Glades

A tender flower looked at the prince over the mildewed grass,
wondering who the fellow was, sleeping with a face so calm;
Something's wrong with his pallor though she, something about his eyes,
never have I seen a chap so still, so completely detached from life;

Many moons had passed,many stars had shown, over the garden glades,
and he began to bloat,he began to smell, much like a rotten corpse;
Oh! What an arrogant lad thought she, how dare he look so bad,
somebody should tell him firmly, to go die somewhere else;

Autumn passed and winter came, over the hallowed land,
the flower she was no more, much like all her friends;
The prince, lay he, still like a bunch of bones ,
who are we to judge, who are we to dictate, over the grassy glades;

Goodbye France... I love you

Well my journey has come to an end. It is time for hugs and goodbyes. I am supremely sad to be leaving. Wish I could have stayed on for some more time. In the short duration that I was here, I really have fallen in love with France. The life, the culture and the people shall forever remain with me. I know I have many more places to go, many more things to see, more people to meet, but I am sure that this place has touched me like none other. Even if I come back to France later in my life, things will not be the same. I will have different needs and expectations. Well, it won't be the same. Maybe it was meant to be just a dreamtrip. A dream that I will forever cherish. It is now time to wake up.
Goodbye France. Au Revoir.

French cuisine

What can I say.. they are simply delectable... This is a picture blog about what you might generally expect to have on a typical French lunch meal. It's hard on the veggies, but that's your personal choice.

You start with the Entréés which are basically different varitieties of salads and fruits.

Fish salade


Shrimp salade



Carrot Salade


Cold meat salade



Then you move onto the main course, where there are exceptionally large number of choices. You pick a main dish which is generally a type of meat or fish and have it with something like vegetables or rice.

Poulet(Chicken)


Dinde(Turkey)


Brochette


Poisson(Fish)


All the main course dishes demand that you have it with something...

Rice



Vegetables



Frites( Yes the French love French fries :) :) )


And finally the desserts, I don't know how they do it... but they are simply godly. How thye achieve such taste and perfection shall always remain a mystery to me.

I don't really remember the names of them. Feast your eyes anyway.

The Vin Chaude experiment

My trip to Chamonix(French Alps) was simply out of this world. The snow white mountains, the beautiful valley shall forever remain etched in my heart and mind. The mountains can be very chilly(snow cover) and once you come down into the valley, you feel like having something that'll warm ur senses. One of my good friends had suggested that I try vin chaude(Hot wine). It was certainly an experiment cuz I've never had anything like it. Everything till now had been served chilled or at most at room temperature.

It arrived in a goblet, looking no different from normal wine. Until I saw all that was in it. A variety of exotic spices and cardamom sticks hung about in it. It was hot to touch. And the smell it emanated... ummmm.... I suggest if any of you ever go to Chamonix in ur lifetime, don't forget to seal it with a Vin chaude.

Patra Series III - Kela Power

It was the night before 'fete de la Musique'(Festival of Music) and the next day promised many great adventures.

22:00 hours : I rushed out off the Paris metro to rendezvous with Patra at the Eiffel Tower, who had promised to meet me there in great urgence.

22:10 hours : I was right under the Eiffel waiting for our man Patra to turn up, but to no avail.

22:20 hours : Made some frantic missed calls to Patra( I had 30 cents on my phone )

22:30 hours : A message arrives from Patra saying that he is on the Metro.

22:30:30 hours : I get frust. Y the f*** did he make me run all the way here?

23:00 hours : I decide I've had enough of sitting under a giant four legged erect male organ. I go for a walk around the park.

23:30 hours : I stroll back peacefully to find Patra standing at the designated spot, smiling contently. His reason for being late. "Arre I went to eat dosas at Gare du Nord(Paris India Town)". Something shrieked very hard inside me. It wanted to shout things like - "***tirade of adult curses*** Dosas ????? I have been standing here and waiting all this while for you and you've been eating Dosas???? ***tirade of adult curses*** .. !!! ", but since I'm so good natured, all that came out was "I see"

23:32 hours : We decide to climb up the eiffel tower(by foot) and stand in one of the many long lines.

