Ideal way to spend winter weekends in Toronto

Picture of a bed with pillow and quilt

Table with book

beer bottle

balya

cat at foot


recipe for balya

ingredients with photoes: Balya (in cover and outside cover)
lemon juice, carrot, coriander, onion.

Books I read in October 2012

I am repeating myself for the umpteenth time  but once again...thanks TPL! You are awesome.

As the temperatures went down in October & the winds shook (Hurricane Sandy's distant effects on Toronto) the leaves from the trees, I sat  in  bed, under a cosy quilt and  watched the grey clouds above and the rain sprinkle (yes. Sprinkle... wind > rain) over the Don Valley.  Usually the cold and rains and grey clouds puts me into a sort of  dull mood filled with worries and anxieties. But this time, I was armed with the best anti-depressents from TPL. I had a set of wonderful crime and other fiction & non-fiction which helped me pass October and now helping me enjoy November too!

Linwood Barclay's latest Trust your eyes

Alex Dryden's Red to Black

Moscow Sting

The blind spy

Lavanya Sankaran's The red carpet : Bangalore stories

Also enjoyed looking at the wonderful creative modern artworks in gold in this non-fiction coffee table book by Marthe Le Van & Ray Hemachandra i.e. Masters: Gold: Major Works by leading artists.

I did borrow a great many books but these were the ones I really really enjoyed and could not put down till I finished!

I have also put on hold(inactive) a great many crime fiction books which came up when I entered the word Noirs at TPL website. Looking forward to an exciting winter with these treasures from TPL! I know I am going to be depressed if I read too many crime noirs continually but what the hell...I will take a break with books on philosophy for dummies maybe.

There is also the James Bond movie to see this week.






 

Hanging on in the USA

I asked a young lady living in the US as to why most  Indians  who go to USA to study computer engineering or to work in the field of software and computers are satisfied with their jobs and do not explore entrepreneurship .  She said that they spend all their energy, just trying to hang in there! And that at the end of the day, they are thankful, if they get a greencard/citizenship and have a decent   job.

She told me of the struggles of many of her friends. All of these are youth in their twenties, who have masters degrees in computer sciences, software related subjects, telecommunications  or electronics.

One was lucky enough to get a job and H1 visa in a campus interview even before he finished his masters degree in the US. He was happy and excited  with his H1 visa and job and had a great time working, paying off his student loans, travelling around the US and so on until….. he got turfed out  when his company merged with another and this was  followed by a massive downsizing in his company. He had been in this company for less than two years. He then went through a harrowing time while trying to stay on in the USA legally, searching for jobs  and  taking numerous interviews . He went through his savings before he could find another job! Luckily he did get another job and could renew is H1 visa but went through a pretty rough time before that.

Another was a guy who completed his master’s degree and being a pretty bright kid, he had some research and patents to his credit. Unfortunately, he had his masters in a field where only people with experience would land jobs. He roamed around the US for almost two years, sleeping on friends couches and trying for jobs but did not get any. He left to India and is working there and trying to come back to the USA.

Another is a young lady who intended to do some research before trying for jobs and then changed her mind as she was going nowhere with  her research. She got an internship when she finished her Masters and quit her PhD plans. After a few months, she even got a job offer in the company she was interning at.   Thanks to the HR messing up her application for H1, she missed getting her H1 visa; then her job offer was withdrawn as she did not have H1! Then, she had to leave the company as her internship time had run out and she had to leave the USA too unless she could find some legal way of staying on. She immediately applied and joined a university, though she did not really need the courses they were offering. She did manage to extend her stay as a student and even believed that since enrolling in this university, she could get back her internship and thus earn some money to keep her going. But to her incredible bad luck,within a month after enrolling at this university, the university was  declared illegal and shut down! She now had to get her papers transferred from this university fast and into another university to maintain her student visa status and keep her stay in the US legal. She scrambled around desperately looking for universities and colleges which would take her and also which would also let her to intern. Most universities had started their courses already and it appeared to be too late for her to get in. Staff at the admission departments of the college was rude and nasty to her when she told them she was transferring from this derecognized university! They treated her, a student and a victim of that university like she was a criminal while it was the fraudulent behaviour of the university’s CEO which got the university into trouble. She finally managed to get into a college and her stay in the USA was kept legal but this college did not permit her to work and so she had to use up her meagre savings and take loans to survive until next April when she will hopefully apply and get H1 visa. She is trying to look for H1 visa in the categories where there is no cap but she has not yet had any luck so far.

