Ukraine food

Just back from one more trip to Ukraine. Relaxing in Dubai over eid holidays. Was just downloading songs to make a proper collection for songs that I've come to love over years. Want them all in one place... While searching for some, I came accross an old Oct '2006 email sent to Umaima about food in Ukraine. It was second time I had been to Ukraine. Will search for the other writeups that I've done about Ukrainian food later. Meanwhile decided to put up this email verbatim:

Hi,
I was 2 days in Kieve and now in Ternopil. During this time i've come to enjoy whole new way of eating. Precisely food where no cooking is required only presense of hot water - may be! This is because i have constantly been avoiding restraunts due to high cost and hence foraging the supermarkets "magazine" (as they are called in Ukraine) for ways to improvise. But i can certainly tell you one thing, I've done much better than we ever managed in Europe (in reference to my euro trip in2005). For instance check out my meal yesterday night -

-Doodhi pickled ' salad' - Kabachki ***** ( 5 stars.. loved it)
- Eggplant pickled 'salad' - Baklazhaney ***** ( 5 stars .. loved it)
- Sea cabbage pickled (from the ocean) - Morskaya Capusta ** (nutricious but fishy taste so i didn't like so much)
- Home made sausage from market ukranian style - made sandwich with bread and butter with sausage slices in between also ate raw *****
- frozen boiled piece of beef from market - ate slices of it raw *****
-Champagne ( From Donetsk which had been kept 3 years 700 meters underground) ***** by the way champagne is simply a sparkling wine. Also while drinking it i realised the difference between drinking in dubai and in ukrain.. In Ukraine even Vodka or any of the drinks they simply drink raw. They never seem to make cocktails or bother about mixing with soda/cola etc
-Coneac - learnt the correct way of drinking coneac. it should be drunk in very small wide shallow glasses. Smelt, taken the whole drink in one gulp, let it swivle around in the mouth to absorb the sensation and then swallow. ***** Coneac is fantastic for arteries and recommended for heart patients - Live beer from one of the finer breweries in Georgia. Live beer means unstrained beer without any preservatives. It has to be drunk within few days of production and has a very low shelf life.
- Olives by the way i just love olives. I've had them pickled with raw fish, red pepperoni etc. I love them in all forms.*****
- Chips... Lays still is my favorite. I had forgotten but oleg reminded me that I had specifically bought lays last time I came here. This time I did the same.***
-Voda (water in Ukrainian but always like soda, if you need water without Gas need to search for it)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Breakfast today Tea without milk or sugar ( didn't have either available). However the tea is Earl Grey by Ahmed made in England.
ExcellentMade some noodle soup from a packet with pieces of bread in it. Took a slice of bread and used can opener to spread butter on it. Had bread dipped in soup for breakfast. Good enough to sustain me for the day.

Lunch today Had lunch near Sergiy's office in Ternopil. By the way i'm living in volochisk in a sanatorium cum health resort. Picturesque place but lots of oldies around. Breakfast / lunch and dinner is very precise timing 8 / 1 / 6 respectively. I'll describe some of my sanatorium lunch and breakfast later. Ternopil is around an hour from Volochisk where Sergiy's one of main offices is. well Lunch was
- Buck wheat with egg steak ( buck wheat is something like weath but is brown and looks like boiled barley. Egg steak oleg tells me had chicken in it with egg wrapped around it and fried or boiled. I did not taste any chicken but was good anyways.) ****
- Traditional Ukrainian Borsch ( Beet root, Cabbage, Potato, Onion little carrot boiled with sourcream to top it off) *****
- Carrot Salad by korean style ( Pickled in a specific Korean style ) ****
- Tomato Sok ( Totmato juice generally in Ukraine this is favorite juice and I love it too. the moment i board the flight for Ukraine, I'm on to drinking Tomato Juice ) *****
- Plum Juice ***
-Drink made of medical Shavli grass - Looks like a big glass of Tea without milk. But much different tasting. *** is supposed to cure huge number diseases I don't remember the exact details of sanatorium lunches etc now but all were quite interesting and will tell you if i recall them.

Moiz

Tikona Fort - 28~29th July

Tikona

One more week one more trek. Gosh life was never so good! I owe this one to Rahul who pulled through on special request from me to have a trek which was never planned to begin with. However I do admit after the fun I had in Rajmachi and Naneghat/Jeevdhan trip, I was a bit apprehensive about how great this one would be. Rahul had said its an easy trek and the group was smaller with most of the regulars not present. Now I know I shouldn’t have had an iota doubt that with a group like Moronz there could ever be a dull trip.. It was fun/games and adventure all the way.

