Aaj kal be bachche.

late 1980's

Ma - If you dont behave I am going to leave you here and go home without you.

Me/my brother (either knee deep in mud, or atop a tree - putting all that inexhaustible energy to good use) - you wont!!!.

Ma - Yes I will. Nobody wants to take home a naughty child.

Us (worried looking around for dad) - Appa won't let you. You will have to take me back.

Ma - Yes he will. See he is annoyed too.

Us (looking up at Appa to see him make his obliging angry face, now very unsure) - But he/she started it.

Reluctantly walking away from whatever lovely mischief we had been upto.

2009

Overheard mother and son at a concert my husband was singing at. I was trying to get the wires taped to the floor so kids would not trip on it.

Kid - I don't want to sit here. Nobody else is sitting here.

Mother - It is right in front. We are members of this organization. We pay an annual fee. These are the best seats. Just sit down.

Kid - But everybody is sitting at the back. I want to sit at the back....

After a few minutes of this.

Mother - If you don't behave I am going to leave you here.

The kid paused and was deep in thought for a while.

Kid - (In a very deliberate voice which might indicate practicing in front of the mirror) - If you did leave me behind here, I am not sure I want to go back with you. This means you are an irresponsible parent. You are supposed to take care of me and I could report you to the authorities and you would be in trouble. They would take me home.

Mother ( deep sigh ) - Bends down to sit next to me. Can I help you with that tape?

Kids born with a sense of entitlement...

Lets watch a movie tonight

After the long strike with the multiplexes ended and the Indian movie industry has gone back to being prolific, husband and I have been lured back to the theatres. We are rather wary theater goers and generally wait for the verdict to be out not only in the media but also among our friends. This despite a Regal theatre right next door and it offers all the new Hindi releases promptly. Completely unlike Oregon where there was one dingy theater that played Indian movies and you had to wait for months for the "latest" Hindi movies to be released. But then Oregon is full of the outdoorsy people who head out to hike or camp at the drop of a hat. Of course, since it rains 5 months in a year it can be argued that they are just suffering from prolonged and delayed claustrophobia. But I am rambling.

Maybe I am soft critic, maybe I just reaallly enjoyed watching the movies with Dolby stereo again - whatever it was but I was rather happy with the past couple of movies I watched. I do seem to be alone in this since I heard a lot of criticism. The movies in question are of course the much discussed Love Aaj Kal and Kaminey. They held my attention; I enjoyed almost all of the performances and what’s more I was introduced to two rather nice soundtracks. Also I had some discussions bordering heated on how gorgeous Deepika is, how silly the climax was and so on and so forth. These two movies, I suspect resulted in lowering our guard.

So last night armed with homemade paneer kati rolls and on a whim a flask full of mandarin vodka and tonic water, we set off to watch “Dil Bole Hadippa" . The movie did not hold my attention, I did not enjoy any of the performances, it was crass, loud, disconnected and unbearable. Also I find Yash Chopra productions ludicrous as a champion of women's rights. Please spare me!!!!

But what surprised me is that my guard has dropped further.

Our careful scrutiny before heading to the movies has of course resulted in us missing a lot of the real lemons. Most of the movies we have watched in the past couple of years have been rather decent. Completely different from our bachelor days when we would watch every stinker on screen. And now I understand why we did it. I had forgotten how much fun it is sometimes to watch a bad movie.

Maybe it was the spicy yet tender paneer, maybe it was the Grey Goose but I think I have not had this much fun watching a movie in a very long time ( apart from Sivaji - but that’s a Rajni movie and so does not count). There was giggling, and prodding and snatching food and no we were not nuisances because the theatre was practically empty (that should have warned us huh?). We are normally polite and refrain from even whispering and so the chattering and laughing was nice change.

So I highly recommend it. Not "Dil Bole Haddipa" but the experience. I may not be able to do this very frequently what with the 20 bucks that we will need to shell out, but I am sure I will do it again.

Stress eating?

It has been a tough few weeks. Everything at work was deemed an emergency and even though I reacted by making my somber face/ grave tongue clicks at all meetings, I have come to understand that everything is always an emergency. So though I need to continue to work the drama associated is wholly unnecessary. But despite said Zen outlook though I am not as stressed as the drama queens in my team, I am seeing my stress quotient go up.

I discovered long ago that the stress ball does nothing apart from exercise your fingers and make your palms sticky. But there are some great ways to beat the stress.

1. Eat - On particularly stressful days when I want a burst of energy to kick in later in the day I eat a salad with a holier than thou look on my face during lunch with colleagues and then tank up on a slice of sinful sugar and butter laden cake during coffee. I have spent too much time in the tech industry and in college for caffeine to rescue me.

2. Clothes - I spend some mindless minutes picking the perfect outfit online that I will wear during a great vacation. I will never buy the outfit since I DO NOT need more clothes but the quality time I spend on Forever 21 sight has seen me through many status meetings.

3. Planning dinner - Food is my one true vise. Work, stress and all things become minor things if I manage to stumble onto the perfect recipe, or the perfect restaurant.

4. Blogging - what is sad is that blogging does not de-stress me at all. My mind is so cluttered with details of work and maybe the recipe that I just found that I have nothing to say really and definitely nothing funny to say.

But since I did have some stressful days so I found some great recipes..

1. Spinach Strawberry Salad

2. Corn and Avocado salad - I added some roasted red bell peppers to it. They are my new favourite thing. Fire roasted bell peppers have the most amazing flavour and texture.

3. Pineapple upside down carrot cake - this was a mix of many recipes. This is why I am a bad baker- I cannot follow instructions. But this cake was a slice of heaven.

4. Mac and cheese with broccoli - I did remove a lot of "fat" part of the recipe. The trick is to get the roux right. Despite navaratri mine was heavily dosed with garlic.

5. Black Olive Spread - Inspired by tapenade but without the capers.

6. Lettuce wraps - Left out the beef of course and sprinkled with peanuts. Also added lentils with rice because I do not stock brown rice.

Stress Eating ?? Still beats squeezing rubber balls and then washing and rewashing my hands with soap to get the smell off.