Kindle: A love Story

Yes! I admit it.. I am a kindle lover!!! 

And  this was no easy transition… A vivid reader, I have always felt the need to hold, smell and turn those pages.. Initially I could not wrap my brain around having a electronic format of book .. it seemed just too weird not to turn the page .. or to be able to jump ahead, read a few lines and jump back to recall something..

And then Kindle happened!! A gift from my husband, I threaded cautiously.. I felt the weight of the reader, I downloaded a few books from Amazon and I just gave it a try… And much to my surprise, I actually found myself liking whole experience!! I could easily hold the reader with one hand, slip it into my purse/laptop bag without adding extra weight, could read without my eyes getting tired…..  Soon  I found myself reading all the time.. while feeding the baby, in restroom .. while sitting in passenger end of the car, while flyin.. oh yeah I was hooked…..

Oh yeah Kindle is my current fav. Electronic gadget (yeah even after having it for nearly 2 years now) …. And my dearest travel companion!! Love Love Love  Kindle!

A first tryst with Gardening

Back at home, while we were growing up, we lived in a pseudo farm house, where my mom was deeply involved with Gardening and all things associated. We got most of our veggies from the garden and our lawn – Oh! it was so lush, green, filled with flowering plants... an paradise onto itself.

However, looking back, I realize that though I savored in the benefits of having a mom with green thumb rather readily, I myself never took to playing around in the mud, planting or growing those every so amazing flowers.

Nahh! A typical teen, I just enjoyed myself without a thought at the hard work behind it.

Now, looking at the sorry state of our new digs, we decided to do something about it. So off, we went to HOME DEPOT, our current favorite store and had a discussion with one of the lawn experts there. The net result: Acknowledgement that our lawn probably needs a lotta TLC this year without receiving the benefits of the basking in green.

We are now proud owners of a spreader, pruning scissors, garden rake and a bag of deweeder plus fertilizer.

Armed with these, we decided to physically dig out some of the Dandelions, chickweeds, before we use the de-weeder and fertilizer.. so off we went digging, me with my hat, S with his cap… and R (our 1 year old) walking/falling/ohhing/ahhing along our side.

And then came the turn of pruning, my mom (who is here with us for a few days) showed us how to prune.. so click click click went our pruning scissors . and by 4 pm in evening, we had just finished pruning the plants at one end of the house.. the other 3 sides still remained. But gosh, the side where we worked, did look much better than when we started on it… worth the effort we spend there. Makes me actually look forward to next weekend, when we finally put in de-weeder on the lawn and prune rest of the plants around the house.

So herez to the first step in many more to come : our first day at Gardening, 4/15/2012

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Vs IPad 2

I am in the process of buying my mom a tablet. And her requirements are rather simple: Ability to browse, download pictures from emails and camera, do simple picture manipulations, skype, Google video chat, watch videos, WiFi.

Given the price tag of $499 for the new IPAD (ipad 3?), and that the key difference between the two versions being the retina display, I think that IPAD 2 at $399 may actually be a good option for her.

However, the fact that you still can't remove the battery, there's no HDMI out port, and no expanding the storage with an SD card, makes Galaxy Tab 10.1 very tempting. The built in stereo system, in build GPS, most importantly the easy transfer of data between SD card and windows PC makes Galaxy very attractive for the given needs

I will be the first to admit, I am not tab junkie, I have very little knowledge when it comes to tab. I use Kindle (and AHEM! Love it! .. ) and for mail etc, use my laptop or my phone (an Android based one).. so perhaps my confusion stems from the fact that I hardly have used IPAD/IPhone the way it ought to be .. real extensively.. my limited experience with these devices have been for listening to music, browsing.. which I think I can do as effectively else where in android based application.

And of course the price parity does nothing— the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and iPad 2 each cost $400 (as of March 2012) — and hence the additional dilemma.

But again, the fact that half the world and one very good friend of mine, Kanishk, is such a HUGE fan of IPAD leads me to lean a bit towards the IPAD.

Well, the conflict is on.. at this point the scores are as follows:

Galaxy tab : 1 / Ipad 2: 1.25

UPDATE: Based on further analysis and a strong recommendation from my friend Kanishk just ordered the IPAD.. . now waiting to see my mom's reaction to it

Blog revival

I have been thinking on and off about reviving this blog, it has been dead for a while with a post or two in between.

I struggled with this internally, and had to battle with the thought of no one reading the blog ! I found myself constantly pining to pen down those thoughts and struggled with possibility that I would find no one interested in it to read these thoughts, comment…. . form a comradeship based on these random ramblings.

Finally I looked real deep and went back to the roots of my reason for blogging .. and poof! It struck me hard that this was supposed to “MY Medium” for sorting/thinking/writing down things which matter.. my introspection, my view point..