Start:

Meetup at Dadar, soon made apparent that this time atleast the crowd was much smaller. Around 12 of us, Amol, Saurabh, Sunil, Kajal, Raksha, Kern, Bertram, Niel, Prema, Pam, Rahul and myself metup at dadar, to get the ‘slowest train in the world’ – Pandharpur ‘fast’ passenger. Kajal a hobby Skier who’s been to Himalayas and Gulmarg for Skiing trips was very amused that Rahul had told her on the phone, to ‘not carry her handbag’ (I assume to mean her vanity kit ;-) ) She was quick to point out, that Rahul missed telling her not to wear high heel sandals! With Kerns wallet lost and soon found, my much awaited upgrade to Lamp post category complete we finally caught the train.

Train Ride:

Thanks to people sleeping at every occupied portion of the floor and seats, our climbing practice started immediately in simply trying to meander our way around the train and to reach the upper rack and settle ourselves-in albeit with due protests from my bums, on wooden racks. However the journey was sans songs this time, since Rahul didn’t have much company amongst us for singing. Mallik / Kalpesh and the rest of moronic warbler’s presence was sourly missed. Even Jhanki’s sad song radio would have been warmly welcomed in this situation J . However Rahul did have some tales that sent chill up our spine. Rest of you guys should remind him to tell you about some of the supernatural encounters he’s had. Also his work in rescue team and number of accidents he’s witnessed was a subduing thought. Caution guys, we go for treks to have fun, hope Moronz don’t ever entertain any show off / over confident behavior!

My first and last Rajakhaini-

Amol was explaining Tobacco Masala pudi with lime that someone had hung on the fan. My curiosity piqued, when later I was alone sitting at the door of the train, a guy came asking me about whether Karjat, had passed or not. Having satisfied his query, I started up conversation in my broken down, almost non-existent Marathi with him Soon out came his Rajakhaini and Lime and he started mixing it with typical thumb on palm motion. How was I to pass off such glorious opportunity. I immediately asked for a fix myself. Learning how to mix Lime paste and Rajakhaini ( should be 1:2 proportion, I made a mistake of making it 1:1) I soon had what seemed lime mouthful logged between my cheek and teeth. YUCKS! The taste was too strong. The tobacco very very bitter. Within no time I was hiccupping like crazy. Not to lose face and seem like a novice I tried to continue chewing away while chatting with him like nothing was wrong. But my face must have made the story very clear, because that guy was soon telling me “thukun taka” spit it out, in Marathi. I gladly complied, but already was feeling completely light headed, with stomach performing acrobatics that I’m sure its not supposed to. I do wonder at all the glorious gutka chewing generations in India. Wonder how they manage it!

5 star accommodation:

Khamset arrival was finally at around 3~3:30 in morning, exactly as Rahul had predicted. You gotta hand it out to him for knowing his business, about timing he’s more often than not on the dot. Soon he pointed out our five star accommodation on the platform. Nice benches laid out to serve as our beds. Of course we had Bats and occasional high speed trains making all the rukus in the world as company. Soon settled down I decided to introduce our 20 questions game to Amol, Kajal, Pam, Saurabh, Sunil and Rahul. It helped us while away time what with PAM coming up with interesting answers to our questions. She’d thought of Tinkerbell as a challenge. Having said yes to my query about whether it was an animal she’d thought of, I asked her if it was a mamal and she said yes. Than we asked her whether it could be domesticated and again a MAYBE!!! Having set us on such an interesting tangent to her challenge, she proceeded to demand a cracker from each of us if we don’t get the answer. Finally after much fighting and amusement at her answers, we disqualified her clue. Demands to disqualify the challenges and the answers due to varying reasons soon became very much part of the game as we played it.

