Take it outside, Godboy...

Ok.

I get it.

I reside in a Christian nation.

No matter what everybody else is thinking when they read this, i still think this country(or at least the south and the midwest) takes a double peg of religion. Of course, fanatics abound in every corner of the globe, and i am yet to meet a bonafide religious fanatic, but it's funny to see people who i thought would be open-minded, free-thinking and liberal; go about a-Jesusing. I have had a couple of amusing(for me) encounters with the sort of people who walk up to strangers at random locations, Bible in hand; and proclaim 'brother, Jesus is the light!!' ,asking me to join the path to salvation and righteousness etc.

I like to mess with them, contradicting everything they say, and giving them an alternative viewpoint from other religions, until they are exhausted of whatever propoganda they had, and in desperation, start bad-mouthing other religions and use whatever they can lay their hands on as ammunition against all but their own(where's the love now, bro?)

finally, finding me a pretty tough customer, they walk away by saying things like 'i will pray for you, my brother' when actually they are mentally filing me away in the "to Hell with Thee" folder in their heads.

now, I know you could find people like this in India, in fact, we have a surplus of them. but what really tickles me is the way, in a supposedly free country, random strangers butt into something that is very personal and private. Religious conversions are something of a controversial thing in India, some groups being accused of forced conversions and some states(eg. TN, Gujarat) banning conversions altogether; which in my opinion is in direct conflict with the constitution, more accurately, our fundamental rights. The constitution being our supreme charter, should render these state 'laws' null and void...(but go ahead and ask Soli Sorabjee...i'm just guessing)

Most of these conversions are the by-product of our own apartheid, the caste system, and simple poverty. And if being in one or the other religious group makes a person feel better, so be it; even though that poor person may have been brainwashed into doing something he has little grasp of. If any right-wing, religious majority-fundamentalist-neo-con is reading this, get a grip on reality, and..oh..up yours!

What's cooking for dinner, everybody???

So today, mom had a little after-work meeting and dinner thing she had to go to, so she was worried as hell about my dinner, despite my constant reminder that i cook stuff for a living. I decided on some angel-hair pasta, that i boiled a little under al-dente, while i sauteed some shallot and garlic in bacon trimmings. throwing in the parboiled pasta, with some of the nice pasta water, i cooked it nicely on a medium heat while i sprinkled some freeze-dried basil and oregano on top(nice stuff, better than the dried herbs) finally finishing the thing off with some half&half, a generous knob of pesto sauce, a liberal drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and some of that gorgonzola i'm trying to put to use before it gets really reeking....a nice meal, accompanied by a chilled bottle of Pilsner Urquell(sorry, no chardonnay was to be had)

the energy and the paitience to do all of this, even as i had missed my bus and had to travel for two hours just to get home, has to come from somewhere...the energy to type this post however, comes from a very cold pint of Guiness.

Just for fun, i'd like to ask every one of my loyal readers to describe what they had for dinner today...

sleeping with the enemy

I work for what may be labeled as a high-end, high-quality gourmet foods specialist...in other words, a market for the rich and stupid. It's main competitor in town is the mega-organisation called Whole Foods, which trumpets its organic foods selection like manna...this naturally draws away the filthy rich from Morton's, and so we have a corporate "Conflict Of Interest" policy, that makes it taboo for employees of Morton's to have anything to do with Whole Foods...I had been stealthily going to Whole foods very often, just because it's close to the bus station for a while now; and expecting to be written up any day for this gross corporate blunder....until i met one of my managers shopping around in WF today, and said, "Busted!"

after exchanging pleasantries, we agreed on a "I-wont-tell-if-you-wont-tell" sort of program, and we went our separate ways, leaving me with the wherewithal to come into WF any bloody time i wanted to, and breach our policy with absolute impunity...

bad move....

never, ever, in your entire life, have a crispy bacon and Gorgonzola dolce sandwich,if you have seared your palate the night before with some very hot daal.

Paaji on the bus

I had the incredible luck of meeting a genuine, honest-to-goodness Dilli Da Bhapa on the bus today, back home from work... since there are only about a handful of Desi families in Bradenton, it was easy to network with this blast from the past...turns out every family in this city has atleast one active RN as a member...and he was no exception... it felt nice to talk loudly in profanity-laden punjabi after such a long time...I usually hum to nusrat's tunes while i'm busy in my own work, but it'd be great if i got to use our colourful swears, curses and F-words at work...instead of the bland and unimaginative english ones used to convey one's thoughts and feelings to a co-worker. Most of the times, the f-word is just sprinkled over the conversation as and when seasoning is required... like salt...it would be so much fun, like in Indian cooking, to have a whole spice-box of expressions, and use it judiciously to create a veritable verbal Garam Masala...

In more news, Verizon has really FUBAR'd my net connection..if they don't get it going by friday, I'm changing service providers for sure.

It's a lonely, lonely country...

Dad finally flew off today, and dinner was a rather sparse affair without him...we both made conversation in order to fill the gap, but his presence was still missing. What the two of us are really sad about is not just the fact that we won't see him for a very long time now, but also the fact that we will miss out on two big weddings in the family.

Those Idiots at Verizon have SNAFU'd my internet connection scheduling, giving me two different dates from when my connection is supposed to be activated...i'll have to wait and see what happens tomorrow. In the meantime, i will continue to purloin our tech-challenged neighbours' WiFi, even if it means sitting in the middle of the park in my boxer shorts with a cold breeze blowing; at ten in the night to get better signals....

Dad's last Sunday in the U.S....

...So dad is celebrating by cooking up some mutton a-la-sikand, and his packing is almost done...he will be carrying quite a load of stuff that has to be distributed to family, friends and shameless panderers. His flight leaves tomorrow from SRQ at eleven in the morning, direct to Newark, from where he will transfer to a plane enroute to New Delhi. Unfortunately, i will not be able to see him off, as i will have to bugger off to work at seven-thirty tomorrow morning...

I request all readers in India to take care of him , and help him out.

BTW, I went to best buy, on a wing and a prayer, hoping that my laptop model is on sale by now. And it was! now priced at $599, it was a steal...i promptly presented my reciept, and demanded a price-match refund, which was duly handed over to me. A nice cash-back discount of $150!

Now, at $599, this laptop is one hell of a deal!!