And just like that, I had made the decision… to move forward, to let my doubts lie and start again on this journey, let the words flow and let them talk …

So with a bang, here I am declaring to world “YES, THIS BLOG IS ALIVE” .. KICKING and ready to go… here I am writing again! Yay!

Herez to a new start! Cheers!!!!

Genghis: Birth of an Empire

Just finished reading this book and I have to admit though not transfixing... it was certainly entertaining...

Being a total history buff, I tend more towards reading historically based novels.... it feeds my travel hungry soul!

The book gives an excellent description of the Mongolian landscape and the hardships places by the wandering tribes... I could almost imagine myself in the place. Though some of the historical facts have been tweaked a bit to make the novel interesting, it seems to stick to the essence of the "dreaded Khan"... I think the novel manages to be illuminating while being entertaining...

You find your heart going out and rooting for young Temujin (the future Genghis Khan) when he and his family are left to fend for themselves in the harsh Mongolian plains.. you cannot help but admire the feistiness of the mother, Houlen who manages to keep the young kids alive through the winter at sub zero temperatures with no roof on the head...

I, for one will definitely read the next in the series, Bones of the hills....

The characteristics of an ideal, perfect Tava Roti (Indian Bread)

Yes, I can make one… from a scratch. Well, being an Indian, it is nothing really to boast about and frankly, it is probably a very easy task. However, making a simple Roti is probably easy, but making a perfect one is a totally different story!

So to begin with the question is how do you make the Roti??

The recipe is as simple as it gets. All you need is (a) 2 cups of atta (wheat flour) (b) ¾ cup of water (c) a pinch of salt. Mix all these ingredients together in a bowl and knead it to make smooth dough.

You then form small lemon sized dough rounds and flatten each one to around 8 inch diameter using a rolling pin. Finally you cook this evenly on both sides on a skillet (or as Indian’s would say “Tava”). Your roti is now ready to eat !

Sounds easy enough eh? But to get an “perfect” roti, is an art in itself. A “perfect” roti has to be “perfectly round” and soft enough to melt while you eat with that “Hot curry”.

Alas. Therein lies the issue… first you need to mix the dough just right, if you over knead it you end up with “ultra hard cracker-style” rotis… if you mix it too loose.. it’s a pain to roll. After many attempts and a few dirty looks from my hubby about having to eat my creations, I think I have finally got the initial art of mixing the dough just right.

But my attempts at making those perfectly round “circular, even radii” roti’s has been a total disaster. I can proudly state that I can make all the shapes and sizes of the roti… will all, except for the round shape. of the various countries (of course, that is not by any design), but try as I may there is no way I can get a round one.

Trust me I have tried and tried… very diligently too! But after trying all I can, the art of making those perfect “coveted” round rotis totally escapes me.

So, I have a solution for when I make roti’s for some one else other than hubby and me… I call it “the knife carving method of making rotis”. Roll your dough out, don’t worry about the shape and then take a round lid , place it on top of the rolled dough and use knife to cut the extras. VOILA… you now have a perfectly round roti’s…

Some may call it cheating.. but I call it the art of knife carving roti.... works for me (Totally!)

Why I love Spring: Top 10 reasons

1. It comes right after the dreaded “winter”
2. It brings a "spring" to my step.
3. No more snow to shovel (Totally love the fact !! )
4. The chirping of birds outside my window (I wanna chrip too) .
5. The feel the sun on the face (right in sync with my Indian sensibilities)
6. The cool wind on my face while biking (Feel like singing aloud sometimes)
7. Walking amidst the greenery makes heart pump stronger (or so I suppose).
8. Longer days (Ah! the charm of illusion of more time.... )
9. I get to wear finally wear dresses, skirts and sleeveless tops. (Yay! )
10. Most importantly, It makes me Smile (pointlessly).

Expansion of the off-shore oil drilling... where are we headed...?

I have to admit I am a little disappointed with the new approach Obama administration is taking towards the offshore oil drilling. The fact that now the previously restricted portions of Atlantic and gulf of Mexico will soon be a oil and gas drilling field, makes me think of the numerous fauna and flora which will cease to exist.


Yes, I agree that with the new technological advances the oil spills, once rampant, are a vague (very vague) possibility. But, at the same time, it is essential for us to focus very heavily on developing other oil-substituting resources. Personally, I feel, that an increase in off shore oil drilling, will just encourage the folks to extend the timeline for maturity of the other natural resources.


It is a pity, that when Saudi Arabia and other rich oil producing countries are focusing on developing solar and other renewable energy sources, Kudos is being given to the new expansion plans for offshore drilling. I am not saying that solar is the way to go, but I am surely saying that there are other resources out there (perhaps natural gas, wind energy etc) which need belief and a need of urgency to actually meet its true potential.


It has oft been told "Necessity is the mother of all inventions"... so if we don't make the need essential and an necessity, the inventions will happen.. but eventually......and slowly.. ... perhaps too slowly !!


Think about that!