Cooking is therapeutic!

Ahh! The third post and another aspect of me!

You know, I have been pampered as a child mainly because of few good reasons: I am second youngest in the huge family in my generation, a daughter and a sister who was not allowed or asked to help in household work unless the situation demanded and given the independent life that they believed I deserved. Now, when your elders say, ‘it’s ok, we’ll manage the kitchen’, you really don’t want to hurt their feelings and stay away from cooking. So it happened in my case. I was only allowed to make tea, instant noodles or sandwiches and not beyond that. It was alright till the time I was at home or was staying with my sister but regretted getting pampered in this case when I moved to Bangalore and started surviving on my own.

One of the very first things that you realise is important when you stay independent is cost cutting and saving. So I decided to cook for myself and in the process, learn the art of cooking. Unending telephonic consultations with the mother about ingredients, basics and survival food recipes continued for about two months. While the curry and vegetables would turn black without telling me, the rotis or wheat flat breads were of different shapes and crisp as biscuits, milk loved to overflow and get spilled and colors of the cooked food never matched the ones I grew up eating. Nonetheless, it was the taste and the desire to cook better that kept me going. I started looking forward to making my own food and improve with each effort. I even took advantage of the discounts that were gifted to me by a popular bookstore on my birthday and ended up buying cook books by Nita Mehta, Sanjeev Kapoor and others. I became a regular visitor to the cookery blogs and magazines and noted down recipes that I found easy to make.

And now, well, I cook them perfect. The salt, the colour, the taste are in place except for the rotis who are soft and nice but definitely not round! Cooking worked like a therapy for me when I was trying to adjust to the sudden new development of staying alone in a new city. Buying vegetables, negotiating with the vendors, picking up spices and sauces, spatulas and bowls, measuring spoons and just the ingredients that the recipe demanded—all became fun activities!  And yes, the mother now boasts about her daughter’s culinary skills and share tips and recipes that are in the range of medium to difficult.

Paneer Bhurji

Egg Bhurji

Matar (peas) Pulao

Flavored Rice

Orange Kheer

Few things that I cooked!

And as a follow up thing, my next effort will be to start a food blog soon!

So, that’s me and how cooking brought about peace and change in my life!

I am linking my post to the A to Z Challenge for #Day 3 alphabet C.

Beat the Boredom

The second post of the A to Z Blog challenge and the second thing that is about me.

I am not a very restless person, can get idle in the real sense if I wish to and do nothing. It happens on certain days like the first day of a long weekend or a holiday. I just tell myself, Girl, you need a break. So enjoy and sleep. But the moment of sleeping glory is difficult to sustain. So, I get back to doing this and that to beat the boredom. Following are the things that I do and enjoy doing:

a.   Clean my room: It is the most effective way of beating boredom. The room and the cupboard turns into a mess starting Monday and I end up cleaning and arranging the room on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons. The best part of this activity is that I find the many things that I thought I must have lost or the clothes I forgot that they existed. So, it’s like a treasure hunt at times.

b.   Turn into a bookworm: I love reading and thus, have started keeping a separate amount reserved for buying them. I simply love reading romance and thrillers. So, mushy romances and thrilling chases are two types that you’ll definitely find in my book shelf. Oh yes, also the cooking books. More on this in my next post.

c.     Movies: I have always been an onscreen entertainment fanatic. Like watching movies and television serials and sitcoms. While going and watching a movie in a theatre is kind of restricted to a few chosen ones, watching them in my laptop has become a habit.

d.    Creativity: I paint and I knit. Two good things but not so regularly. I have a professional training in painting from one of the most reputed art academies in Kolkata and knitting is kind of a passion to make something new. I have now started taking these up regularly. Once a few good pieces are created, you can check them out at my Pinterest boards.

e.    Take a lazy stroll in the nearby supermarket: Yes I do this to beat my boredom. Whenever I am anxious or bored or I seek solidarity, I go to the supermarket, laze around and check out stuff that I wouldn’t need.

So, that’s me when it comes to Beating boredom! Hope you’ve like reading my post and will suggest other good ideas to beat the boredom.

I am linking this post to A to Z Challenge #Day 2 for the alphabet B.

Advertisements: The Art of Story Telling

Wow! The first post of the A to Z challenge is ready and here it goes.

This series will be about different aspects of me as a person and for alphabet A, I have chosen advertisements. You love them, yet you hate them! You want to watch a handful of your favourite ones, and yet wish they don’t hamper or eat time out of the other favourite one running along because it appears more important.

Also termed as television commercials, these are those 30 second stories that can either sweep you off your feet with their concepts, leave you asking for more when it unravels its story in sequels, or simply tell you, it was a mere promotional activity. I have grown up watching these advertisements from childhood and would wait for the commercial breaks. Advertisements have been my source of entertainment as I would enact the lines from the popular ones in front of the mirror and get to know of the new products. But what advertisements have really contributed in my life is the sense of story-telling in a very crisp manner. How to build a story for a brand with an appropriate message for the public and is high on entertainment value.

As a professional in the field of Brand and Business Communication, my mind always craves for the good creative ideas and what better than commercials: print, electronic or digital.

Some of the brands whose advertisements which I like are of Tanishq (jwellery retail from Tata Enterprises), Cadburys, Surf Excel, Vodafone Zoozoo, Tata Sky and Flipkart. You can watch some of the funniest advertisements for Indian brands:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6CC1E58FB4DA3842

This post will remain incomplete without the mention of Amul’s print ads. Check them below:

So, that’s me! A post on how advertisements keep influencing and entertaining me and what I gain out of them.

I am linking this post to A to Z Challenge for Day 1 for the alphabet A.