An Ode To The University Of Delhi -- Our Very Own DU

They call it the Delhi University. Since this year, it is my daughter's turn to have her very own tête-à-tête with this temple of 'undergraduate' learning, she penned down this poem to express her feelings towards this adrenaline - like Admission Rush every academic year -- With A Difference of FYUP this year.

They do not call it DU for no reason

Coming Up With A Very New Programme this season

The Great Indian Academic Tamasha of  Admission

With hopeful students accusing their marks of treason

While we've become accustomed to cutoffs shooting through the sky

Also to optimistic pupils' hue and cry

The 100% demon striking DU... Oh My!!!

And to some hearts' hope receding... Bidding Goodbye

Oh! I see...

What worries me is the new pattern of FYUP

Is Mr. Sibal the culprit? The head of HRD!!!... He teams up with Mr. Singh -- The VC
The one behind making us the Guinea Pigs Of The Century!

While the 'Sciences' belong to the North
'Humanities' does it for the South
The Commercites too have a soft corner for the North
It's the campuses I bring forth

We know not what lies ahead
It's just the successive cutoff lists we dread
This education will finally help us earn our bread
Let's look forward to it with hope, on the path which we tread...

On A Rainy Day...

This post was my first attempt at writing for BlogAdda's WOW! Initiative and was adjudged as one of the WOW! posts. A new achievement.

On A Rainy Day...

God gives us the best of the gray

Putting all our worries to bay

Giving us in life, of hope a new ray 

And giving us opportunities to enjoy some child's play.

The spray comes to life like a boon

But why does it leave so soon?

Like shooting stars which come to visit us but once in a blue moon

Enlivening the moments of our life, be it morning, evening or noon.

On A Rainy Day...

On A Rainy Day...

Tittering - tattering drops on my face

Fill up the journal of my memories' grace

Giving me a sense of an adventurous phase

And drawing towards them, all our praise.

All my pals calling for an aqua party

With everyone unveiling their personality, poetic and arty

The goodness of nature in being hale and hearty

Also being aware of it and thus a Smarty.

On A Rainy Day...

On A Rainy Day...

Every face starts beaming

Every heart's enveloped peacock crooning

Each soul's dreams and aspirations unfolding

And each mind's innocence unraveling.

All This And Much More...

On A Rainy Day...

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

From A Mother To A Son...

12 Golden Precursors For A Son To Lead A Prosperous & Peaceful Marriage With His Wife Who Comes To Transform His House Into A Home...

• No one can experience Love without a feeling of Oneness.
• Just because someone doesn't love you in the way you expect them to, doesn't mean that they don't love you with all they have got.
• Admire the person not for who he/she is but for who you are when you are with him/her.
• Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that They Are On The Same Side.
• You don't need to be on the same wavelength to succeed in Marriage, you just need to be able to ride each other's waves.
• Surrender in the form of submission may not be defeat but acceptance.
• Peace & Happiness are not the absence of conflict from life but the ability to cope with it.
• Never walk out on a quarrel with Your Wife as she is Your Life.
• Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy.
• The ultimate test of a relation is to disagree but still hold hands.
• Love the person the most, when he deserves it the least because that is when they need it the most.
• It is foolish to experience Hate when one can experience Love.

Unchii Dukaan -- Phika Pakwaan! -- A Not So Good Personal Experience

Many idioms from ancient times seem so befitting even now - a - days. We experienced one first hand at 'Khandani Rajdhani - A Khandani Parampara'.

We had heard a lot about this restaurant at Connaught Place where one gets unlimited Rajasthani food in Thali Style. I always wanted to relish this regional cuisine but couldn't get the chance. So when a branch of this eating joint opened in our neighborhood at Pacific Mall, my family and I grabbed this opportunity. We were quite excited about this rendezvous.

 The Welcome was traditional -- with a tilak on the forehead. The ambiance was up to the mark. An antique utensil was used for washing hands before the meal.

So far so good. With our appetite aroused, we were expecting a sky high quality. But their preparations and arrangements failed to meet our expectations. The food served was OK in quantity ( as the portions could be taken again and again ) but not in quality.