This young lady’s run of bad luck has been quite tremendous. First the HR  in the organization she was interning messed up by not only delaying putting in her application for H1 but also by not considering other options to hire her which were available. Next the university she enrolls in goes under. Next, she gets into a college which thankfully keeps her in the US legally but without internship which means she will be up to her ears in loans by the time she does get a job.

Last is the case of another young lady who was hired as an intern but was given tasks which did not use her skills but had her working pretty hard and for long hours. It was indirectly intimated to her that she will get a H1 visa and a job more matched to her skills at the end of 3 months and so she stayed on inspite of being dissatisfied. But at the end, the company hired someone else!  It was sheer lying and exploitation by the company. She left this company and did manage to get a job she is happy with.

People reading this may wonder, why are these youth so desperate to stay on in the USA? With their education and skills, they should be able to get good jobs in India where they are from and maybe get a job anywhere in the world. I asked this of the youth and all their responses indicated their dissatisfaction with so much in India. The work culture is terrible. The hierarchy in the organization, lack of respect for those in the lower positions, the lack of respect for women in the work place, the racism manifested at the work place for example, north Indians and south Indians not getting along, the brutal working hours. Outside of the workplace too, the picture is not welcoming: the corruption in the whole of India, the lack of basic amenities even in major cities, the immense competition for limited resources …competition for getting your kid into a good school or college for example, the sheer crowdedness in India, the list goes on.

While youth from well to do families do not mind going back to India after their studies, those from middle class families, at least the ones I know do not want to return to India. Women have a whole lot of additional reasons to not return to India. For example, this young lady I know is single, studying and working and living with complete freedom in the USA.  She does not want to return to India. She is a responsible mature lady who behaves well and will never do anything illegal or immoral. Inspite of her being such a decent person i.e.  being a lady who will not “sin” whether she is being watched or not,  her family will cut off her freedom, if she returns to India! She will be told she cannot wear ‘such’ clothes, that she should be home by 9pm, that she should not ‘talk too much’ to men at work, etc. After tasting freedom in the USA, girls and women simply do not want to go back to the restrictions imposed on them by their families and society in India! This young lady I am talking about has done so many things she would never be allowed to do if she had been in India! She drives at night, long distances(across 10 states of USA at one time); she sits in the library till early morning; she stays over at her friends place, she has gone hiking alone with a  man she works with , she has gone to movies with a  ‘man’ she knows from school, she has shared an apartment with an unknown man and done so many things her parents don’t approve of!

I hope that one day India and all other countries whose citizens flee….will one day improve so much that the citizens don’t feel the need to flee their motherlands. Unless that happens, citizens of all the third world countries will try to seek to better their lives in other places.

The one good thing I am observing about these youth who face these hardships while trying to survive in the US is their wonderful resilience! The struggles  they face is building their character, their ability to face difficulties, their abilities to help each other and stick it together, their ability to learn from mistakes, to get up and continue when they fail,  to not give up. 

Another problem they face which I forgot to mention is about their marriages and relationships. Many these days find their own mates instead of going into arranged marriages like 10-20 years ago. The problems they face seem to be related to distance more than anything else. Many couples in relationships work in different places and unable to get jobs in the same city.  Some try to keep the relationship going inspite of the distance while a few give up.

Algonquin in fall 2012

Visited Algonquin Park yesterday i.e. Saturday September 29th 2012 to view the Fall colours. The fall colours were AMAZING! Had a wonderful time driving around and trekking briefly to spots such as the Whiskey Rapids. I am so proud of my mother ( 66 years old)  who did a great job walking along the uphill-downhill path, full of tree roots which seem to be waiting to trip a careless walker!
The only wildlife we saw was a chipmunk and we did hear a few birds.  Thanks to whoever had speared an apple in the forest, we could see the chipmunk...it was eating the apple! This Park has deer, bears, beavers,wolves, otters,foxes, martens and fishers, porcupines, deer-mouse,  garter snakes, blue herons & mooses  while the lakes here have  blue herons, painted turtles, fish & frogs  though we did not get a glimpse of them. There are a variety of birds too(we did not see them) such as broad-winged hawks, scarlet tanager, white throated sparrow, ruby crowned kinglets, red-eyed vireos and the ravens of course.

The tens of thousands of trees in this park were vibrant with  colours! My mother who has never in her life, seen a riot of colours like this commented that this Park is like "Gandharva Loka" and at another time commented that this Park is a piece of  Heaven which has  come down to  Earth. She loved the myriad  colours of the leaves, the several lakes, the cleanliness &  transparency of the waters and the quietness of this vast place. And I LOVED hearing her poetic description of the place(in Kannada...she does not speak English). Her spontaneous descriptions of the trees, lakes, colours, the silence... was a joy to listen!
Of course, we compared it to Bangalore and India and felt regret that this beauty is not in Bangalore too! I explained to my mother that even if these trees were to be planted in Bangalore, India, the leaves would not change colour like this as Bangalore's temperature will never dip low enough to trigger the change in the leaves' hue.

