillies and red chillies are a staple in every Indian home but for whatever reason I always forget to buy them while vegetable shopping. This probably happened due to my year long sickness last year which didn't allow me to ingest anything spicy. Those habits still cling and I don't bother with buying them, though I do love spicy food..gotta buy chillies 

• Brinjal/eggplant: I've consciously stopped eating this wonderful purple vegetable most in part because I have a slight allergy towards it and my greed and love for this backfired when last year in July my mom cooked a gorgeous stuffed brinjal dish and I indulged a little too freely and it reacted so violently with my system that not only did I suffer two days of agonizing belly ache but also a swollen face. I have since stopped eating this vegetable. I'll probably eat a bit this year in July.. one year eggplant hiatus 

• Oranges: I do like oranges and freshly squeezed orange juice is most definitely among the better accompaniments with breakfast but for the past few months my taste buds do not appreciate oranges like they used to. I do include oranges along with their zest often in my cooking, but if you talk about peeling an orange and consuming it, I've not done in quite a while. Maybe it's just a phase, or perhaps a winter thing..I'll have an orange soon.

• Nutella: All things chocolate I passionately love and this chocolate hazelnut paste is no exception except that I get too greedy with it and oftentimes stick a spoon into a nutella jar and spend afternoons binge watching series and scooping this silky wonder into my mouth. A habit I didn't like and it definitely didn't like me back. Putting back calories into my body which I'd worked so hard to get rid off. Almost one year and no nutella.. it's an achievement for me.

• Hummus: I love making it, eating it and smearing it on every edible thing. Heck I'd even eat a piece of furniture if it was dipped in hummus, but why then haven't I made it in almost two months? No reason except there came no occasion as such to make it. Also because there's been a great reduction in bread eating habits of this house and bread of every kind was what found itself usually dipped into this gorgeous chickpeas dip.. perhaps this weekend.

I will update on this list or make a new one as and when there's been a certain change.

eureka

You know what I speak of   of that time on youtube when ads buffer. Not only do they in fact buffer but they stop loading and the screen goes blank with a play button display and no matter how much you click on it the ad just wont load and whatever is after that ad, the video you'd been wishing to watch just won't start. Helpless right?

Not when you push a fist through the screen and watch the screen crack and the sheer impetus of your punch has sent a wave of vibrating virtual tsunami that moves its digital tectonic plates thereby pushing whatever godforsaken web slime was stuck in the servers thus pushing through the now cleared gunk to restart your video.

Have you tried this trick? No? Then try it next time you're stuck with a stuck ad.

Works out

So apart from clicking a better picture in this pose I need to do a bit of leaning act to do.
I'm okay with how it is but I think I'd like a leaner frame, at least in my upper arms area..leaner not thinner.
I know it will take a lot of hard work and nearly impossible to work in this area in a short span of time, but maybe I'll click a similar picture every couple weeks and post it here to know how it's fared; though the differences might be minuscule.

You know, typing on an iPad or tablet or whatever is a painful task.
It's not as small as a phone and not nearly as comfortable as a laptop.

Good Mourning

When you wake up to a day still darker than midnight wetter than clouds and colder than a zombies heart it's best to let the day unravel into whatever little insidious plan it has in store while you glide with an air of nonchalant indifference.
As inimical as your surroundings may be what with the noxious fumes of threatening mundanity curling about your legs, slowly creeping into your spine before finally snapping its prosaic jaws of banal humdrum and swallowing your poor self in a burp of routine chores you mustn't forget that as ever you hold the power to turn around the tides of all that you suffer or complaint.. except weather, and it's a bit about weather that I shall now begin to complain.

I might have mentioned my hatred with all the emphasis at my disposal about waking up in the wee hours of morning to fix breakfast and pack lunch.
Well unreasonable as it may be the animosity towards early morning waking has escalated into an unbearable aversion to the point of grievance.
It's difficult for my body to react to an alarm when the world outside is still shrouded in opaque black. A soul wouldn't cast shadows even if it tried and then there's incessant rains that make the entire moment of drowsy wakings sound like I were drowning in an indistinct waterfall.

