I believe .....Cooking is n't a Rocket Science!!!

Yep.... Cooking is n't a rocket science and specially when you are a Indian Vegetarian. And Cooking is definitely made much more easier than it is already with all the modernage kitchen aides or appliances and the ready masalas. I believe with such variety of aides my grandma would have run a restaurant and i find it lazy to just ensure food for two at times :)

Having born in Bangalore, brought up in Kolkata, studied in Pune, interned in Delhi & worked in Mumbai, my receipes are diverse just like INDIA itself; And having travelled some parts of the world i experiment some internationally influenced cuisine too - Thai, Chinese, Itallian etc.

Once you know the basic themes and skills for home cooking, it’s just not rocket science.Simple,comforting and flavorful – is how I would describe my cooking.I have my own shortcut gimmicks to ensure speedy delivery of food to table. To mention few, here is my North Indian Cuisine Gimmick

2 medium onions ; 2 cloves garlic; 1 tspn ginger; 2 green chilies; 2 tspn ghee/oil; 1/2 tspn turmeric powder; 1 tspn sabzi masala; 2 small tomatoes; salt to taste
Make a paste by grinding together onions, chillies, garlic and ginger(Avoid water).
Heat the ghee / oil in a frying pan and add the paste mixture and fry until the above paste is golden brown.
Add turmeric powder and Sabzi masala (or kitchen king or vegetable masala) and fry until the ghee starts to separate.
Make puree by grinding tomato and add to the paste along with salt and stir well.

If this paste is ready, then I can make variety of dishes from the north of India:::
say Mattar Paneer, Channa, Chole Bhaji, Gobi Masala, Paneer Bhurji, Bhindi Masala,Mixed Vegetable Kadai, Methi Aloo, Paneer Aloo, Palak Paneer, Kadai Masaledar, Pav Bhaji etc etc..



Similarly; My South Indian Cuisine Gimmick
Black Mustard seeds; black gram dal; asafoetida powder; Few curry leaves; 1-2 green chilies; pinch of turmeric powder; Salt to taste

Now through this seasoning I prepare ukma, poha, mixed veg palle, bhindi palle, yelekosu palle, beans palle, carrot kosambari, lemon rice, ghee rice, curd rice, khichdi, coconut rice etc.. etc..


It's true that Indian receipes are geared for flexibility and known to be healthy provided optimum use of oil & spices. Pinch of this & dash of that is what works best for indian receipes. But surely you need to be hooked on to heat to prepare Indian food :)))


Well... I surely do enjoy the passion, surprises & indulgence that come with cooking ;)Though not a food enthusiast myself, would love to satisfy the tastebuds of my near and dear ones and ofcourse collect brownie points through their appreciation :)And yes.....not everything is complicated it's just cooking not rocket science - Is n't it !!!

Peek-a-boo through the doors of PERCEPTION !!!

"When u change the way u look at things, the things you look at change." The picture could be viewed as a vase or 2 faces of girls. Have you wondered as to why ? Yes...... It's PERCEPTION !!!


For past few days I've been wondering as to why do i have an opinion about everyone and everything around me? I think of Aishwarya Rai and i perceive her as beautiful, elegant, charming, self made lady and I perceive Sanjay Dutt as a drug addict, underworld backed, influential ... well to be precise 'bade baap ki bigade aulad' types !!! PERCEPTION doesn't just happen. Yep... I've been influenced by media ofcourse... else i dont know them personally ... other than a glance of her in Mumbai airport & him in the car on the roads of Andheri :)

Forget people I even have opinions about food i eat; groceries i pick; brands i flaunt etc.. etc.. maybe i can blame it on consumer perception played by marketing heads of the company in product positioning ;)))Surely reality could be camouflaged if not dealt in detail.

The same logic of perception can be extrapolated to all around us too - friends, family, relatives, colleagues, acquaintances etc.. etc.. There are some around who are so good at projecting what they are not and some lack big time in even projecting what they are ;) And as we know by now

'projection makes perception'

the latter lot of people lose heavily in life, unless someone truly wise, deeply learned and evolved is evaluating him/her. Ensure due consideration to what's within too....do not judge by appearance :)

Besides the new era social networking sites like facebook, google plus, orkut, twitter is a boon to such perception builders or should i say those overprojecting souls who virtually live on such networks though have very little to do in the real world and whereas some of truly achieved lot are so busy in their real life that they hardly have time to utilise such virtual world.

People's behaviour is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself.

I have known a person in my earlier organisation who usually project self & her close friends with over the top appreciations & at the same time ridicule her enemies or 'not-so-liked' with understated scenarios & build negative perception about them to others. Everytime I hear her I remind myself to be aware and think objectively, I take extra care not to colour my mind with such manipulative perception.

As William Blake quotes "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

This is greatly reflected during performance appraisals in any corporate setup. Have you heard of dialogues between employees, say:

“I don't know whether my boss will be able to recognize and reward my efforts since I fell in to friction with him last week.”
"He's not even worth a 3 and he got 5!!!"
"He's an apple eyed boy of his boss. I am sure he will be promoted inspite of 50% delivery on objectives."

But why aren’t employees crystal clear about what their review will be before they get it? There are so many systems, from conversations to MBOs and 360s to Balanced score card that can be the source of objective data. The fact is that managers are human. This makes them prone to use subjective perceptions of data. No matter how robust a staff performance management system, and no matter how many facts there are, “perception” plays a vital role in appraisals.

For example, I knew an employee who was disliked by most peers, and had terrible interpersonal skills except with superiors, customers had complaints about his delivery and consultants about his attitude and neither had his processes, policies in place with almost never ending audit issues. And he was in Human Resources! But he had his manager wrapped around his finger. He knew how to handle her. And see received raises higher than the highest performing employees in the department. Why? The manager was using “Perception Management,” not performance management.

This could be damaging the concerned and could be adding to the negative karma of anyone's aura. Hence it's important to become aware and to learn to perceive the true and absolute reality rather than to continue perceiving illusion.





Just a small peek-a-boo through the science of perception shows that we see the world the way we want to see it and the way we have created our own world within our aura.Energies within our aura represent the sum of all our karma from this or any previous incarnation. These energies also cause attraction to other humans and situation similar or equal to our own aura to attract persons of similar karma. For example: As long as a person is greedy s/he may attract greedy of stingy people in all their life in the various situations. We perceive and experience in our outside what we are inside.

Who we are looking for is who is looking!!!

Now that I Know what stays behind that doors of perception would surely make an effort to always look for Goodness and Absolute Truth to avoid illusion.