We had packed chitranna and mosaranna for lunch and also fruits, Mysorepak and Halva. We ate our lunch on a picnic bench, amid the colourful trees. In this day and age, can one go on a trip without the ubiquitous camera?  Here are a few photos of the lovely Algonquin Park. I have visited this wonderland in summer and winter too. The beauty of this park during winter is something else again! It is a white wonderland of snow. I wish I could fly over this park in fall and winter. The view of this park from above would probably be even more amazing...if that were possible!

KUMBALKAI PAYASA RECIPE

KUMBALKAI PAYASA

This is a recipe my mother uses.

I used the orange coloured pumpkins grown in Toronto for this dish.

Ingredients:

Pumpkin(half kg) jaggery (200gm), milk(quarter litre), peanuts(half cup), roasted split channa dal (hurigadale)(quarter cup),cardamom(seeds from 5), ghee or oil(a few spoons…enough to fry about 10 cashewnuts and 25 raisins), raisins and cashewnuts.

a.Remove the skin and seeds of the pumpkin. Cut the pumpkin into large or medium size pieces, place the pieces in a vessel with a little water and cook until soft. Alternately, the pumpkin can be cooked in a microwave oven or in a steam cooker. Mash the pumpkin pieces after cooking.

b. Roast the peanuts and grind it along with the hurigadle and cardamom in a mixer(or mortar and pestle!) and keep aside.

c.  Fry the raisins and cashewnuts in ghee or oil and place aside.

d.   Add milk, jaggery, the roasted and powdered peanuts and hurigadle, the fried raisins and cashewnuts into the vessel with mashed pumpkins and heat over low heat for ten minutes.

e.  The sweet dish is ready and can be eaten hot or cold.

Note: The quantities of the ingredients can be varied....you can

use more of less of any ingredient.

For example, I would not use water at all as the pumpkin is
already rich in moisture. I love to use  a lot more of the  peanuts and hurigadle than mentioned in the recipe as I love that rustic taste!

This dish  can be done in  half hour to forty minutes:

Skinning and dicing the pumpkins may take 10 minutes,

Frying the peanuts may take 10-12 minutes,

Cooking the pumpkin takes 10 minutes and

Putting all of the stuff on the stove while you fry the cashew and raisins on another stove and add it to the vessal can be done in 10 minutes.

Hearing noises

Hearing noises

Since the last several months, I hear various sounds when I am in bed at night. The ones I can remember right now are the sound of water running slowly or dripping.

When I am exposed to a white noise i.e. a continuous  sound made by some machine such as an air-conditioner, my ears seem to hear definite  Carnatic music  especially the  sounds of  certain musical instruments playing tunes such as the Nadaswara  during south Indian weddings! There is no music around me at night in my home or other neighbouring homes especially NOT Karnatic  music but I hear  these sounds and they are driving me crazy!

I simply cannot understand  why  my ears hear these  non-existent sounds at certain times and in certain places!  At nights, when in bed, I  often hear these imaginary sounds and I have  actually gone to the bathroom and kitchen to  investigate. Of course, there is no  dripping  tap .

I wonder  if I have some kind of a damage to my ears or damage to  the hearing  region in  my brain and  auditory nerves. It is only now  that I can really  empathize with the schizophrenics who have auditory hallucinations! They have to deal not just with noise but with voices telling them what to do and not do, voices telling them off or teasing them!

When  I hear the tap dripping at night, I tell myself that there is no  dripping tap but the sound is so damn real that I can peacefully go to sleep  only after  I check and actually SEE for myself that the taps are  not dripping. I try to tell myself that I should not yield to the compulsion to check but the sound troubles me so much that I cant go to sleep until I check the taps.

I am repeating myself here but as I said before,  I can only now fully appreciate the battle faced by those who have these auditory hallucinations!  A close friend of mine had once told me how he tried to deal with schizophrenia without medication. He told that he tried to counsel  himself that the voices he hears are imaginary and not real, that there is no one out to get him…it is only his imagination but he could not get over his paranoid ideas and disregard the voices ….he had to go back to the anti-psychotic medication.

I do hope the damn sounds in my ears , which I hear almost every night stop. I am getting fed up of them and fed up of being laughed  at by my family.  Maybe I should consider listening to music when I am in bed…this may  drown out the dripping taps in my head maybe.  I would probably not be so annoyed if I enjoyed the Nadaswara music but I dislike that instrument! And  people wasting water is another thing which  riles me up….so I cant accept the non-existent dripping taps either!