To Tikona:

Early morn 5 o’clock we setoff for point in Khamset where we were to get the Jeep. By around 6:00 one of the shops opened and just as we had ordered the breakfast, jeep arrived. We had to cancel the breakfast, and Rahul promised us that on the way to Tikona we’d have it. Indeed after some time we had halted at last rest stop I think it was Kale Colony, on the way to Tikona. Initially it seemed that none of the cafeteria could serve us anything this early in morning. However luckily we managed to find one who made fresh Gol Bhajiya for us and than potato Wadas with fresh pav, dry red chatni and freshly fried green chillies… yumm!. Although the place was swarming with mosquitoes we stayed on for sake of the breakfast. Interestingly gals were unsuccessful in finding a suitable Loo and it seemed the need was dire. I managed to bribe one boy in a shop with attached house and a dish tv dish with 10 rs. to let them use the bathroom. Initially even this guy said they didn’t have a toilet, but an old man who’d been sitting in his shop had already let the cat out of the bag. Money may not be everything, but it does open doors to many a Loo was my lesson for the day!

Tikona-

Back to the jeep and soon by 9:30 I think we were at start point. The dirt track leading to the base of the mountain was heavily muddy and reminded me of much deeper muck we faced at night on the way to Rajmachi. Climb to Tikona was surprisingly smooth and fast, although on last patch it’s a bit of an effort. In this climate the underbrush was thick and brimming with vegetation. Sort of reminded me of discovery channel shots of Amazonian expeditions. Kajal mentioned leeches, than said Tikona is not supposed to be Leech territory like Matheran. Like Matheran! I was wondering to myself. Next time I’d better be careful when I go to Matheran. Initially just the height seemed daunting but it’s a straight vertical climb all the way through thick underbrush. By the time you emerge out in light in about half an hour you are way high and wondering how you reached there. The view was glorious. Clouds drifting around the peak heads all around us, it was that fulfilling and enriching part of the climb that makes all the effort, travelling and climbing really worth it. Soon we were at the cave that Rahul had originally mentioned in one of his stories. Now part of it has been converted into a temple by an enterprising old priest, who started doing pooja, and setting up fire outside in havan etc, obviously for our benefit. The break gave Rahul a chance to open his Chai ki tapdi. We had great tea, and so did some of the other trekers who chanced upon us and partook of Rahul’s generosity. Again we started climbing, and were startled to realize that the fort that we had thought we’d already reached was just an embankment. The real top was much much higher up.

On the way up, we reached one of those slippery set of, seemingly of a questionable value steps that seem to crop up everywhere in these forts. One terrifying incident had my heart thumping. As we were climbing there was a bit of shouting and a huge thud and a ‘lookout’ cry from higher up. We were on the stairs, and Kern etc were leading. There was much back and forth are you okey’s before we realized that a big stone at edge was dislodged when Kern must have tried to lean or step on it to see the view down. Luckily no one was directly below the stone’s path, although Rahul and Saurabh had not yet begun climbing and given a slightly different landscape would have been in huge potential danger. Moral of the story “Loose stone pose huge danger to rest of the group following you on way up, or guys ahead of you on the way down. It is not only for own personal safety, but also as a responsibility towards the rest of the group that we ought to be careful to the point of being paranoid. Rather safe than sorry guys, things happen in flicker of a second and that loud thud and shouts were not pleasant at all to hear”

Tikona around 3580 ft high, seems to have 2 layer fort on top. First one is the cave and some embankments. The cave has a small pond near it, which the priest says is for his drinking water, so although we can have water for drinking, he’d rather not, that we use it for washing and stuff. The higher part is through some high steps and the peak has nice plateau with view of Tung a magnificent peak just across the Lake, and Lohgad and Visapur towads the north. There are also around 2~3 gates and a Shiva temple on top. Rahul said there are some snakes in a pond near Shiva temple, but at that time we couldn’t find any. Infact he even went searching for snakes at Khamset station but luckily for us, we didn’t come across any.

Dangerous Down –

We started back at around 10:30 since Our jeep was going to come and pick us up at 12:30 at the base. We had taken circuitous route up from the other side of the mountain. Way down Rahul decided to take us through a more direct incline, which would take us directly to the base point. However he’d warned us to be extremely careful. The downwards journey was a bit of a problem since it was drizzling on and off and route was extremely slippery. The steps itself were a challenge for some of us, Rahul asked the gals to follow him first. At the risk of preaching and without naming names, I’d like to point out that there were some in the group who simply wouldn’t listen to him. Firstly they weren’t able to climb down and were slipping too much posing a grave danger to themselves. Than they refused to take position as per Rahul’s instructions and insisted on following way behind. Since I was asked to bringup the middle and Amol the rear, we both indicated to him that it wasn’t possible for us to do, if someone simply wanted to lag behind and follow on their own. He was quite pissed and even said that he will have to make it a point in future to not allow such attitude, since he was responsible for everyone’s safety. Infact early on we had one more huge shock. We were climbing down, when Prema suddenly missed a step and fell forward. It happened right below in full view of us all and danger was apparent for all of us to see.. Luckily there was enough space for her to right herself, but we were on a climb down and that fall was a dangerous one. Initially we thought , she may have sprained her ankle, luckily it was not so. But that was again a very very disturbing incident. Guys trekking is fun, but falling would NEVER be fun. Lots of people take slipping for granted. My take on it is, I never intend to slip if I can help it, and falling is not an option.

