Happy Dushera to all !! Let us pledge to overcome all evils within us, and lead a life of simplicity and purity.

In this jet age when people are supposed to gain benefits of Internet shopping, and reap ample rewards from discounts available on-line, one shop still beats them all and the shops in glittering malls.  Let me explain how.

I was in dire need of a printer cartridge for my inkjet printer. It was way too costly in malls in Noida and I had no time or money to make a trip to Delhi’s Nehru place to find one at the cheapest price. I searched ebay and still price quoted there was MRP plus the courier charges, making it cost even more than the prices in Noida.

I was perplexed why would people buy something online, if they are not getting it at the right price, and if they could get it cheaper locally.

Then I decided to give it a try. My brother was supposed to come to Noida the next day from Ujjain. I asked him to find the price of the cartridge in Ujjain, which is a small town and comparatively in a remote location, giving you the impression that things like computer supplies might be costlier there. But to my utter surprise, the price quoted was lesser than I enquired anywhere else.

And the icing on the cake was: The cartridge was not available in Ujjain. However my brother informed the store keeper, that he needed to travel in the evening, and hence needed the cartridge before that. The storekeeper, setting an ultimate example of customer service, promised to get the cartridge ordered from next town, and to deliver at the railway station right at my brother’s seat, before the train’s departure.  And he kept his promise, indeed! All this at a price less than internet’s best price.

In future I am always going to get a quote from Ujjain shops first, for all things that I can get from there.

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A nine month stint in the UK, lots of learning, a lifetime experience, and still feels so good to be home. Like they say there’s no place on earth like home.  Either my good luck or god’s grace, but it is very much cooler in Noida than I expected. Some infrequent rain showers have really proved to be a boon for the weather.

My Indian experience started as soon as we entered the Indian airport. To contain swine flu from inbound passengers, a medical form was supplied to us in flight. Upon landing, a few medical officers took the form from us, stamped it and filed it without even so much having a look at us. Only god knows how they planned to screen the passengers for swine flu. And what’s with the masks. There’s no proof that it works. But there’s solid proof that its adding to fear which is uncalled for.

I was supposed to initially come back on Saturday, and join office on Monday. However most IT companies have mandated a 4-5 days cooling off period (sort of quarantine) before joining office. However its a different fact, that a swine flu infected person may take as long as 10 days to develop symptoms. The funniest part is the place where I work have no such official policy in place, although I was advised to “cool off” for just two days before joining office. In all probability, I could develop swine symptoms on the third day, the very day when I joined office, and could go on zombifying all my colleagues with the flu. And unlike before, when the only cases of swine flu were from people returning from abroad, it is now very much prevalent in India, and spreading within local community (e.g. Pune, Mumbai). So I could arrive as a healthy person, and get infected from a local. However, these reasons apart, I was still glad to have a two day cooling off period, as I got my travel plans pre-poned  by a day, and enjoyed one extra day off at company expense

Sometimes, for all the bizzarre reasons, things still work out for the best. And remember, if you come meet me, and I sneeze, please do not panic. I am allergic to dust and pollen. And for all I know, with every weather change, pollenation season, and slight temperature variations I go on a sneezing frenzy. Nothing close to a flu. (I had a strong urge to sneeze in the queue at airport for submitting the health form, I am so glad I did not. God knows where and how they would have detained me!!)

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I had been thinking about this since a long time now. I joined Facebook almost a year ago, and since then my friends on Facebook has grown from a handful to over a hundred now. And almost all my friends had joined Facebook sooner or later.

Being on two social networking sites, meant double the effort of checking people’s status updates, photos, and comments. So I finally decided on quitting Orkut and being just on Facebook for the while.

The reason which triggered quitting Orkut, was not superior functionality from Facebook, but rather was the the most stupidest action of my life, that is, to integrate my Orkut and Gtalk friends list. It was just a click, and tens of people who I barely knew (but some how were still added as friends on Orkut) could ping me and chat with me on Gtalk while I was on line.

I have been forced to stay invisible on Gtalk for so many months now. So I decided, it was time to give myself some privacy.

Facebook is a bit sluggish than Orkut, and has less users than Orkut has (at least among the circle I live), but still scores for me.

And here I am. Just facebooking. Orkutting no more

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What an eye catcher !!

green pitviper

For full story please visit this story on BBC.co.uk

Okays, so this post will be strictly a recipe:

Serves 2.

Ingredients:

Chicken breast fillets (boneless) 500 gm

2 large Onions

5 Green chillies

1 Tomato or 2 table spoon Tomato puree

2 table spoons Curd/Yogurt

1 Lemon

Ginger paste 1 teaspoon

Garlic paste 2 teaspoon

Cumin seeds, Mustard seeds, Fennel Seeds, Red Chili Powder, Turmeric Powder, and Salt; all as per taste (Note, no Coriander powder has been used)

Chicken Masala (any brand) as per taste

6 Saffron threads

4 Cardamoms

Cooking oil 4 tablespoons

Preparation:

Marinate the chicken pieces in paste of lemon juice, curd, turmeric powder, red chili powder, salt, chicken masala, saffron, cardamoms (powder it if possible, and use the outer covering as well) and set aside for 30 minutes.