The waiters were bombarding the dishes while reciting the names in such volume and accent that we couldn't garner much knowledge about this 'interesting to hear' cuisine. Most of the daals and other dishes were more or less watery, salty and spicy gravies with negligible substance in them. In one go, they would serve one or two spoonfuls and obviously to ask more of it didn't appeal to us. Regarding the desert, 'Apple Basundi' was also quite thin and the so-called apple bits were too less and small as well.

So, our long term anticipation to visit this restaurant just vanished in thin air. When we came out, in the lift lobby, we saw a huge advertisement board of the same restaurant. The dishes depicted in the thali were much more appealing than the real ones we had. We certainly don't look forward to visiting the place ever again. 

Cloudy Charismatic Coincidence -- Multitude Of Clouds Or Cotton!

We went to explore the beauty of Andaman Islands but even before reaching there, we were mesmerized to see profusing cottony clouds till the beautiful blue horizon and the star shining on top of the side wing of our aircraft.

Truly Majestic...

Monsoony Mouth Watering Magnificence

A Party -- A Gourmet Party -- What for ?  Do we really need a reason for that! No, not at all. Friends just want to party and that's it.

 
    We, Delhites were sweating it out at Forty Five Degrees scorching heat and no respite was in sight except to cool ourselves in an AC Room. But nobody can do that for 24 hours a day. So, we were just praying and expecting the Sun to be a bit polite on us.

    And Wow! 'Surya Dev' probably asked his friend 'Indra Dev' to shower his blessings on us all. We experienced an unexpected cool shower and continued light downpour. The whole atmosphere changed. The scorching heat was replaced by clouds and cool breeze. This sudden change awakened my grey cells and some friendly feelings. Just like 'Surya Dev & Indra Dev'!

    I wished to host a legendary gourmet party on that very day. Thank God it was morning and I still had 7-8 hours to plan the party. I had to plan fast!

    I would've called up my friends but I wanted my invite to be a bit poetic. So this is the E-invite I sent them.

Oh Monsoon!

You come to life like a boon

But why do you leave so soon?

Oh Monsoon!

Titter - tatter drops on the window sill

And it does the roads with aqua fill

Giving a sense of an adventurous thrill

And inking it in our memories with our own quill

And so your onset calls for a 'Gourmet Party'

With everyone so hale and hearty

Finding within their best side arty

And being adjudged a 'Pants Smarty'

While rainbow hues seem befitting for such a theme

And come alive all such colorful dreams

With faces sporting a beam

As pals donning multicolored raincoats form a team...

   The next step was quite easy. My hall room was good enough for our informal yet classy party. The rainy feel worked by my side to the perfect ambiance and used my colorful family umbrellas as corner-of-the-room decorations. For Music, I obviously relied on all the lovey - dovey monsoony songs from our very own Bollywood.

    When we all pals meet, talks ensue and entertainment follows... And when we meet monsoon fun ensues too...

 
     So with none of us wanting to miss out on the rain fun with the 'Raindrop Race' and 'Lightning Chairs' with 'Puddle Fun' and 'The Best Dressed', 'The Craziest' and 'The Rainiest' as some titles, I banked upon The Best i.e. The One And Only ITC Kitchens Of India's sumptuous dishes with some of my own tried and tested 'Rainy Day Bests'. And here we embark on our Culinary Trail...

• The Ice Breakers were our very own Blue Lagoon, BlueBerry, Blue Curacao, Asian Pear Sparkler Mocktails with cute little topping umbrellas along with the tried and tested all time favorites -- Assorted Pakoras to suit every palate -- be it Chatpata Cheese, Mirchila Mushroom, Slurpy Spinach or oily Onion with an assortment of Kitchens Of India Chutneys.
  
  
  
  

Basmati Rice Pulao enriched with Veggies and Nuts alongwith Red Kidney Beans Curry.

Malabari Chicken Stew with Malabari Paranthas served with onion, tomato, corn & cucumber salad.

To top it all, we had steamy Jodhpuri Moong Dal and Hazoori Petha Halwas.

     An amalgam of aroma of Kitchens Of India, sound of falling raindrops mixed with our favorite tunes, the sight of a cloudy sky and children merrily jumping in puddles of aqua added lots of enigma to our legendary rainy day Gourmet Party.