A bit of a way down back near the temple, we came across a group who’d just come up the way we were planning to go down. Seemingly newbies, they were extremely critical of our decision to go down that way. They said its not possible to negotiate it in the rain. Ofcourse we put our faith in Rahuls ability and knowledge of terrain, and at retrospect, I can safely say, hike would not have been half as fun if we’d taken the safer path.

As Robert Frost said it so eloquently

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference


Or as I would like to put it in my not as eloquent and profound words:

The journey of life begins now,
The path we take defines how,
Better live it to the fullest we can,
For, better or worse, it’s soon gonna end.

Anyway the path was sufficiently steep to merit Rahul, to go ahead first with Kajal and Pam since, Prema was still following behind. He made us wait, until he first reached Kajal and Pam to a safer spot and left his bag there and was aback to escort Prema and Raksha ( who I certainly don’t think needed any guidance. She’s more nimble than many of us). Soon we guys were following, and with Niel also slipping multiple times and Prema having similar problems the route was indeed a challenge for us. But again as a group we all pulled through. The hold that Jet group treker had shown Sneha ( I’d observed), while climbing Jeevdhan, which was palm wrapped against the wrist to wrist hand hold rather than palm to palm came in quite handy when I was guiding Prema down across some of the more slippery parts. The route was a mix between slippery slopes of Rajmachi, and rocky climb down Jeevdhan. There were rock patches to be negotiated with a bit of rock climbing too. Not as bad as Jeevdhan but challenging nevertheless, specially since it had been drizzling throughout the day, although it didn’t begin to rain till we reached down.

When we finally made it to the ridge we were elated. Rahul kept asking us whether we could see the flag on Tikona. I looked back and couldn’t see.. It was after a while we realized that what we were looking at was infact just one plateau on the way top to Tikona. And that the fort was actually way up somewhere… There were cries of sheer amazement and disbelief at this realization. We couldn’t believe it, how much we’d climbed down. I was surprised to know that it was already around 11:50 and we’d taken almost 1:30 hours to get down. The time passed so fast, in all the excitement, it really felt like just half an hour.

Beyond the ridge again there was challenging route through really sleeky slippery mud of around 15~20 mins till we reached the flat track back to jeep. Kajal’s shoes seemed to have mind of their own on the muddy slipper part and we had an amusing and exciting way back. My new Action floaters were blessing and a bane throughout the trek. Although they were giving me nice grip on the ground, Sole of my feet simply would slide towards the front at every step due to sleeky mud that would coat the inside part of the floaters. So although they were allowing me a grip on the ground, the grip of the floaters itself was too big a challenge and I probably would advice anyone buying floaters to buy ones with ridges on top side also. Also my experiment with a big umbrella instead of windcheeter has a mixed bag reaction. Although carrying around a huge umbrella is fun in the beginning while negotiating rocky parts it becomes quite a pain since it tiesup one of your hand. Also during rain its usefulness is questionable because on slopes etc you can’t open it, while on the trek after some time of opening it your hands get tired. All in all for an easy trek like Tikona, an umbrella wasn’t so bad, but on more difficult ones, I’d prefer to have a windcheeter handy, and if at all umbrella is needed, a smaller one, able to fit into the bag would be better. Problem with windcheeter is that even with it you tend to get quite wet and if you’re not going to get a chance to change clothes like it happened in rajmachi and naneghat to me, being wet and cold throughout the night is a nightmare.

Back to Mumbai-

We had nice lunch at Rangoli on the highway. We ordered Paneer Masala, Veg Kohlapuri, Dal Tadka and Mutter masala. And while the waiting for food, finished off plates of Onions, papad, and I was down to licking salt, while Amol was sucking Limbus, when food arrived. But after the trek food seemed heaven sent and we tucked in with Gusto.

