Tuesday, March 20, 2012
My Little Bundles of Joy
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Brahma Kamal - The Night Queen
Brahma Kamal, named after Brahma, the God of Creation, probably blooms only for one night in the entire year, somewhere between July and September. It is a rare plant that flowers around midnight and survives only for a few hours. It is also commonly known as Nishagandhi in India or ‘Queen of the Night’; The Japanese people call it Gekka Bijin, which means ‘Beautiful Woman Under the Moon’.
Most Indians will relate to the celebration surrounding the blooming of the Brahma Kamal. There is a lot of gossip revolving around the same like only lucky people get to see the process of blooming or that ones who see the bloom get rich and prosperous and are showered with blessings! Whatever be the myth all I can say is that I surely did feel blessed by the serene white beauty of the Nishagandhi.
Mom planted the Brahmakamal somewhere around 2007 and finally after a long wait of almost 4 years, Sunday night we gathered around the auspicious plant to enjoy the full bloom of the Queen and her heady fragrance. The vigil started at sunset when he four of us – Mom, Dad, Subhash and I – sat at the dining table, glancing often at the plant with great anticipation.
With passing time she revealed more and more of herself was at her stunning best by midnight. And as if the visual wasn’t glorious enough, she filled the whole room with a bewitching fragrance. We all were totally ecstatic to witness this beautiful creation of the nature. Like we were advised we prayed to the flower and also entertained a few people who came over to pay their so called respects to the Brahma Kamal.
If you take a closer at the flower, you'll see the central white stamen which people believe represents Lord Krishna, while the reddish brown stalks which you can see on the closed bud represent the 100 Kauravas from the Mahabharata. I don’t know how far these myths are true but the Brahma Kamal in itself is truly divine and no wonder the Japanese named the Queen, ‘Gekka Bijin’.
Post midnight the flower began to close, unbloom as I like to call it. By morning she was back to being a bud again. Truly marvellous. Most of the people today argue that this flower is not the original Brahma Kamal but even if it is true, it in no way takes away credit from our splendid rendezvous with our pseudo 'Brahma Kamal' ;)
The entire process of watching the Brahma Kamal bloom and unbloom has made me think of the metaphor for our lives. At her moment of glory the queen didn’t know that her life was only for a few short hours but still she gave her everything for that single blaze of glory and then she was tired and exhausted. She thus teaches us to give our best shot at anything and everything because it is not the length of glory but the glory itself that people reminisce forever.
The five hours that we spent watching her bloom without even blinking for a second made me realize how important it is to watch at the right moment. So many times we miss the smile on the face of our loved ones just because we dint look at them at the time they were smiling.
It is really amazing how watching a flower made me learn such lessons of lives which would have otherwise taken years.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Wilton Cake Decorating Class
As evidenced by this cake , I had very little experience decorating cakes, so a month back Neha & I started the Wilton's Cake Decorating Course One, needless to say, it was a lot of butter cream!
I started the course with some basic cake decorating knowledge and now I almost feel like pro ;) We learnt a whole variety of things - butter cream icing, borders, flowers, dots, and hearts and not to forget the rose.
However I have really mixed feelings about my whole experience. I surely did feel like I learned things, but my biggest issue was our instructor Lisa. She is a nice lady and I wouldn't have disliked her so much in a normal day to day environment, but I hated her as a teacher. She was uninterested and uninspiring and never explained things as well or as detailed as she should have. She would also rush us through our classes. All in all, she didn't teach well.
But we had the book and time to learn by trial and error and we surely did a good job at that.
Class One
Neha and I attended our first class on 7th Sep 2010 and it sure did make us giggle a lot because we were probably the only two people out of the 10 students who had no experience in cakes, icing or anything like that ;)
Later we were asked to frost and decorate some cookies :)
Class Two
While first class was more of an introduction to how to make frosting and a discussion of what the class would cover, second class was all hands-on, and we had to ice and decorate an 8"cake.
Here's the finished cake and I surely don't think it's too bad for a first attempt. It went to work with Subhash a day after and they all liked it or at least that is what they all said ;)
Class Three
For the third class, we were asked to bring six cupcakes. During this class, we learned how to make shell borders, drop flowers, rosette, shaggy mum, pom pom flowers. Since my frosting was a little thinner, it was easier for me to make these on the practice board, in fact my icing was soo thin that my pom pom flower fell out of the flower nail while all i could do was sit there and stare at the disaster.
Here is what I managed to do with my cupcakes in the 15 minutes that Lisa gave us to decorate the cupcakes.
Class Four
So when I first signed up for cake decorating class, I knew the one thing I had to come away with was how to make a rose and this was like my dream day
On a concluding note all the stuff we learnt in our 4 week course is surely not rocket science, but it's also not something that most people can do! During the last one month I practiced, and practiced, and then practiced some more (yeah even while sleeping). I'm not kidding, at one point Subhash wanted nothing to do with the site of frosting and trust at that time i was not even half satisfied with my skills ;) However like I said earlier, as of today I feel like a pro, well maybe not good enough to compete on the Food Network Challenge, but I am surely very proud of my small achievement!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Differently Settled
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Some like Sunday, Some like Monday, but I like my Birthday ;)
Saturday, January 30, 2010
God's fingers touch'd him, and he slept.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
How Ethical Are We ??
"How ethical are you?" I've been asked this question by quite a few people since time immemorial. In fact many people have even advised me things like "It’s ok to do something Illegal but doing something Unethical is totally unacceptable". Kind of weird but believed by many.
Long long ago during my schooling and early college life, I believed smoking and drinking are totally wrong and unethical. I did rather say, that was something I was made to believe so that I would abstain from it. Anyways I no longer hold that perspective. Not because I have taken to smoking or drinking but just because over the years my entire outlook at things and people have undergone a sea change. There was a huge list of things I believed were an unethical way of life but thankfully most of those myths have been busted over the years.
However there are still a few things in my unethical practices list. For example what if we are caught in a situation where in we have to tell a lie for someone's good? Most of us would tell the lie. So does the fine print of being honest read we need to forsake humanity for the ultimate truth??
Bhagvad Gita says “Don't cheat others, don't lie, don't steal, don't hurt others, don't drink, don't take drugs, don't eat meat, and don’t buy leather”... refers to Unethical Behavior. In the recent times I would like to add watching pirated movies, using pirated software etc also to the list. Apart from this I also feel like adding free-riding (i.e. you just relax and let others do the task. No matter however talented you are, the pressures are so high that you free ride in one place or the other regularly)
Well I don't steal, drink, take drugs or buy leather. However there have been times when I have lied like I said earlier. I have never cheated or hurt anyone intentionally. I do watch a lot of pirated movies, download songs online, use pirated software etc etc. I have also free ridden a lot of times be it at work or college or school or even home. So does all this make me partially unethical or totally unethical?? (Well I did break a few codes but I also do follow a few codes u see.)
I don’t think so ... Personally I believe that the values of an individual undergo many changes as he/she progresses through the various stages in life. However there are some core values that remain more or less same over the ages. Well It sure is difficult to enumerate those core values. In my case the core values are being true to oneself, respect for all individuals, love for humanity, peace in the world, equality of the sexes, freedom of speech, right to education and so on because I have, I do and I will always feel the same for these.