00:10 hours : We reach the head of the queue and a big black guard looks at us rather sheepishly. "Open your bags please", the monster bellows. I timidly show him all my earthly possessions lest he bark at me again. Now his attention turns to Patra. "Open your bags please", the monster bellows yet again. Well fed Patra smiles and with an air of cool confidence opens his bag. The incredible hulk rummages through it, and suddenly lets out something like a giggle. Patra and I snatch a puzzled glance at each other. The giggle turns into a roaring guffaw. Mr Titan finally looks at Patra and lays bare the mystery "Ooooohhhh.... Banana.. HAHA HAHA HAHA". What he actually meant by that was "Kele khaane waale bachcho... tum kya terrorism karo ge" ... :D :D

Melancholy Marvin

Everybody loves Raymond. Does anybody love Marvin? I don't. There is something seriously annoying about depressed people and when a robot gets depressed , you've had it...!!!

Marvin is one of the many characters in h2g2(hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy). If you haven't read h2g2 , i suggest you do so immediately. It's not well crafted like LOTR nor is it over hyped like Harry Potter. The book is simply a laugh riot that'll have you falling off the chair so many times that you wish you had your floor done with Turkish cushions.

Now getting back to Marvin, he is utterly depressing. He can take the most joyous of occassions and turn it into the saddest catastrophe. I'm telling you, the robot is a hazard..!!!

If the year was 1984 and I was Big Brother, you can be be sure there's gonna be one sorry bot...!!!

Yinsomniyaaaaa ??

Cant keep my eyes open now. I can just feel this is going to be a very arbit blog. No maybe the arbiterer of the earlier blog that I was thinking of writing.

That sound in Nice is still echoing in my ears. it brings about a mixture of sleep, tiredness and bordeaux Rosé.

K my eyes are closed now, I am opeining them in intervals of a few seconds trying to force myself to appear interested. What does it remind me of ???? IT does remind me of something. Yes those terrible hours in high school, when everybody in the world wanted to judge you by that one exam.

K, my left hand is refusing to cooerate. Am too sleepy, goodnihgt;

me

All about Rosè

There are many varities of wine. Some sweet, some sour, some just plain brilliant. Rose is one of the varieties and I won't go into how it is made or how it is served or bla bla.. All I want to talk about is my experience with Rose champagne(Champagne is the drink that fizzes all over, Schumaker loves spraying it around). Patra and I had a debate over whether there can be a rose champagne.

Somehow my experience has been limited to Brut and Demi sec which are both White wine varities of Champagne. I proceeded to vehemently argue the case against Rose champagne. Patra was more open minded and raised the intellectually creative question of why a rose variety can't exist. I came back with "If it is indeed possible, somebody would have thought of it". And the issue was laid to rest.

Until I went to the supermarket the other day and saw a row full of Rose champagnes just sitting there. I am the cat and curiosity got the better of me. I remember waking up the next morning expecting to have a terrible hangover, but guess what, Rose and champagne love each other... :) :)

cycle tracks

The abundance of cycle tracks around Europe never ceases to amaze me. A cycle here, a cycle there, they got cycles everywhere... :P :P

The Europeans are serious when they talk about Euro norms and controlling the pollution, though it's a lot cheaper to not have a car.. :) :)

All hail hail

It started with a gentle pitter patter. The kind that warms your heart and makes you feel like pulling your leg up and letting your body sink into the sofa. Claps of thunder rang across the sky. Hmmmm... perfect. By now I was snuggled in nice and comfortable. Slowly, every muscle in my body relaxed and I started slipping into a dreamy state. I started picturing a rainy day back at home, with khichdi and pakodas. Vicky (my dog) would really be enjoying his siesta. Somehow, the day would be a weekend and dad would be at home too. I would constantly be pestering bahadur to teach me how to make a paper boat.Perfect...That warm, cozy feeling was complete now. Nothing could shake me now... not even the constant loud roar outside. Hmmm...??? the question did creep into the back of my head. What was that noise?
I gave in finally and peeked out the window. What a spectacle did I behold...!!!!! Hail Hail everywhere...!!! It looked like a white sheet of ice had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I ran out, got pummelled and picked up little ice bits till my hands hurt. All the while it never occured to me that I was proving to be quite an oddity. While normal people ran for cover, I was the psyche job who was prancing around in the zero degree rain collecting hail stones. The stones kept melting but there were so many more...