Although initial plan had been to take a local train back to lonavala and than an Asiad back to Mumbai, luckily Rahul had a much better idea. Knowing that both Local and Asiad would be crowded, he decided to try our luck at highway with a Tempo or a bus etc. Soon enough the moment we went onto the highway we got a nice tempo which gave us a very comfortable ride back home.

‘Teen tigdi, Kam bigdi’
Tikona did indeed round off nicely my third weekend with Moronz and three treks. Hence I think there is indeed some rich symbolism in the name of the chosen destination for the last trek, Tikona meaning 3 sides, since the peak is triangular, and my going for this one almost seems like a Destiny.
Ofcourse these treks have ignited a passion for trekking in me, and I hope to be able to keep coming back for more and more treks with the Moronz. Meanwhile I’ll be missing all my Moronic friends and following all the latest updates on the site.

Seven Wonders Hype!!! Vote for TAJ donate to Swiss!

Voting for TAJ is USELESS!!!

How easily we get taken in for gimmicks.. Here people are actually being taken for a ride and media's the one who's fully supporting and part of the HYPE! In this instance they are clear culprits in the game because the hype is created by them without due investigation or information to their viewers, if you were to see any of the 24/7 Indian news channels, you'd appreciate what I mean...

What am I ranting and raving about you may wonder.. how can this guy be against Voting to make our beloved Taj, our pride and pleasure, the dimple on the cheek of Indian tourism, the 'aakho ka tara' so to speak for us true blue Indians, you may protest! Well, well, let me have my say.. freedom of speech and all you know.. Lets start with facts... than we'll analyse them..

First of all when we talk about Voting for Seven Wonders.. the question is who's calculating the votes, who's gonna do the honors of crowning the winner, and most importantly 'BY WHAT AUTHORITY ?'

'New Seven Wonders of the world' is something like 'Miss World' of Wonders... means if there is 'Miss World' than there can be 'Miss Universe', 'Miss Galaxy' etc also, hence similarly there already exists more recent, USA TODAY's 'Seven Wonders' and more popular Wilman's Tourist Travel Seven Wonders which are as follows:

Great Pyramids of Giza
Great Wall of China
Taj Mahal
Serengeti Migration
Galápagos Islands
Grand Canyon
Machu Picchu

Which fortunately includes Taj Mahal.

So now along comes Mr. Bernard Weber who decides to make some money out of this wonders game. He sets up a corporation, New Open World Corporation (NOWC) which could as well have been named 'Donate some money for cheap piece of paper and some hype.com' for all I care. It's a FOR PROFIT corporation out to make some money by creating a hype about 'New Seven Wonders'... So far so good.. whats there to gripe about than... Lets see :

a. It is a competition that encourages rigging.. infact its in the rules.. you pay you give a vote.. more you pay , more votes you have!! Checkout the site if you don't believe me.
b. They take your validated details and email address and leave out the bit about not selling the database to spamming groups for commercial purpose. Not that bad too eh?
c. Make u sms the votes and make money out of that.

but all this really doesn't rankle.. after all given that its a commercial competition, lets all of us patriotic, Taj loving Indians, put money where our mouth is and pay up to be on top.. So what if it means donating to some rich Swiss guys! Anything for Amchi TAJ... but no.. that's not it at all..
The problem is as follows:

NOWC "reserves the right at its absolute discretion to exclude [any] votes" that are cast for the competition. This is part of their terms and conditions....

What does this mean.. it means regardless of how many people around the world vote for which wonder, in the end, NOWC will use these same commercial interests to make a list of their CHOOSING!!!
FOLKS WAKE UP!!

Your votes are of no USE.. Of no consequence.. If they want the Taj on their list of wonders, because lets face it, 'it really is a wonder after all!' than its gonna be there regardless.. And why would they want it ? because if they have it there, than their associated tourist tie ups, branding and souvenirs make money!!... Lets face it.. there are more Indians than most other people around the world.. So how can they not have TAJ there !

The flip side? Wanna see how right I am? Checkout the status of Pyramids of Giza.. Egyptians strongly protested the competition saying that Pyramids at Giza were no doubt a wonder and this guy was out to exploit wonders of world, and was looking to out Pyramids from the list. The result, Pyramids of Giza is permanent special listing for the competition. A default wonder.

