Food & Wine

Another batch of my dad's finest wines, was out last evening and I got to taste it first. The taste and aroma of the wine only seems to get better. My dad, I believe, is one of the finest chefs (only for a privileged few) in the world and he only gets better day by day. His experiments with various dishes and the red wine are unbeatable. Lucky for me, my wife too is a good cook and is almost getting there. Surprisingly I'm not that fat for the food fanatic that I am. But I do know this, the ability to cook good food, is a god-given gift.
I cant cook. But I'm blessed with a lot of fine dining. Some might say it comes with practice, but then anyone could practice KFC and be a millionaire right? The taste of the food lies in the hands of the cook.
So here's to all who know their cooking well, and put a smile on the face of those who relish it. Cheers!

Butcher Island

My wife and I made a New Year resolution to visit all the famous places in Mumbai. Its strange that people live their entire life in a city and still know little about it. Although I have been to almost all the tourist / historic places in Mumbai, I was surprised to hear about Butcher Island. No it is not a fictitious island straight from a horror movie, it is off the coast of Mumbai, completely restricted to public, and only used as an oil terminal. The local fishermen will cruise you from a distance near the island and even tell you scary stories about the place, for a few hundreds. But what amuses me, is that I never thought there could ever be an island of this name around my favorite city. How many surprises do you have in store for me Mumbai?

Controversial Reading

I just started reading this new book by Ashwin Sanghi, called the Rozabal Line. The author desperately tries to mimick Dan Brown's success, by trying to prove that Jesus never died on the cross, but survived and eventually came to India. He stayed there for the rest of his life and died in a place in Kashmir, marked by a tomb, now worshiped by the Muslims. A little research on this book, and I found that this tomb suddenly became a tourist attraction and Lonely Planet even made a documentary on it. The Indian government later sealed this location and stopped further tourist activity. Although the book cannot keep up with any of Dan Brown's novels (Da Vinci Code being my favorite), it makes me wonder, do authors need a controversy to sell their books. Is this hype more important than the quality of the writing? Sadly this is how books are sold these days, either mention something that hurts religious sentiments, or blemish a famous public/historic figure, thereby creating a certain interest to read it. I mean thats why I got this novel, right?

R.I.P. Michael Jackson

Almost a week now since the end of the "King of Pop" and I cant get over the shock of his tragic demise. I still remember the first time I heard "Thriller", I rushed to the nearest music store and got myself the cassette. It was the only thing playing in my dad's stereo, after Boney M and ABBA. All through school I grew up listening to his albums and was fascinated by his ability to sing in different genres of music. His philanthropic contributions only made me respect him more and actually buy his music, contrary to the rising piracy of music with mp3s. I still remember saving money to pay 1000 rupees for the History CD pack, which had a booklet with all his pics over the years.

Although now my taste in music has shifted to rock/alternative, I do go back to listening to his CDs sometimes. I still reminisce to the good old days when I see his videos on VH1 Classic. Will we ever have another legend like him?

Oscars to India

With the movie Slumdog Millionaire winning oscars, and 3 of them coming to indians, it makes you wonder..........where have the previous indian nominees failed that this movie succeeded. Indians have definitely made better movies than this, the soundtrack isnt Rehmans finest, and slums have been a part of many movie scripts. What then makes this movie different?
Is it because the director was British? Remember the movie "Elizabeth" where it was the opposite, only the director was indian(Shekar Kapur) .......... or one of my personal favorites "Sixth Sense". I dont recall N. Shyamalam winning any Oscar for his movie.
The success of indians at the oscars might come as an I-dont-care-but-we-won applaud from many but the Oscars do need to consider better movies as nominees, to sustain its credibility !

Switch to my Channel

I was walking home last evening, when I came across some kids playing & singing their favorite popular song. Just at about that moment, a kid came right in front of me and started rapping "Aye Bhai, Tuneh Pappi Kyun Lee". Flabbergasted that I was, I couldn't quite figure out what the kid was saying. Later at home while surfing the TV channels, I saw this new music video and it suddenly struck me, this is what the kid was mimicking!

With over a hundred channels on TV, and kids spending most of their time in front of it, just how much filth can we actually stop from getting to them. Is the idiot box just filled with offensive material? Or are the kids only interested in these channels?

There are a few channels meant for kids, but do they ever turn them on? Since the music videos and serials are the preferred choice, some kind of moral policing seems absolutely necessary. But how do we go about doing this? We couldn't possibly have a censor board for TV channels! That will only make matters worse. Recently some popular movie channels had gone off air, due to a court order against illicit viewing. But that didn't make much of a difference did it?. It was a temporary inconvenience to viewers that's all.

We cant blame the music artists or serial producers, because they are only giving us what we want. So I think I should switch to these channels once in a while, only to know whats popular. So goodbye "Travel n Living", "National Geographic" I have to watch what India's future is watching!