And I blushed...

Ever since, I came into the interactive mode, I am known for my ‘bindass’ style of living. ‘Bindass’ in terms of my college-mates was being tom-boyish and carefree. I never cared for how I look or how I can impress a guy. Subsequently, when I entered the corporate world, this tom boyish attitude transitioned to a feminist cave. Next, when I fell for my husband, the feminist fire became very airy-fairy. We mostly discussed everything on earth with no insecurities, suspicions or hesitations. A very thin but strong wall of faith and frankness stood. One day, I found I never blushed when I was with him; rather he had so many times. When I discussed this aspect of my nature with him, he was as normal to confess that he is already aware of it.

I wrote a Rule in my diary with little doubt in my heart though: “I can’t blush”…hmmmm
“Is it!!!...do guys like blushing girlfriends???”

Ever since, whenever he looks at me I start thinking...” Do I need to blush...Oops! I am dumb...stone hearted completely...unromantic collegiate huh”

Whatever, I am married now (shameless still!) and we are having a good life…which means I am happily married :)
I have stopped catching my blush-y instances.

Today, we were off for a Royal Enfield treat in cakes n amore that it just came out during casual talk. I was pointing to my husband on being an atheist as he was having a chicken calzone despite of my telling him about Navratras. Anyways, it wasn’t that he was doing it for the first time; he had made up fake religious stories during Ganapati just for having an omlette.

As for my habit of blustering, I continued and told about his being so shameless that on his engagement, he barged into my hotel room to get groomed for the evening.
It was that sentence...and I smiled. I was kind of blushing, thinking about my engagement day...…

(Flashback)
After many communications between our parents, we settled on Belgaum to be the ideal venue for our marriage, as it was convenient for our guests to land in Belgaum than in Kolhapur. We were staying in a hotel with all our guests and the baraat was traveling from his place which was around 40 kms from the venue.

My Father-in-Law is a principal and as expected very disciplined and punctual. He had instructed both of us not to meet or step out before the engagement. Though, I took the advantage of the distance and had a trip in Belgaum in search of beauty parlors. It was around 15 days that we had not seen each other.

On the engagement day, I was already an hour late for the beautician’s appointment and was rushing to leave for the beauty parlor. I stepped out of my room with my paraphernalia that I saw a big crowd of my relatives rushing out for lunch in the restaurant downstairs. And suddenly I saw him…taking the advantage of the mob gushing towards my room…and hush-h-h...my mom encountered him...he bent down to do a learnt exercise of pairi-pawna and moved on..he rushed in our hotel room and got the room vacated to get ready..
Oops! The whole thing happened but saved to get attention because of the hunger pangs. After a minute, someone realized that he was the groom. But what is he doing here...he was supposed to be with his family at the venue.
Without wasting a second, I rushed out to save myself of the looks my Tayiji and Nani would give …I don’t know, what they thought..but I heard my Tayiji murmering..’ yeh yahan kya kar raha hai…yeh aaj kal ke munde..kudiyaan..raha nahi gaya hoga..dekhne aa gaya ..” ;)
And before I could derive something my cell phone tinkled...” 1 message received” -- ” was missing you..you looked beautiful..:) love, Pravin”. I blushed and couldn’t hide my smile even infront of my beautician..who was desperately waiting for me..leaving her a challenge of grooming me in 20 mins :)

What should I do...Grrrrrrrrrr?

I had a wonderful life. Waking up on door bell’s discretion, starting the day with my fav daily soap, surfing, blogging, chatting, mongering, eating, experimenting...But lately something happened and it sucks to have this wonderful life!

It started with a call from Jo (my best GF) that they were planning to meet our old training friends as some of them were moving out of Hyderabad for greener pastures.

I was pretty excited about the idea except for the thing the meeting was planned on Sunday..WEEKEND. Weekends usually leave me in fix and I hate deciding between my spending time with husband and friends.

So, I set up a rule, that I will spend one day with him and could spare the other with friends. The day was going well, till he got a call from his friends and he went for his session which they address as “Baithte hain aaj phir?”

I spent around two hours watching television, one hour surfing and rest two hours chatting. I was totally bugged of TPing and was swooped in my vodka glasses when he entered. And as an expected reaction of his, I was an object to be pitied. Obviously, lone drinkers are to be pitied (that’s what he used to tell me, when I bragged him for not visiting his buddies every weekend!). [I bounced back]

The trauma of the last night was reflective in the next day too.