Who should be the first author?

After studying and working in organizations where research is a primary area of work, I have learnt a lot of sordid aspects of Research. I will not dwell on all of them here ...I will be talking only about one sordid aspect i.e. "Who gets to be the first author of papers published?"

Everyone wants to be the first author! With a few exceptions that is.....the few people who are (1) not at all ambitious about getting authorship and (2) people who have not contributed much to the research and who also  are also ethical enough to state that they do not want authorship as they dont deserve it.

I have observed with such a profound sense of disgust, people in high positions who bully  students, research scholars and research assistents who are below them in the hierarchy, into giving up the first  author positions to them, though they have done practically nothing!

I have seen a much admired psychiatrist who demanded an authorship just because he loaned his computer to a student doing his thesis!(This was in early ninties when few people had computers in India).
 I have seen a research scholar who did  years of  field work, data collection and analysis and  also wrote the papers for publication but had to take a back seat when it came to authorship! The first authorship went to her boss who was clueless about the work done, the second authorship went to her boss's colleagues and the remaining authorship went to the  Director of the Institute. This girl who did all the work was "thankfully acknowledged' at the bottom of the paper!
 This director in this same Indian organization has authorship of tens of thousands of papers...he is not even aware of many of the  papers where he is an author! Every faculty member and some savvy students gave him an authorship to curry favours. Truth be told, my guess is he never asked for authorship but the Indian mentality to kiss his feet was inbuilt in the people who gave him authorship.

I have seen assertive research assistents fight tooth and nail with the faculty with whom they are collaborating for authorships. The scenes are ugly and one gets to see the  so-called educated and respected faculty behaving like dogs fighting in the street for a piece of meat.

What made me write this article is the bitter-sad story a Chinese post-doctoral student in the USA whose data collected over three years was literally hijacked by a new pushy faculty member who like a gutter-born person, published her work with his name as first author! This girl was bitter but could do nothing about it. She quit her post in frustration and joined another university and has started new research from scratch again! Three years of her life has gone for nothing! And the saddest part is that she has put so many aspects of her life on hold for the last several years to achieve a few papers .(Her goal is a faculty position when she returns to China and she will not get it unless she is first author of published papers.....now she has to do new work for another 3-5 years all over again! If her data is hijacked again, I think she will either kill herself or kill the hijacker!)

I was so moved by what happened to her but apart from cursing the faculty who stole her work and cursing his family, I do not know what else to do. I have read articles about this happening but not enough is being done about this appaling, disgusting theft by professors.

My suggestions to rectify this issue would be:

• All faculty should be taught to practice ethical behaviours in research...not just ethical practices about the subjects of research such as not causing pain to animals when conducting experiments but also about this theft of work of students, research fellows, etc.
• There should be regular meetings where all people involved discuss and come to an agreement as to who will do what, and who will use what data for their papers and who will get what authorships(first author, second author, principal investigator, etc). The decisions should be put down in writing...no such thing as a 'gentleman's agreement' here! Faculty are definitely NOT gentlemen; they are not to be trusted and they are worse than dacoits!
• The faculty, students and research-fellows who are not assertive and cannot stand up for themselves should be given some training to improve their assertiveness.
• The psychopaths amongst the faculty should be identified early and turfed out(I do not see any point in giving them a chance to change...research by psychiatrists has proved that they do not change even with therapy or rehabilitation programs)
• There should be meetings devoted solely to the issue of  authorship when the research work is done by a multi-discplinary team. God! The fights for authorships are brutal then! All the happy beliefs I had were broken when I saw people from multiple discplines come together! I thought women are sweet and gentle...they are not! They fight more visciously and savegly than men for the authorships...even when they have little or no work. The belief I had that those with PhDs are decent men because of their high level of education was rudely shattered. They may not steal your money but boy! Watch they stealing all your data collected painstakingly over months of gruelling work!

Another belief of mine which was shattered was the belief I had that if one remains polite and decent one will succeed at some time or the other. This is completely untrue! The Chinese girl I was talking to you about had a wonderful boss who was a gentleman, polite and decent and "not-at-all assertive".
He did not stand up for his student when her data was hijacked by the jackass professor from another department! He felt sorry for the girl but feeling  sorry will not get her three years of life back!
Now that science and technology have progressed so much, the fields of science are no longer exclusive but collabarative. For research in MRI for example, the people collaborating includes medical  doctors of various discplines such as neurologists and people from a variety of  discplines such as  physists, engineers, statisticians, mathematicians, etc. So when the question of first authorship rises, all the discplines are fighting for first authorships as each one thinks his/her discpline has contributed the most or has made  the most valuable contribution!
The fights for credit which goes on behind the closed doors of research institutes is incredible!
Of course, most of you have read about the discords between famous scientists in the past...how gender, race, fame or it's absence made or broke people n the field of science. In the past, women's contributions to science went unrecognized; People of coloured races were not recognized inspite of fantastic work; Now, we have the unethical people who are higher up in the hierarchy  stealing the work of their students and researchers.