So folks, we're not voting for Seven Wonders, as the competition says, we're infact voting for Six!!!!

Amnesty International

Guys.. Do checkout Amnesty International site. Along all my musings, worries, concerns and heartaches.. after various long and short, sensible and explosive arguments with friends and others, I've come to a conclusion that the real essense of my feeling is distilled and extolled by this Organisation. My rantings against nationalism, religious fanaticism, racism and utter rejection of any differentiantion in the way we humans ought to treat each other boils down to this very basic, much bandied but seldom paid heed to term ' Human Rights'.

Today I tried to join Amnesty but found that the only way people other than from select few countries (Residents of these few countries can become members online) can become members is by contacting them on a postal address based in UK! I sure do have a word or two to say about this gross injustice. They could alteast have provided an email link to send in an application!

However I hope that Amnesty will be the medium which will give me a platform to make my voice heard, and atleast put my heart at rest, at having done a bit more than paid mere lip service to Human cause. Hence my effort to join it will continue. If in the end I have worked towards making life a little better, a little safer for a single individual on this earth, if my experiance with Amnesty allows me a bit of a solace, that I have atleast realised an obligation towards not only fellow humans, but also my dear Naqiyah whom I've born to this less than perfect and oh so cruel world, I will feel satisfied ( I hope).

On and on it goes!

On and on it goes! Life I mean. It seems so curel at times. Pitting us against uncertainities daily. In seconds changing destinies, and smashing dreams. Depressing beyond all comprehension. Cruelty that men are capable of far suprasses stuff that can be imagined in books, films or even dreams. Am reading Robert Fisk, Conquest of Middle East. Insightful, informative yes... but also dark and depressing. Not because he writes in such a manner. But the catalogue of events he's collected over the years about Middle East are such.. Self interest, political expidency, greed for money, power or maybe just pure religious fanatic madness, all are displayed by powers that be, and powers that wanna be. Catalogue of events reads like a horror tale. Robert brilliantly highlights the bad, the ugly and the unnamable of all the major world powers whose deed indeed is darker than the dark despots because its done in broad daylight hoodwinking the world, like US, USSR, UK, Europe and of course all the despotic, desperate, deranged regimes with which middle eastern countries have been afflicted with over the ages, may it be Taliban, who were out to recreate whole of Afghanistan into slums of their refugee camps in Pakistan, Saddam, Osama, Various Iranian regimes, Saudi Royalty, et. al. The deaper vien of the book lies not in just cataloging the history but rather bringing out futility of it all. The tragedy of war, the hatred that does dwell within humans, the depravity that is so evident in behaviour of so called developed and democratic nations, and of course fate of the innocents.

Read it and you will never sleep sound again. The story of Saddam's secret police, shooting a 9 year old boy, than 7 year old girl, than bashing the head of a babby against the wall, before letting the mother go since she had no information to give about her husband, have become my memory. The fact that Britain very well chose to bomb Iraq villages with mustard gas in 1920s the kind of bombing ment to scare civilian population into submission .. similar to the kind of bombing that Americans find expeditious today is also no less nerve wrangling.

How strange it is, that when we have an account of deliberate murder of a baby, head bashed against the wall, blood curdles... How many of us pass over mention of civilian cassualties or even wonder about any that may have been there, when we read accounts of bombing or 'advance' on villages in remote places like Iraq. Don't we know that in this case thousands of babies are being killed, countless more deprived of food, clothing and shelther and maybe even parents a fate probably worse than death? Why do we have this ability to turn blind eye to crulty if its spun into glorious sounding aims and words like WAR, Fight against terrorism, Fight for freedom etc. Death is death, inflicting death is cruel.. conciously promising to bring death, preparing weapons to use for killing and murder, specially weapons which kill enmass like rockets and missels is the worst thing humans can do. They don't even have passion of a murder who atleast feels the pain and gravity of his deed when he kills with his own hand. How dispassionate a hand that pushes a button to launch a missle. Does that person realise the suffering he/she bestows... NO... nither do we.. We feel more for 1 murder than 1000s killed. Thats just the way things seem to me... And I wonder why?

