Black Tea

Yes, try it, believe me just try it, you will start liking it, eventually of course. once you start liking it, stop adding sugar, yes, you read it right, stop adding sugar. So now what you have in your cup is just water and tea, period. As Saif says in Love aaj kal, dont boil it much, observe the color, dont let it turn black, you have to turn off the stove before it does. now what you have is a golden bloody semitransparent liquid, smoking water vapors.

You must be thinking what an idiotic suggestion, why should someone just ignore all the taste you get from a thick brownish smooth drink with ginger and clove and milk and cardamom, true, but for that you have to ask the basic question, which is, why in the first place, do we have tea? hunger? energy? healthy? answer for all the question is, No. we have tea because we need to refresh our brain and that is done by tea, because it has caffeine in it.

So answer is Caffeine. Now when you start taking black tea, you will know what kind of refreshment I am talking about. First sip of it opens or i should say widens the veins into your brain, you feel the kind of refreshing effect when you jump into a swimming pool. alertness, so strong as if you are sitting in fighter plane, in fact you are the one who is flying it.

So you got it right. if you already had your regular tea today, make it a last day and start drinking black tea from tomorrow for this never known before, heavenly experience.

Note: just don't listen to me. Unfortunately milk and sugar was over in my kitchen and I had no other choice but to have a cup of sugarless black tea. I just wrote this post for my own solace and to make my Black tea bit tasty.   

Narendra Modi

Whole India, If not whole world, is Praising this one man, so I thought why not put two cents of my own?

Let me clear my stand first. I am not a Congress hater, well lets say I am, but only like you all, I mean like just an ordinary Indian Citizen who hates Congress for obvious reasons. I am not an Aam Aadmi Party supporter, well again lets say I am, but again only like you all, I mean like a educated, working class, struggling through day to day life's traffic, pollution, bad roads, electricity cuts, rising prices all over and loves to blame Government for each of these struggles and someone came ahead on a bigger stage to put it to reality what we only thought in our dreams. And lastly I am not a BJP Party worker, No really, They are just blindfolded bunch of sheep and looking for a carrier built up, for obvious reasons of unemployment, a word no party dares to utter. So i hope my stand is clear.

Lets see what we got here.
Narendra Modi has done a three month course in US on public relations and image management.
Now now now we wonder how he became father of Gujrat Development Model from a child of controversial Gujraat riots, well we should not talk about that as Honorable Supreme court has already given a clean chit to him.

Majority in Gujraat
First of all he enjoys a majority in Gujraat, any decision is all his, without any discussion and opposition. His own party is in no state to question him, party workers could be called 'Gandhari' If you know what i mean.
Center is never going to be the same. No party gets Majority to be practical. How much co-ordination he has shown? Did someone say 'None'?

No Interviews
He has given negligible number of Interviews what so ever, even i heard he ran off on some questions. every message was either from a stage or through his social networking team of agents who spend crores and crores on his image building. No one knows from where these crores come? did anybody say Ambani or Adani?

Gujraat is still behind Maharashtra and Karnataka
In fact, Gujrat is 11th in Human development index. Read article here.

Few famous statements from his campaign -

'Let Modi come to power, forget about women, even no will dare to molest Indian Borders.'
this was said by Mr. Amit Shah...

'Modi ji will wipe Pakistan out of the Map'

'Modi will come to power and India will become world's Number one economy'

'Lets save our country, lets bring Modi'

I mean yes, we all love Adrenalin, 'bharat mata ki jay'

Holi hai !!!

It’s not about why? It’s about how? That means I am not here to explain why we celebrate it, reason being no solid evidence of fact. Some might tell a story of Prahlaad and Holika (most popular belief) others might argue with connection to Krishna in the city of Braj. We already have enough stuff on the topic in the world of internet.

So I was talking about ‘how?’ Now this ‘How’ does not deal with the kind of ‘How’ we are dealing with on the TV or celebrity talks and news channels, like save water, use organic colors, protect your eyes, don’t throw people in gutter, do not use cow dung and so on… I mean we all know and must adhere to those suggestions and concerns; after all those are for our own safety purpose.