• The faculty needs to firstly acknowledge that these unethical practices are happening.
• Then they should set up a committee  with the will to prevent these injustices from happening.This committee needs to be manned by ethical people, with the power to set right the injustices and prevent them form happening.
• The students and researchers should be able to protest against injustices without fear of having their grants revoked.... whatever intimidation tactics used by faculty should be recognized and stopped.
• Which researcher is doing what part of the research, what is that researcher's expectations in terms of credit and authorship should be agreed upon in advance and with clarity and with consensus with all the concerned parties. If there is no agreement, there should be meetings until consensus is reached.

If this is practiced in the tens of thousands of universities and research institutes, there would be less despair among the people way down in the food chain; there would be greater motivation and enthusiasm to do work.  Of course, the fat professors would lose quite a bit but they should remember that they would remain uncursed by their subordinates!
 

DD in Canada and India

I have worked with the DD i.e. developmentally delayed(previously called mentally retarded) in India and Canada. There are a lot of differences between the DD of India and DD of Canada.
When the IQ of the DD from India and Canada the same, the behaviour and skills is not the same. The DD from Canada are superior to teh DD from India in the way they talk, think, behave and the skills they possess.
Here are a few differences i have observed and later I have discussed teh possible reasons for this difference.

A guy with borderline level intelligence from Canada reads various crime fiction such as those by Stephen King, Linwood Barclay and so on. Normal (i.e. no diagnosis of developmental delay) high school and PUC students I have met in India would or could only read the comic Tinkle! They did not read anything apart from Tinkle and thier text books. A young Canadian lady wiht mild DD reads romantic novels usually read by teenaged females and young women. I have hardly seen any  developmentaly delayed in India reading unless it was compulsory.

While the DD in Canada, who have ADHD or are dyslexic, do not read;  the DD of India who are not dyslexic also avoid reading.

I have seen both the Indian and Canadian mildly DD working and earning. There is not much difference in their abilities to do manual, repetitive and simple jobs with a few simple steps such as working in the retail industry (stacking boxes, packing, moving items) or hotel industry such as washing dishes, mopping the floor, sweeping, etc. But there is a difference in the way they do the work. While the Canadian does the work and can articulate clearly why he has to do something, the Indian simply does what he has been taught or told and has no understanding why he is doing something. A Canadian worker will explain that he has to wipe the table with a disinfectent so that the germs on the table will be removed and we will not get diseases. The Indian DD worker, will not be able to articulate why he is using the disinfectent. he will mostly say that he ws told to do so by the owner or that he will be punished if he does not use the disinfectent.

The Canadians with DD have a sense of style and will spend their megere money on going to the beauty parlour to get thier nails done or whatever. I have not seen this among the DD in India except if they are from rich families. The DD who show some interest in dressing well are

 

Decor of Indian resturants in North America

After trying out food of various countries in the hotels of Toronto and  a few cities from USA, I discovered that   I prefer Indian food and to some extent Mediterranean & Mexican food. More often than not, I end up eating Indian most of the time.

While I am okay with the food served in Indian resturants most of the time, I am not happy with the decor of the resturants and the music. The writer, Harlan Coben, shares my dislike of the music in Indian resturants and he has brought it up in  two of his crime fiction novels!

For people from Canada and USA who have eaten in Indian resturants, I dont need to explain about the food, decor and music. The food from most resturants tastes about the same, especially north Indian food. Different Indian resturants seem to offer the same food. Pardon me if I sound critical but this is my opinion and my opinions are not necessarily facts!

 The music streamed into the Indian resturants are either  songs from the 60s-70s  Hindi movies or instrumental music to the same Hindi songs . Some resturants have instrumental music which sounds like Hindustani classical or semi-classical to my untrained ears.

 And how do I describe the decor? It is usually a mish-mash of Indian artifacts such as Mughal style paintings, brass vases, photoes of Gods, Indian musical instruments, brass vessals, Photos or paintings  of Gods, Indian women in saris, Rajastani dancers, elephants, etc. Most resturants have a God at the entrance, usually Ganesha and unlit brass lamps.