All in all a worthwhile read. I went through Contemporary history of Africa before I picked Robert's book. It was dispassionate, narration like account of forming of nations throughout africa, and their contemporary situation. However it had non of the spunk that is present in Roberts book. I don't even remember the name, and will post it later. Read Maximum City by Suketu Metha before that one.. Now thats a book on Mumbai that deserves a whole post on its on... Its got fantastic style, and is thoroughly researched. Bringing mumbai alive in its pages, I thank Suketu, for bestowing upon us such a masterpiece, and my friend Bindi for making me buy and read it!

The 5 Restraunt

Had to take some friends dinner, I had spied a restruant called '5 the restraunt' near Yoko's at Santacruz (W), SV road. I decided to take them there. The ambience was laid back but stylish. Not overtly ornate, but oozing with class. A small place with seating for maybe 15~20 at the max, it was like a boutique restraunt with signature dishes. The dishes didn't disappoint either. The menu listing was very factual, with straight forward names of the dishes like Chicken clear soup - which we had 2 by 4, Appetizers : Stuffed mushrooms, ???? Prawns ( don't remember exact which ones) , main dish: Pasta, Assorted vegetables with couchou ( some sort of rava or samolina kinda stuff) and Pot Chicken Roasted. However style of preparation, service, serving style all was par excellence. And the food was something different altogather. Each dish was uniquely created, nothing like what we are accustomed to eating. Chicken soup seemed home made, Stuffed mushrooms had been backed just so that the mushroom juice has seeped into the cheese stuffing, suffusing it with mushroom flavor (I remembered my experiance in Korean restraunt in Beijing, where I had mushroom on hot plate and i tried to use it as a cup, and would drink liquid inside once the cup filled up due to heat), Prawns were delightful luckily adnan doesn't eat prawns so i grabbed extra helping, they were roasted, with peppery black masala and there was absolutely no fishy taste to it. Pasta was great and garnishing of sweet corn was delicious even though i'd had heavy butter chicken / tandoori chicken lunch in persian darbar near Bandra and was really full. Assorted vegetables had some peach in it, and a nice touch of couchou instead of rice to have it with. They offered freshly baked bread basket at start of dinner with assorted buns, wheat bread, etc, along with self made garlic butter to have it with. We all fell completely in love with the place and I got to tell Adnan how he was wrong to insist on going to Dynasty (chinese restraunt opp. Irshad's place, which I did not want to go to since i'd beent here 2 times already). I had dragged all three of them down near Yoko's to find out if this place was good and if it was open ( it was 11:30 p.m. already). Nyways things turned out beautifully and our friends was very happy, impressed and really pressed me and adnan to visit soon to Chennai so he can take us to show us around Chennai as well as Pondicherry. Specially Pondicherry there is this Auraville habitate an autonomous village where anyone can live and no need for visa's for even foreigners to visit.
Nyway guys, now when ur looking for a good place in western suburbs to have a chow you know just the right place.

Gujjars did us all a favor !!!

I have been thinking about this, and coming accross a network on orkut, against reservation gave me a chance to formulate my thoughts:

Has anyone really been happy with Gujjar's uprising. I feel they did us all a huge big favor. All people who believe in equality should be applauding their action. Consider this, they've shown us the major chink in the armour of reservation policy. Why did they make reservation policy ? For upliftment of backward classes? not really, by providing country with undeserving, doctors, engineers and beuraucrates they are not really uplifting anyone. Moreover, underserving candidates getting through, means deserving ones are being left behind. Again a creation of a chaotic society which will regress into a downward sprial. In fact we are all being dragged down to lowest minimum level, the majorities, the minorities, the backward classes, et. al.. So what was it for. To create vote banks ofcourse. To pander to populist, emotions and insecurities of poor, backward, forgotten masses and try and loot them even, of one thing that politicians can still loot from the poorest of poor, their vote! Now imagine their horror when the pandora's box that they opened has finally started fulfilling its promise. Forget anti reservationists, the repressed voices of deserving achievers, being denied their rightful places! How about various majorities who needfully have to be left unreserved, so that cake of reservation still has some sweetness to it? What happens when while catering to vote banks with promise of reservations, other votebanks start going against politicians, due to absence of it. We see panic and knee jerk reactions that was shown by Rajasthan politicians. So what am I going on all about. Why am I so happy. Simple, every community having any clout will start demanding reservations. After all it is easier to motivate people by greed, than by righteousness. So easy to give statistics of any one community and show they are left behind. What happens when all communities want piece of same pie. Lets have equality my friends! If there needs to be reservation, lets all get reserved!!!!!