But here ‘How’ is different. Here I am talking about the way Holi is celebrated out of its birthplace, like a foreign tour. Being in Chicago, today I attended one of those ‘Indian communities Holi Celebration’. First of all you have to pay, that too in advance, buts it’s not a big deal if you are getting a chance play holi out of India. As Soon as I entered I realized that it is going to be a completely different experience. I mean there was a set up for bonfire, ‘Prahlaad, sitting on a bonfire with Holika’ sounds funny to me but yes that was exactly what those America born Indian Kids knew. I don’t know, we simply call it Holika. Anyway, unlike in India where muhurt is given by the priest from the temple, here start time was given by the owner of the place, from 8 PM CST to 11 PM CST. Exactly 8 PM, bonfire was lit, music started, husky voice of Mr. Amitabh Bachchan started floating in the air shouting, ‘holi khele raghubeera…’ and it went on playing many bollywood holi songs, in addition to that there were some latest Ranbir Kappor songs too, I could see this guy has really big fan following over here. I mean you should have seen those moves by half Indian girls on ‘baddtameez dil…’  

I thought of capturing those in my camera but then I had paid for better reasons. Next moment, I, with my friends were the part of the crowd, already dancing running around the bonfire and throwing colors on each other, everyone was given a bag full of colors to be used and bottles filled with gold colored liquid were a reasonable replacement for bhang, that’s it, Next three hours, it was just colors, music and dance.  

When I reached home, unlike in India, my clothes were not wet, they were not torn and there was no need to sit in the bathroom for an hour taking off the color from the skin. Just a quick shower and I were like before, clean and clear. Overall it was fun. Though I missed my family, my friends, all those relatives and neighbors who will come to home for Holi Milan, I missed the gujhia, bhang Kulfi with friends, I missed waking up in the morning and going to still burning holika to purify newly grown grains in the fields. There are many small small acts and rituals which makes it the festival of Holi.

So to all those of you, who, this Holi, are with their friends and family, make the fullest of it. Wishing you all a very happy Holi….Holi hai !!!   

Ice-cream !!

Seven degree below freezing point is the temperature outside and there is no way I could write this post with heater on or windows closed. Only reason I am able to write it, is because of this freezing temperature. I hope it continues and it never comes above zero, after all now it’s a matter of survival.

A day ago

After an overnight snowstorm, morning was calm and sunny, a perfect day for skiing. We, a bunch of friends were already geared up. Everything was fine this weekend, except her, she came with one of our friend, the moment I saw her I felt a strange vibe around. Though she looked normal but her blue green eyes were freaking me out. While we all were enjoying, she just stood around the corner and watched us. I tried hard to avoid, but there was something that made me throw frequent glares on her.

The first chance I got alone, I inquired my friend about her. He said he just met her last evening in a club and it was her who came to him, so he just invited her for our skiing outing and she agreed. ‘Isn't it Weird?’ I asked him. ‘I mean look at her, as if she is a witch or something, continuously chanting under closed lips’ 

‘Don’t be a freak’ ‘this is not India, here girls can approach you and there is nothing weird about her’ he just hushed me, with all his available logic, i was stumped. May be he was right.

After we were done, she came to us carrying a small wooden bucket which was full of ice-creams. Some of them took it and some didn't, I was the one belonging to the group who didn't. I am not a big fan of ice-creams, especially if it’s already freezing outside. I could have taken one if it was an Indian summer, but not here. Once she was done asking everyone she turned again to me and offered one again.

‘I am sorry, but I don’t want, it makes me cold’ ‘please just have a small one’ she said and I already felt pushed. ‘No Thank you’ I replied this time bit firm. ‘I insist’ she said. Now it was already a scene and everyone around was eager, I tried once more, ‘No seriously, thank you but I don’t want one’ I was as polite as I could be. She put the ice-cream back into the bucket and started walking to the parking.

Next minute, I was a victim of clod stare from my friends. ‘what’s wrong with you?’ ‘you should have taken it’ ‘she was insisting you dude’ all these sentences were fired at me. I had no defense and before I could say anything we saw her coming back. This time she had a different cup of ice-cream. 

She came to me and stretched her arms offering it, ‘try this, I bet you will never forget this ice-cream your whole life’. Now I was bombed with more stares, there was no other option but to accept this offer. I took it. Everyone smiled. She smiled. But her smile was not a smile of happiness; it was a victory smile, which I understood now. Her eyes gave a sparkle the moment I had the first bite from it.

After that there was nothing else, just her eyes staring into mine, we came back and I felt so tired, went to sleep, her eyes were still there. I felt my whole body freezing. I opened my eyes just to find whole bed wet and watery. I felt my skin has become softer, so soft that I could poke it through my fingers. I ran towards the heater and switched it off. It didn't help. I ran towards the fridge, threw everything out of it and made space for myself. Sitting inside the refrigerator, when my body started to get stiff, I realized it was real. 

Her eyes sparkled in front of me; I could see her smile while offering the ice-cream. I looked at myself; I could see the same color of the ice-cream. My mind repeated the warning she gave, 'I bet you will never forget this ice-cream your whole life' 

Warning:  The girl has been never found; If you see any girl with blue green eyes, Never ever accept an ice-cream from her.