Sunday, I completed my wifely vows of cooking and cleaning and left for the reunion with old mates. It was raining heavily, but since I was determined to go, not because I was dying to; but my devilish thoughts overpowered my senses and I stood on taking a revenge on my husband.

I caught an auto and reached the old lanes of Sindhi colony. I used to stay there when I was a newbie in the city. I really want to cut down the days and memories spent there. As I find them the most lonely and wasteful. Anyways,

I reached the friends place, was welcomed on a note which was much chillier for Jo than for me. As one of the guys was working with her earlier, so it was an obvious excitement. But somehow, it got freaky and obsessive, actually can’t blame him, it really depends on how expressive you are!

But, the point is I still felt the pinch of hesitation from them, might be because of my marital status. Burrrrrrrrrr…I really had something which was boxing me hard inside to say something. But in vain, the conversation and obsessive-ness was on and on and on. Hats off to JO! She really amazes me sometimes by her capability of handling freakiness so easily. She finishes her sentence and it goes in my mind “---With Love, Jo”. She is too sweet to be ignored actually. They discussed technology, work, friends, CAT, MAT, GMAT ete etc etc…burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. And I discussed “ “.

I had nothing to discuss frankly. [Grrrrrrr why me!! ]

During the course, I had my husband hovering at the back of my mind. I realized that I have become over possessive and docile about my marriage. I feel nauseated, if there is any incongruity between us.

Till I accepted the fact that I am a difficult nut now, no words will fruit out from my useless mouth, which is just good for cribbing than adding some substance.

By God’s Grace, another friend of ours joined, Arun. I had met him around one year back when he came to see off her GF to office. These committed crowds are always hibernated in their commitment phase. As we talked, I found he has developed an amazing sense of humor in this one year time and it took no time for me to derive, he is out of the hibernation now. I feel sad, when I see many of my old friends had the devdas phase after training. But they came up to be amazing people later on. We talked about almost all of our batch mates and the doomed crushes during the training period.

I felt above all those crushes and breakup stuff. I take myself not less than Lady Alexander; as if I have won a quila after marriage.

Whatever, I had a good time there and I left for another challenge back home.

I had to pep up my dear husband who was inflicted by my weirdo vodka-affected- attitude, for no fault of his of course!

Later, I reached home with a rose in my bag. But unfortunately, I am not so good at it actually, so the weapon failed because of a bad usage.

Ultimately, as usual I broke down and blithered, blithered and blithered and SILENCE!!!

He understood my tormented mind. I was back smiling in his life again :))

Then, later post dinner we had our friend and boss with his better half at our place.

Just for some lighter time after a heavy dinner, my husband tickled my mood by mocking on my career aspirations and stuff. I had once said, I want to do something which is one in lacs if not billions. It is very stupid for a B.Tech-IT professional to say that though, because the loop in his life goes endless with every thought of getting out of that buggy coding work. Why not! I thought, I am actually doing something one in millions – when everybody around me is talking cats and dogs, I am not even talking…[ I bounced again]

After, the guests left, we just took a small stroll around our building at 11:30...oops! True—I have really stopped thinking even. I was lost in thinking about my one in million works, that my school friend came. He had two special things today-a new switch and his IIM status that will always be.

He gave me his card and left.

He left but his card spiked me. It said “Mr. Khetan, COO Alumuns IIM, Ahmedabad”.

Oh Good God! Wasn’t the day enough to pump me; that this came...?

My junk memory thought what would I write if I happen get such cards printed—“Mrs. Matkar, Consultant...Burrrrrrr...Engineer...Burr whatever, Alumnus MIT “... :)) MIT stands for not Massachusetts but Mahila hehehe.

Not Funny..Not Funny Garima, I thought. I retorted to my husband, what the heck ‘m I doing with my life..watching TV and cooking is that all???

Frustations gets you speak these things, but the problem was, I wasn’t so serious; when I said that…but some one really was!!

Next morning on my normal routine, I was enjoying my daily soaps “Mile jab hum tum…” ...”Love ne mila di jodi...” till he stepped in and switched off the TV. Oops! Twist in my story…He reminded me of my frustrations yesterday night. I was stoned.

