Book Review

Sometimes I wonder how some of the bloggers are able to take care of their children, work full time and at the same time blog on a daily basis! I guess they are much better managers of their time than me :-(

These days I am absolutely fascinated by some of the food blogs that are there. I keep going to one after the other and bookmarking them for a look through later. Some of them are absolutely amazing - with detailed receipes and pictures and some of them are well, not so good. Since I fancy myself a darn good cook, I am all the time tempted to post my receipes and pictures of the dishes on the blog, but don't do so - because duh, I don't manage my time well! I take pictures of the dishes, but don't upload them everyday. I am thinking one of the things I plan to work on in 2008 will be this - plan menus for the week (a month if possible) and then try to put in atleast one dish a week (complete with photographs and instructions).

I just finished reading Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra and at nearly 1000 pages, it is a very hefty and satisfying read. The language, violence and sex in the book seem too much at times, but then what else could you expect from a book where the protagnists are 'Ganesh Gaitonde', a big bhai or underworld don and 'Sartaj Singh' a dashing inspector in Mumbai Police. While reading the book, I felt some of the characters were very recognizable in real life.

The book also reminded me a lot of Suketu Mehta's Maximum City which is another book I loved a lot. This book is highly recommended by Mumbaikars (especially those like me who are away from the city and miss it a lot) and to those who want to learn about the real and unadultrated city.

Languages

Start as you mean to go on.....

Yesterday I talked about posting regularly, so here I am with today's edition. I just hope this time it doesn't fizzle out in the next two three days.

The past few months have been hectic for me in terms of thinking about the kids education! I have just signed the Princess and the Pilot up for Hindi classes starting from January. Now in addition to learning English and Mandarin in school they will go for a weekly Hindi class (lessons which run every Saturday, from 9am till 1pm) at a school not very far from home. Everyone thinks I am putting too much pressure on them at the tender age of four, but what they don't understand is that I am making sure the children have the choice of choosing a second language (or Mother Tongue - MT, as it is called here) when they start school. Since they are doing Mandarin in school and Hindi in the class, they can take either of the two languages for their MT.

But this will come at a price - me trying to get them to write/study/read in three languages and probably speak in four! Also now Saturdays and Sundays as I know will cease to exist! Since we will have to be at the class by 9 am, we will need to get out of the house by 8:30am, which means I need to wake them up latest by 7 am and which means I need to finish all my work for the morning by that time (and yes this includes cooking and cleaning atleast the kitchen as there won't be any time to do it once we come back from class). So effectively it means I need to wake up as usual at 5 (or 4 if I can swing it) even on Saturdays and Sundays!! Yuck! I guess this means less sleep for me. I turn into this irritable and angry woman when I don't get my seven hours of sleep a night. God give me the serenity to deal with this and more....

If I can get through the next two years without becoming a zombie, then I would consider it a job well done!

Birthdays, Movies and Cakes

Phew! I feel so irritated with myself! When I let go, I really do let go.

Things have changed a lot over the two months or so that I have not blogged anything. For one my helper has gone back to India and my parents are here to help me. Well my mom does almost all the work at home, so the true test of my mettle will only come on December 22 when they head back home!

The Princess and the Pilot also turned four last month and we had a small party at home to celebrate. This was the first year that they enjoyed getting presents and were determined to open each and every one of them before they went to bed that night. As expected, most of the pilot's gifts were mechanical in nature (cars, aeroplanes etc) and the Princess got loads of dolls like Barbie and the paraphernalia that comes with it. Obviously they are extremely thrilled with the presents and we have to restrain them from opening them all at the same time.

I saw two bollywood movies over the last week and I must say I was might impressed with both of them. Sriram Raghavan's 'Johhny Gaddar' and Imtiaz Ali's 'Jab We Met' are movies worth watching atleast once!

Johhny Gaddar is an out and out whodunit, but with a difference - the audience knows who did it, but the other characters in the film don't know. Neil Nitin Mukesh (Mukesh's grandson) plays the title role of Johhny Gaddar and looks pretty similar to Hrithik Roshan. So I am guessing he may be the next heartthrob of the nation. The fact that he is a decent actor also doesnt hurt his status.

Jab We Met is one of those cute movies that you leave the theatre with a smile. The chemistry between Sahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor is very good, just too bad about their recent split. I just wish they do work together more. Kareena acted very well in the movie but it was Sahid who was very restrained who will take all the honours. The characters of both the protagnists are so believeable and 'normal' that the movie just flows, especially in the first half. The second half looks like a set of a Rajshri movie, what with all the shaadi and stuff.

Another milestone for me personally is that I finally leart to BAKE!! I am so happy about this as baking (anything related to the oven bascially) was an alien territory for me. But on Friday evening I was suddenly seized by this desire to bake and as soon as I went home, baked this lovely Date Cake from Aayi's Receipes. It's a great and extremely easy receipe and if I as a total rank beginer got it right, then anyone can!

I also baked this yummy Carrot cake from Food, in the Main was the second thing I tried my hand at baking yesterday. It has a very Gajjar Halwa taste and so is very Indian in taste. Different, but extremely yummy! A definite try!

Okay....a long post today. Hopefully I have the same momentum to write atleast two to three posts a week!