Each time I sit in an Indian resturant and wait for the food to arrive, my husband and I  look around and discuss  how we would decorate an Indian resturant . I think, we have unconsciously fallen into this  exercise while waiting! Only recently did I realize,  how repeatedly we had been doing this !The more tacky the decor, the more quickly we start this discussion! Udupi Palace on Gerrard street is one resturant where we start this discussion even before sitting down!

This discussion has not gone far as the wait at Indian resturants is thankfully brief(except if you have ordered dosa which takes about 10 minutes or more  to arrive).
 I would like to have white washed walls (with the traditional lime), solid teak or teak like wooden tables and solid, heavy wooden chairs. I want the white tube lights which would fill the resturant with light. I dont like the dim lights of most resturants(not just Indian). I know most people would disagree but I simply love well lit places. Hmm. What else? I really cannot make up my mind about decorations except to say that I do NOT WANT plastic flowers, brass vessals, lamps, statues, assorted paintings and sculptures of  varying styles.
In India, I had loved the ambience of roadside dhabas. I had admired the minimal decor of roadside coffee shops especially in villages, small towns. Let me add here, as far as I know, people who own these resturants do not even consider decor when they plan their resturant...the bottom line is money...how much money they can make! The busy loud resturants in small towns serving non-veg food ( called 'military' hotels in areas of Karnataka !), the busy tightly spaced resturants in bus-stands providing super-fast service and serving hot masala dosas, idlis and coffee to travellers also fill me with nostalgia. These small town resturants were always painted in garish colours such as fluroscent green or a sort of sky blue. They remind me of the decor of Mexican resturants in Toronto and US cities. When I lived in India,  I hated these garish colours but .......after living in Canada and enjoying the garish colours of Mexican resturants, I am wondering if I should reconsider using those garish colours in the resturants of India  if I do open a resturant in Toronto!

I think I would like to have black and white photoes of Indian kitchens with the traditional instruments of cooking such as the mortar and pestle, the vanake(stick used to crush grains), the beeso-kallu(more primitive mortal and pestle to grind rice, wheat, ragi, etc). Photoes of plates of food or food on banana leaves, photoes of a marriage meal with a row of banaan leaves with food on it and servers serving.

Or I could make a silent movie with various food based themes such as  traditional Indian cooking process(women cooking at homes in villages and cooks cooking large quantities of food in wedding hall-kitchens), eating, serving food(in homes, hotels, weddings, in the fields during harvest time, etc) and run this movie silently on walls of the resturant where the patrons can see. I would like to make the movie with the cooks using archiac cooking instruments and new ones too and show the progression and evolution of cooking implements, etc.

I could also put up on the walls, hand-written and framed recipes of the foods served in my resturant. Maybe a little bit of history of each dish.

A color photo of spices, a photo of various fruits and vegetables, photoes of markets selling fish, food and vegetables, wholesale grain market (such as city market of Bangalore)of photoes capturing rice from it's start as a seed of paddy to reaching the table could also be used. But of course, these photoes should not put you off your food!
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My husband's idea of decorating the hotel includes having small thatched huts with 6 foot high walls, a round table with chairs inside this hut, which has an entrance without a door. Maybe he wants the walls to be white-washed with lime. He wanted a mud floor with cow-dung to smoothen and harden  it but I doubt if even Indians would come in if we had such floors!

If Indian kids coming into resturants weren't so unruly, I would have had a few  Kashmiri Kangris in each of these huts for the patrons to warm their hands in winter(apart from having the regular heating)

Instead of photoes to decorate the walls I could have nooks in the wall and place a range of mortal and pestels used in India or a range of (same colour) rare cooking implements from different parts of India. A couple of  humungous but aesthetically appealing  vessals used in large scale cooking, could be placed as decorative pieces in some places in the hotel. unpainted natural-looking clay pots of various designs could also be used to decorate...only clay pots or only black and white photoes or only color photoes...NOT ALL of them TOGETHER. I dont want a mish-mash but one theme at a time only, for decorating

I could also have photos of a certain theme and change the theme and photos once in a while. The theme will always remain Indian food but there are so many themes within Indian food to photograph. Foods from various parts of India, vessals from various parts, stoves from ancient to modern times, photoes of people eating, I could go on and on about the range of food themes and photoes one can take in India.

But my favorite idea for photos for Indian resturant decor would be  a series of black and white,candid photoes of ordinary, anonymous people in various places, eating or drinking and appear to be oblivious to the world around them . For example a photo of a guy, sitting at a window, with a cup of coffee, reading a newspaper; a couple sitting in a park, laughing and surrounded by a picnic basket and food; a mother feeding her infant( a common sight in India) by putting balls of rice into his mouth while having him perched on her waist, a couple of teens watching cricket on tv with plates of food in their hands, farmer eating under a tree near his fields,etc.