Try as I might, but my body for obvious reasons begins imitating solidified concrete and refuses to budge from its deadish stance.
I'm not a happy person early in the morning by no means. Usually grumpy, somber, mute and irritated. Now add to that this morning fraction into the equation and I'm a regular Ed Gein.

I'm not complaining about waking up in the morning by no means. It's the time I wake up that Ive a problem with. Had it been a merry 7:00 am I'd have been a beaming babe, shrugging off my linens and blankets with a poetic flourish, before daintily stepping off the bed and swimmingly going about my day with a song on my lips and a kiss on my tongue.
But waking an hour and a half before the above mentioned time brings none of the joy de vivre I might have in store; rather all of it gets inverted into a poisonous rage that often boils over..Mostly here in this white space of virtual audacity where I know someone knows and understands.

Hearts.

Wrex

Its weird how I've got used to a shattered screen. Much like how one gets used to a shitty life.
It's a pain to look at everything on the phone and most of it is guesswork and yet I barely noticed the cracks today.
These broken pieces need picking, salvaging, soothing...soon.

Arghhh

It's fucking impossible being a happy woman in my country. It's a fucking curse being a woman in my country and goddamn I'm ashamed of it.
Its like you give up all rights of having a normal existence if you've got a pair of breasts. The most mundane normal things are rendered difficult.. including walking on the roads.
I shouldn't have to be scared of being a part of my own bloody country for fuck sake.

There's an unspoken imposed curfew after a certain time..can't a woman just live freely?
Is it so impossible for men to not grope, harass or rape?

I'm going to mace every bloody man just on principle when I reach India.

Fuck men. Fuck them with a poisoned cactus
I'm so angry I don't even want to write anymore.

Here we are my doll

A very good morning lovah..

Let's see.. ah, it's a Wednesday. I've yet to molt out of the traveling skin and still have a bit of holiday laundry pending.
I squint about at the house warily at best and know that I've to get my cleaning gear ready and start doing the house every which way.
Lots of work mostly chores and I wonder if I'm up to it.
I've entered New Years on a lazy note, hoping to procrastinate a mountain of things. A bit like moving a mountain one side to another so I don't have to collide into it headlong.

Woke up in the morning did the usual cook cook routine and slept again.
I'd almost given up this habit and I've got to stop myself from falling back into it's comforting jaws which promise leisure, pleasure, ease.

There's a good bit of pending writing to do. A story to finish, a blog to update and why not blow my own brains while I'm up to it.

Sometimes I think up silly things like launching my hologram image or having a droid do everything while I do as I please. This way enabling me to be as I want while the droid sets about meeting everyone's else's expectations.
I mean the clone or droid or working hologram would be up waking in the morning cooking food, cleaning house while I could be wrapped in secret arms..

Ah wishes.

What's on my agenda? A bit of hot lemon water followed by breakfast followed by a few chores followed by body weight strength workout followed by suicidal thoughts followed by doing nothing about it followed by murderous thoughts followed by binge watching missed episodes of BB.

This and that

Say one thing about an all night flight, say it's a freaking pain and instrumental in destroying the next day.
I slept a bit, woke up felt kinda like a zombie, slept again, cooked some and dozed off again.
Wha??

I'd tired myself so mad much. Averaging over 25,000 steps everyday. God did I visit temples and walk all day in Siem Reap. Worth it though.

Thought about making some changes in my workout log but not today. I'm good for nothing today.
Ah it's cold here.

In a fit of lazy foresight I've just made two jars of overnight oats just so I could avoid cooking two sets of meals in the morning.
So breakfast done already. Just the lunch needs doing and that's no skin off my nose, I've a good bit of leftover soya nuggets from tonight that shall be promptly packed for lunch with a few fresh paranthas.

No seriously I'm feeling lazy and cold. few days in Cambodian weather did all the acclimatization work undone, and I'm not complaining.
Tanned and ready for work outs and other such.