He left and I started thinking, what is that one in million I want to do..is it

journalism..management..writing..Teaching…what what what burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I picked up a paper, but surprisingly not hyd times but edu times.

The first word I saw was Why Management? Oops! The notice was out today for CAT-2009. I really felt I discovered something today morning apart from the new releases and bollywood gossips. [I bounced badly]

I called up Jo, as she had been a CAT aspirant and blithered out my frustrations.

She as always gave me a promising reply and asked to think on what am I interested in? Whatever I say and it can be done in 10 lakhs.

Business investment decision hai kya, I thought.

I have developed a belief on signs today morning after the newspaper incident. Signs help at times when nothing helps...

My electric insect catcher sense dominated and I started for catching signs—

I boarded my cab and started for office—

“Loans upto 10 lakhs –Contact Mr. Shetty for more details” read on an advertisement on the yellow auto ran passed my cab.

My thoughts bounced back to my discussion with the Cat aspirant Jo, she said something about career in 10 lakhs..

[Its working. Is it?]

I crossed Madhapur..and turned to left side of road and saw “ T.I.M.E institute for CAT,GMAT bla blah”. Oh my God... I never saw this before, has this recently been opened. Education is for sale! , I thought.

[ It is actually working! Pinch me ]

“Wipro Applying thoughts” made me stronger on my newly found belief.

I was heading to my office that I saw ISB—ISB—ISB written on so many electric poles and till the time I landed in front of my building and looked up. It said “SATYAM- What business Demands”.

Business to pata nhn...I had to go back to my business for another 9 hours of the day.

But I didn’t lose my stand....’’m still open to Signs...Oops....’’m (mistakenly typed) reminds me of ''m—IIM...

[Is it working still…?]

SaasuMa's Khazana..yummy!!

My Saasu Ma was in Hyderabad lately. Her 2 weeks stay was more of cooking classes for me.
As I am a Punjabi by birth; married in Marathi family, it was a challenge for her to change my taste to Marathi Cuisines. Struggling with her Marathi lingos like tikha, kandha, kothambir and batata, I feel-I have satisfied Aayi that now I can very well handle her son's Marathi taste buds.
I will be posting in recipes which are quick and easy for people who couldn't try much hands in kitchen because of studies and work.
These are direct from Aayi's books, tested and tried.

Sengdaana Chutney powder

Required
peanuts- 1 cup
garlic- 5 cloves
curry leaves - 1 stick
salt
red chilli

Procedure
Roast peanuts in a wok without oil;then rub and remove the outer rind..similarly, put the garlic cloves and curry leaves in heated wok.
Put garlic and curry leaves in grinder and juice it for secs and pour in peanuts and atleast 3 tbsps of red chilli and 1-1 1/2 tbsp salt.Grind it coarsely not too fine else it would be sticky as peanuts might lose oil.
Store in airtight container and have it with chapatis, rice and watever u feel like..good for working women who could'nt manage a bhaji in night..can very well go with chutney and roti.
Enjoy :)

Kopra chutney powder

Required
(Dry coconut, mostly available at grocery stores. It is vastly used in Maharastrian and Keralite Cuisines)
grated dry coconut - 1 cup
garlic- 2-3 cloves
Turmeric
salt
red chilli

Procedure
Put garlic in grinder and juice it for secs and pour in grated coconut and atleast 3 tbsps of red chilli, 1/2 tbsp turmeric and 1-1 1/2 tbsp salt.Grind it coarsely.
Store in airtight container and have it with chapatis, rice and watever u feel like..good for working women who could'nt manage a bhaji in night..can very well go with chutney and roti.
Enjoy :)

Coconut Chutney

Required
Fresh Cocounut - remove water and shredded - 1
mustard seeds
green chillies- 4
garlic cloves- 3
turmeric
cumin seeds
salt

Procedure
Grind coconut, green chillies , turmeric and garlic in blender. Then in another pan, put some oil. When the oil is hot, add mustard seeds and cumin seeds. When the fluttering starts, add the blended mixture to the pan. Add salt and mix it properly and take off the heat before it starts boiling.

Serve with dosa, ommlette, wada pav or anything you feel like having it with.

More to come..Toor kandhyacha pattichi bhaji,Toor bhaji,Drumstick toor,Chicken Curry..