I would put these  photos on my own dining room walls but my husband will not let me hammer a single nail on the wall!
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Another idea for decorating Indian resturants : The Indian resturants could serve Indian food but SHOULD loose  the Indian music and Indian decorations. The resturants could have an aesthetic decor with a universal appeal.....the decor could be modern, of any ethnic or non-ethnic type and plesant, low-key and unobtrusive. A series of paintings or art-work by one artist would be one such idea. Aquariums, continuous stream of air bubbles or water bubbles is another(or does this sound tacky? When I visualize this it doesnt seem tacky to me. Fresh flowers in vases would be great and  Ikebana would be even better but I can also see Indians protesting to this decor as it is not 'Indian'.

And no music at all. I like music but prefer silence or barely audible music in resturants & shops. I find the non-stop music in shops distracting and wish they did not have music. I also hate Indian music...hate is too strong a word but I am FED UP  of the Indian music in Indian resturants. I prefer silence! I prefer the sounds of people chatting and laughing filling the air. The sound of waiters walking around serving is also natural and nice. But Indian music...NO

 

Who is the bigger thief?

Who is the bigger thief?

There has been a dramatic Increase in the number of thefts  by servants in north Bangalore. The women who come to work in the homes of the middle class people, steal a range of things from the houses. The things stolen include money, jewels, utensils, clothes, grocery and food  items, implements lying around the house such as scissors and even children’s toys. This is the sad & exasperating tale in the lives of most people who hire servants in north Bangalore. Apart from theft, many do not come on time, absent themselves for days, do slip shod work and demand a wage increase nearly every other month. Many also stop coming without giving any notice !

Recently when the maid stopped coming without informing, my friend immediatly suspected that she must have stolen something valuable from the house. But what  can one search for  when one does not know what is missing?

My friend was cursing the servants and all of their tribe, when her mother interrupted with this story. Two servants who had been working in their house  last year had narrated the events in their lives. Both were wives of farmers, who lived in villages just a few kilometers away(villages such as Rajan Kunte). One servant’s husband had sold his land for 2 lakh rupees in order to get his daughter married and as they no longer had agriculture land, the lady had started coming to work in people’s homes. She said that the man who bought her land had merely promised two lakh rupees but finally did not give the full amount . He also built a fence round the land and refused to let these people in and refused to return their land. He then sold this land to real estate developers for crores of rupees who inturn build apartments and sold the apartments for even higher amounts! The other lady’s husband was given only fifty thousand rupees for his land and then the land was converted into sites and sold for several lakhs of rupees!

The wives of these farmers are now working as servants in homes for one or two thousand rupees now! The farmers had no idea that their agricultural land would be converted into sites for building houses and that the value of their land would be several thousand times greater than what they got. These farmers would have been wallowing in luxury if they had sold their lands at the right price...now they have lost their means of livlihood and sunk in poverty.

So. Who is the bigger set of thieves? The women working as servants and stealing a few items from the houses or the men who robbed their husbands by paying a pittance for their land, which was actually  worth a fortune?

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The conversion of agricultural land into residential sites especially near growing cities like Bangalore is rife with crime, with sad stories such as this. One can go on and on about the various dimensions of evil and disasters happening due to these conversions.

The conversion of agricultural land into residences means less greenery, less food grown, less land for plants, animals, insects, birds, etc. It is leading to an ecological disaster

When agricultural land is lost, then man moves into forest areas to replace the lost land and this leads to decrease in space for wild life i.e. both plants and animals.

The conversion of agricultural land has lead to cutting of several trees and this is a huge  ecological disaster as seen by the erratic and  scanty rainfalls in Bangalore and Tumkur.

The types of crimes, the number of crimes related to this conversion of land  is another huge sociological issue. Murders by family members for this land is one  crime; paying a pittance to illiterate farmers and selling the land for exorbitant amounts is another.  Selling one  lot to two people is another! Threathening farmers who refuse to sell and then buying their land at low prices is another despicible crime I have heard of .Kidnapping young unmarried daughters of the farmer if he refuses to sell his land is another shameful thing I have heard of. There may be other types of crime related to this issue but these are the ones I have heard of.