Shred the onion, tomato and green chillies into small pieces.

In a pot, heat the oil and add the cumin, mustard and fennel seeds. Stir till light brown. Then add the green chillies and stir fry for 3 more minutes. Add the onions, and deep fry till the onions turn golden brown. Add the ginger garlic paste, and tomatoes, and fry for another 10 minutes. Keep frying the mixture, till the oil separates. Add marinated chicken, and fry for a good half hour or till the oil separates from the chicken as well. Add water to make a curry of suitable density. Check the taste for salt and chicken masala. Add more if necessary. Boil till the chicken becomes tender. A tip here, if you have fried the mixture well, the pieces of onion and tomato should not be individually identifiable in the gravy.

Voila, your chicken is ready to be served with chapati or rice.

Happy eating.

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I had always heard that change is the way of life. But I never realized it could happen to me and that too this fast. As I had to come to UK for work, applying for VISA, and doing all the packing hardly gave me any time for blogging. I had so much to tell, so much to write, yet so less time.

Alas, but after coming to UK, I had to face even more situations, 12 months contract for internet connection, application for visa extension, opening a bank account, getting the debit card to work, struggling to rent a decent place. So I ended up, without being wired for almost a month.

But in this month, I sorted everything out. Applied for the visa extension (hope it is approved), rented a decent place, got my debit card working, and got a mobile broadband connection that was available without a contract. God! I hate contracts. The irony of life is, that I have come to UK on a years contract to be served back in India.

I also got the house setup. Lugged in all the groceries, necessities, scanned the Indian store and dumped loads of rice, wheat, pulses, and Indian spices at home, so that I don’t have to worry about the coming 6 months.

Speaking of where we started from. CHANGE. The biggest change is, I am managing the house all by myself. This includes, cooking, washing, doing the dishes, and vacuuming. I wonder, why, with all that work, I am still not putting off any weight. H’m, I think, blame the fruit juices, and eggs I am having in bulk !!

Another big change I have had is a smart close crop to my hair. Reason, for one, it is smart, and for two, it saves money! 

On saturday, I was feeling very hungry, and so decided to treat myself with something nice. So I browsed through some websites. Downloaded a few chicken recipes, changed them to suit whatever ingredients I had, and came up with this. Lemon Saffron Chicken. Believe me it was awsome. In next post I shall detail the process. So keep reading.

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Though I am a bit late to notice this, but is worth sharing. Picassa for Web now supports:

1. Name tagging like Orkut, using your Gmail contacts.
2. Email upload.
3. A shiny new GUI.
4. And introduces Picassa 3 software, with some improvements to photo editing features.

I am not detailing it here, because the experts have themselves done it on Gmail and Picassa blogs. And finally here is a link detailing the differences between Picassa 2.7 and 3.0 beta.

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Google is constantly changing its products. First it was Google Talk Labs Edition, then the hyped browser Chrome, and now they have put in some innovation and cool user interface in their personalized (for users) Google page called iGoogle.

This is still in experimentation, meaning, not everybody will be able to see this version of the iGoogle web page. But a few users have been invited by Google to use this experimental web page when they log in. (and that includes lucky me !!). Full story can be read on Google Support page.

The USP of this new interface are rounded boxes (called canvas view gadgets) on the Home page for various applications added onto iGoogle by the user. Any box can be maximized to view the full application in its own frame within iGoogle page. Also iGoogle has a left navigation to tab through each of the frames / pages of application added onto iGoogle. These boxes can be dragged and dropped to change their location on the Home page, can be collapsed, maximized and customized.

So now I can have all my favourite web applications, web sites, news feeds, jokes, weather forecast, Gmail, Gtalk and many more added as boxes to my iGoogle webpage and use them from a single window. I can also set iGoogle as my home page to have quick access to all my favourite web sites at once.

Did I mention GTalk, yes the best part of this new interface is that it also provides a separate tab in the left navigation for chatting using Google services. And now since base code of Gmail is supported on IE6 as well, you can go invisible while chatting from iGoogle irresepective of the IE version you are using. Great !! What else could I ask for. However as of now the Gtalk tab is not available to all who have access to the new iGoogle. Google says, there are still some bugs with this, which they are working upon. For me, I do not have the Gtalk on my iGoogle as yet.

All of this is what makes me a die hard Google “Bhakt”. I only wish Google to call more and more users to experience the new iGoogle, and to make the chatting tab available to all.

Here is a sneak preview of the new iGoogle, for those who do not have access to it yet:

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