Happy New Year.

New year eves and the new year makes me nostalgic.   

It reminds me of childhood days spent buying new year cards by the score. The dilemma was only between Choosing UNICEF and CRY for fulfilment of social responsibility inculcated by dad inside the heart and the mind, which was split finally equally between both reaching out to India and the world. 

Then choosing which ones to send to whom out of the whole lot of cards. 

I used to take it to the next level by then choosing between the limited choice of variations of postage stamps available at different different post offices and then came the deliberation on the choice of words thought over and above greetings of the seasons and a few family update notes to be written in intricate handwriting by dad, then the envelope for the address was my responsibility.   

Those were the days when greetings were not simply a greeting.  

It was an effort that showed that you cared, and more than cared.  It was like the renewal of a bond built through the years and reminiscing about the times gone by and the times to come.  

It was time taken out for people you cared for : even if it meant to communicate via a simple happy new year card, once a year. 

Those were the good old days. 

These are also good times.  Broadcast  happy new year on Whats app and you don't even care who all it went to so long as you pressed send even If you had not spoken in five years and the number did not exist anymore. 

But you tried to reach out. 

Sending a SMS is also a sign that you cared enough to send a SMS.

I guess this is evolution of connectivity with your past and your future without actually connecting. 

30th December 2014.  

Food : Dead or Alive ?

How do we eat dead meat ? 

The concept of dead and alive came to me from a Comic strip in which aliens ate live meat, humans asked the aliens how could they eat something which was still alive and the aliens simply asked how could we eat something which was dead.

Visited Uttam nagar by lanes today which had Shop after shop of mutton  and pork, generally I have a strong Constitution and blood and gore does not make my stomach go squeezy  but so much of blood in the drains and so many bloodless and lifeless goats and pigs stripped .... Made me think. 

The cross section of the pork meat in so much of abundance robbed me of my love for bacon, for how long ? I do not know ? 

I have seen headless chicken fly and I have eaten the same chicken. I love chicken meat, I tolerate mutton and I love bacon but bones make me lose my appetite. Chicken patty stuffed between burger buns is fine but the oversized KFC chicken legs makes me lose my love for it. 

Stuffed Chicken breast made by Pooja makes me want to live for another life time.

Beef  is also an amazing item how can you not like tunday ke kebab, beef sliders in Goa made by Vandana are to die for. 

For Almost 5 short or long years, I quit eating non vegetarian stuff, thanks to my monthly visits to pick LPG cylinder @ 6 am  and watching the activity at the Lucknow butchery and the carcasses and the thela and rickshaw "load" of meat covered with blood stained, age old daily used same piece of cloth, as I write this - the memories of aversion revisits. "Screw the aversion",  reached home to devour "amazing mutton chops," there is nothing that Pooja can't transform.

This note was written on the 19th of December 2011. Brought into the foreground of the mind by the ban on beef.   All of a sudden the question arises - is it really a free country anymore.   Tomorrow we might have to stop eating vegetables.  

Plant cells are alive all the time, right upto the time they are chopped and hit the sizzling frying pan or the pressure cooker and subsequently enter your mouth and the acid in your stomach starts acting upon them to extract nutrition for your body.  

Science has still not proven that the plant cells are completely dead by the time they pass out of your system.   

Just food for thought.   

Enjoy your meal whatever be your choice.