A friend of mine who works as a teacher  in Nelamangala was reporting the atrocious behaviour of school age kids. She links the lack of discipline &  morals in these kids directly to the poor role models i.e. their parents, who have become  arrogant with the new money they have acquired  by selling their lands.  She was so disgusted by the students behaviours, especially the boys, that she quit her job.  She had to deal with parents who demanded that she pass their wards, who not only demanded that she not punish their son but also made veiled threats. Can you imagine, what the hell  is happening in these small towns? Here, the police are deferent to criminalsespecially the rich ones  as they are the ones who call the shots. Here teachers and school principals fear their students and their parents and don’t dare question them when they do things such as assaulting female students. The use of modern technology(example taking obscene photoes and threathening to circulate them, sending obscene messages on mobiles to females) to harass the female students is another shameful facet of life in small towns. Access to technology is due to access to money and access to money is due to selling their lands. While they have become richer, their morals have taken a nosedive.

The bottomline is that the quality of  life in Bangalore is worsening day by day. Crime is increasing. The increase in population is putting strain on the infrastructure. The politicians are  shameless and corrupt and are  eating away the resources like rodents instead of using them  to develop Bangalore.

 Those, who can get away from Bangalore, should get out.  What I cannot understand is why should one pay so much to live in Bangalore either as a renter or owner when this city has such a poor transport system and roads, no electricity for many hours a day, no  consistent water supply, increasing crime rate, lots of  mosquitoes,  unaffordable schools and now it also has   garbage everywhere !

Informed choice in arranged marriages:

The earlier post I wrote was my angry ranting after hearing   devastating news of a young friend’s “Arranged” marriage breaking up just 2 months after the wedding.

I am writing this after witnessing and hearing about so many miserable and unhappy arranged marriages which are so damn avoidable!

Here are some pre-marriage suggestions for  the brides and grooms going in voluntarily or involuntarily or semi-voluntarily into  arranged marriages. I am giving these suggestions after witnessing arranged marriages in several  middle-class, urban, educated,Gowda families of Bangalore and Tumkur and  some arranged marriages of other castes and even  other religions such as Kerala Christians & Mangalore Christians and Muslims and  other Hindus of mostly Bangalore area.  So the suggestions are based on the problems I have seen arising out of these marriages.

I am not giving any suggestions I picked from other sources such as internet, people, etc. These are my own, based on my personal experiences

 I do not know enough to talk about arranged marriages in rural areas either. They have a whole lot of issues not seen in city people’s arranged marriages such as lower literacy level and it’s  effects on marriages, the superstitious beliefs  prevalent in villages, the younger age of the girls getting married, the ignorance and misconceptions  about sex, the life of newly wedded women in drought stricken villages and in poverty, life in the joint family system, etc.

Informed Choice is the one phrase which sums up all I want to advise people about arranged marriages.

In most arranged marriages I have seen, the parents ask their friends, relatives and well-wishers if they know of any suitable bride/groom for their child in their caste/sub-caste. The people look around and pass on information about any suitable person to the parents. The parents would then check out this person and proceed or not proceed with the marriage.

 About 60 years ago, the Gowda population was confined to the southern parts of Karnataka and it was easy to find a bride or a groom closer  to home. However, the Gowda population (like all other castes) has spread out  from their traditional regions i.e. Tumkur, Chitradurga, Mysore, etc  and spread over Karnataka and India and even in other parts of the world such as USA.

Today, the increase in and spread of the Gowda  population  to different parts of India and the world, has made finding the right groom or bride (belonging to the same caste and sub-caste) a much bigger process than before.

Therefore,  parents are now trying to find grooms and brides in new ways such as the internet, matrimonial sites, matrimonial agencies, etc. They now have access to some information but not all information about the prospective bride or groom. Yet, they go ahead and agree to get their children to marry these relative strangers.

First of all, youth in India should think about the concept of marriage as early as they can and ask themselves these questions. Do I want to get married? What does  marriage mean to  me? What do I want out of my marriage and out of my partner and his/her family? What kind of a wife /husband will I be, when I get married? Do I have the qualities a husband/wife should have?  Why am I getting married? Is it to make my parents happy or is it for me? Am I flexible enough to adapt if the person is different from what I expect? Am I ready to solve problems arising out of the married relationship, if things do not work out?

Many Indian youth have  unrealistic  ideas about marriage. Several youth I have interacted with have high expectations from the wife or husband but never ask themselves, what they are bringing to the table.  Everyone I know dream of a beautiful girl (or handsome, tall guy), want a “doctor” or “engineer”, who have fantastic qualities. But, they do not think about the other party’s expectations from them!  Many men (at least the ones  who have approached the women in my family and my relatives) want to marry a rich person and don’t think of becoming rich through their own hard work!

informed choice as “a decision-making process which relies on a full exchange of information in a non-urgent, non-authoritarian, co-operative setting.” The process of informed choice is based on the midwifery philosophy which states that“Midwifery promotes decision-making as a shared responsibility between the woman, her family (as defined by the woman) and her caregivers