Phew I've not even unpacked.
Washing machine will be in an overdrive tomorrow.

Ah, that cat missed me and complained with good reason, after which he planted himself on my stomach for the rest of the day as I slept and or watched tv.

It's good to feel loved..
Kisses

---:(

Ho hum.
Maybe a bit of sleep before I reign in the day.
Good ol' Shanghai. Bitterly cold and dull grey.
Ah sigh.

Phone not allowed

I was thinking that if a person were unfortunate enough to be carrying a sensing galaxy note 7 while at an airport what real options would they have except throwing away the phone in trash or giving it to someone.

Some more this and that

A little bit of this a little bit of that
Giving temples and such a break and writing from a gorgeous restaurant called yellow mango in the heart of Angkor Wat in a place called Kings road.

A bit of marketing, a bit of souvenir shopping before I bid adieu to this beautiful place.

To be a memory that never existed

In case you wish to be completely forgotten it's necessary to know how human minds react to memories.
It's possible that one might still stay embedded in faint memory or that a random unrelated incident might trigger a particular recollection, thus rendering chances at being completely forgotten a magnanimous failure.
So to be a forgotten piece of nothing it's important that you play your strategy right by being a part of museum installation.

The thing with museums and being a part of sculpture behind glass is that they tend to become inconsequential to the naked eye.
True, there will be a thousand visitors to the museum, looking at your sculpture and reading your description, but the mundanity of the activity gets to be so boring and the thousand sculptures of important history so tiresome and overwhelmingly many that almost everything is muddled beyond recollection.
Add to that the insipid coolness and reinforced silence that comes with museums; where every visitor is trying to look interested in ancient history, tourists with audible headsets quietly sauntering along picture to picture statue to statue sculpture to broken pieces of similar ruins.
One needs just one bored seemingly interested tourist to yawn and a chain reaction is unleashed.

Each gallery a dedication to certain era. A certain style where everything begins to look the same two minutes after walking into a museum. Add to that the deluge of information scattered in every breath of living space in museums. Important stories, informations, era's, year of discovery, excavations written with such abundant sincerity that everything's a mishmash that begins to fade as you struggle to keep your eyes open, and look forward to each exit, only to get disappointed because you've entered another gallery of similar fossils.

The trouble with museums dedicated to a singular civilization of a particular timeframe with the same kind of ruins is that they are boring and in that jadedness are you to install yourself, chances are that you'd be forgotten to the point of oblivion.

Barks and boles

Trees, glorious trees
That pay no attention to ruins or relics
bricks and mortar are but fertilizer
Ancient all knowing
Tall tall trees

Tears

Did I mention how my thumb is covered in scratches from typing, swiping and clicking on my shattered screen.
I'd type from my iPad but when you're traveling there isn't much lighting around baggage, is there?

Here's the thing

Oh well new year, new tan new everything.

One of the world things about here is that all transactions are done in USD.
Cambodian currency called 'Khmer riel' is so devalued that most notes are 100,1000, 5000.
So if you buy like a pouch of say shampoo you end up paying 2000khmer riel.

Not that it's expensive it just sounds like a lot, and most transactions in fact all transactions that I've done here barring a few little bits have been done in US dollars.

Buy a mug of coffee, pay $1.50.
I keep wondering how regular people here function and realized that most of their dealings in fact all are done in Cambodian currency.
Basically dollar transactions are most definitely a tourist thing.
The local junta which is rather poor buys and sells everything in denominations of thousands.

I've still got to wrap my head around it but this is how it is.

I bought a couple skewers of local meat for $1 which I thought was a tad exorbitant but at the same time a local bought it for almost half the rate.

Ah well, it's just one among the few instances when I noticed that tourists were charged in dollars whereas locals were charged in riel which didn't translate to as much as a dollar.

It's not a gripe, just an observation.

The people here really are poor and god knows how they'd ever come to have a dollar on them.

Some sights

Here we are finally... in another new year.
That time when this city becomes a huge playground for revelers cuz fuck the traffic man.