This post is my entry for the 'My Weekend With Gourmet Food' Contest organised by ITC Kitchens Of India in association with IndiBlogger.

Legendary Gourmet Weekend Encounter

* EW ERA YRGNUH *

* EVIG SU DOOF *

* ESLE EW LLIW TAE UOY *

* EW ERA TON NI A DOOG DOOM *

       Shrilling shouts started surrounding us, we gave a look around and were shocked to see six of them surrounding us -- my family and me. They were quite strange looking, wearing so called "clothes" of some strange material, having weird looking head gears, weapons in their hands and shouting an alien language repeatedly (as written above).

       Actually, last weekend, we went for a weekend long picnic to a forest reserve to find ourselves being close to nature. Probably, nature made it go overboard as we never expected to be surrounded by aliens who came from God knows where! We were baffled and frightened by their harrowing looks and screams. On top of it we were unable to understand their language. We looked at each other to gain strength and held hands. We tried to sense from their actions and understood that they were hungry. So we had no other alternative to save ourselves from them except to provide them food. So we offered them some fruits but they declined by shaking their heads in the dissident.

       They tried to snatch the piping hot handis and kadais of Basmati Rice Pulao with Vegetable And Nuts, Butter Chicken Curry, Spinach and Cottage Cheese Curry, Fish Curry and Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani all from Kitchens Of India, which we had kept aside for our dinner.

        Now, we were enlightened by the fact that the heavenly aromatic fragrance from these dishes was driving them nuts. We heaved a sigh of relief to find that 'Kitchens Of India' would come to our rescue (although we felt a little gloomy that we had to share such mouth watering delicacies with those aliens).

        We all sat in a circle after keeping the utensils in the center and made them sit too using actions. They seemed to still be very excited but were now composed a bit. My daughter's Ipod turned out to be the saving grace with respect to the music department when she played soothing music from albums composed by A.R. Rehman. Even the 'outsiders' turned out to be great fans. Now, they seemed to be in a jolly good mood. As we didn't have any idea about their Meal Preferences, we served them both non-veg and veg delicacies as follows :-

• For drinks we had Aam Panna, Nimbu Paani and Seb Sharbat.
  
  
  
  
• For starters, we had Hariyali Kebabs and Chicken Skewers on tandoori sariyas alongwith Shredded  Mango Chutney and Papaya Raisin Chutney respectively.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Hyderabadi Mutton Biryani with Mild Chilly Pepper Curry.
  
  
• Basmati Rice Pulao enriched with Veggies and Nuts alongwith Red Kidney Beans Curry.
  
• Mughlai Paneer with Hot Butter Garlic Naans and Laccha Paranthas.
  
• Black Gram Lentils Curry with Yakhni Pulao.
  
• Malabari Chicken Stew with Malabari Paranthas served with onions and Tamarind & Date Chutney as accompaniments.
  
  
   
• For desert, we had Apricot Pudding accompanied with Mango & Saffron Conserve, Hazoori Petha Halwa and Sheermal (saffron flavored flatbread which is an Awadhi delicacy). 
  
  
  

     We all relished the sumptuous meal. The cool breeze with melodious sounds produced by rustling of leaves added an additional tinge to the music being played. Now, we were all feeling sleepy. They bowed and shouted " GNIHTYREVE ROF UOY KNAHT " but this time their shouts were very melodious with a big smile on their faces.

They retreated  & after some steps just vanished in thin air the way they had appeared.

     We shall never be able to know who they were! But that party was truly a Legendary Weekend Surprise Party  which can never be recreated. That was one party in which... 

We didn't send any invite...

had a natural ambiance of greenery and scented flowers around and Moon & Stars in the clear blue sky...

 music of chirping birds and rustling leaves mixed with the Ipod style which got enhanced by their musical voices and...

we all relished the palatable and savory dishes courtesy Kitchens Of India and made such good friends ( although for few hours but they got etched in our hearts & souls for a lifetime ).

This post is my entry for the "My Weekend Party With Gourmet Food" Contest organised by ITC Kitchens Of India in association with IndiBlogger. You can vote for my post here.