Him

Every night I dream of him, of our love One that's never been when I wake I shed a tear missing the twinkle in his eyes I close my eyes, wising with all my might to once more feel him I shed silent tears though its been a couple of years I have been in love with him the guy who stole my heart but was never mine.

On my mind

Was mulling over my favorite song and from the recent times, this one from Nagesh Kukunoor's Aashayein undoubtedly wins hands-down. I love the lyrics, they just seem so apt. Here they are, for your reading pleasure:

ab duniya se shikwa nahi hai
na raha ab zindagi se gila
kiska karam hai kiski dua hai
ya naseebo se tu mujhko mila
ab jo mile ho door na jaana
tere bina dil lagta nahin

mera jeena hai kya marna hai kya
jab saath tera nahi
paa ke rab kya karun jab tu hi mera nahin

berang se din the tanha thi raatein
kuch na badalta jo tum na aate
kehne ko yun toh rishtey kahin hai
rishton mein koi apna nahin

mera jeena hai kya marna hai kya
jab saath tera nahi
paa ke rab kya karun jab tu hi mera nahin

kyun chup gaya hai ankhiyon ko meeche
sharmon haya ke pardon ke peeche
apne sanam se parda hai kaisa
jab ke khuda se parda nahin

mera jeena hai kya marna hai kya
jab saath tera nahi
paa ke rab kya karun jab tu hi mera nahin

Forgiveness

It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes. It takes more gut and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.

How we hate to be seen as our most naked selves! We feel noble when we forgive others their awful mistakes, yet we become paralyzed with guilt and shame when we realize that they have caught us in our worst moments. It is so tempting to try to find something wrong with them and take the focus off what we have done. We have always been told, that the best defense is a good offense. How hard it is to let ourselves claim and own our mistakes.! Yet, also how freeing.

We have the possibility of not only forgiving those who have witnessed our mistakes but also of embracing them as a gift to help keep us honest.

Sometimes my gifts are so well-wrapped I have difficulty recognizing them as such. As I unwrap myself, I can unwrap each present.

Veg Dum Biryani (contd.) - the result!

Ok people, so since I was so eager to try out the recipe...couldn't wait for a couple of days as I had originally planned...and ended up making it for dinner today.

It came out really yummy, according to the reviews I got from family ;-)

Here's what it looked like:

Veg Dum Biriyani - Awesome recipe!

This recipe is courtesy my very good friend and neighbour, Rashmi Tripathi. The other day she had made this awesome vegetable biriyani and gave me some, and I have become a fan of it now. Hence, took the recipe from her, hoping it make it sometime soon and sharing it here:



Chop 1/2 kg of onions and fry till brown and crisp. Set aside.

Take a wok and heat a cup of oil and tip in the masalas - cloves, cardamom, black pepper, bay leaf and cinnamon and fry for some time.

Next add some potatoes (chopped into big pieces) and fry them for a while.

Now add assorted chopped vegetables - carrot, beans, capsicum, baby corn and peas.

Next, add 3 tablespoons of ginger-garlic-green chilli paste.

Now add 3-4 chopped tomatoes, turmeric, red chilli powder and salt and cook till oil segregates.

Take off the heat and add 200 gms curd.

The masala for the biriyani is now ready.

Take a wok and some bay leaf and garam masala powder and about 1/2 kg of rice and 3-4 times the water and cook till half done. Now strain the rice and discard the water.

Take a big cooking dish and layer it with the biriyani vegetables masala (made above)and then spread the half cooked rice over it and top it up with the crisp fried onions and chopped mint leaves and a little ghee. Cook on high flame for 10 minutes.

Now, keep a tava on low flame and keep the dish over it and cover with a lid and keep something heavy over it so that the lid is tight and wont allow the steam to escape. Cook over low flame for 30 minutes, so the biriyani gets cooked in 'dum' (steam).

Try this and let me know how it came out to be. I will also make it the next day or two and then post how it was!

Happy cooking and eating!!!

Life

It's really up to us what we do with our lives. We may have been battered, beaten, cheated, spoiled, or over-indulged. All of us have feelings and memories we need to work through. None of us had perfect families.

The question for us is how have our experiences affected us and what we need to do to learn from those experiences, to work through those lessons, integrate them into our being, turn them over and move on?

When we get stuck in our blame, anger, hurt, and denial, we are the ones who suffer. It is up to us to 'make good use of bad rubbish.'

I believe the intensity of the whack alongside the head that life has to give us in order to get a lesson through to us is directly proportional to the height and breadth of our stubbornness and illusion of control.

Problems give us the opportunity to learn something. If we don't get the learning the first time around, we get another chance, and another, and another. If we miss the learning completely the first time, the next whack will be a little harder, and then the next time even harder. We get many opportunities to learn the lessons we need to learn in this life.

Obstacles are gifts for learning. We never really know what we have learned until we have learned it. Then we are ready for the next learning.

If my life resembles a garbage dump, it is up to me to sort it through, turn over the soil, and plant flowers to make use of all the natural fertilizers...

Love

Love wasn't put in our hearts to stay, love isn't love until you give it away.

We all have an infinite capacity for loving. Sometimes, we get confused about loving, and we start thinking that we only have so much to go around. We start thinking in zero-sum terms. We believe that we only have so much love and if we give some away, we have that much less. We start parceling out our love like we pay the bills at the end of the month. We meet all of our 'love obligations', and we try to keep a little bit in savings, just in case of an emergency.

Controlled love is not loving. Obligatory love is not loving.

Love is something that flows out of our deep sense of loving ourselves. It is not possible to love another if we don't know and love ourselves.

When we love ourselves, there is no limit to the amount of love we can share. But loving can never be manufactured because we should, need to, or want to get something in return. Love is an energy that is shared because we have it.

Loving the people I know allows me to know the people I love.

Hamesha

Kaise unhe bhool jaaye
Wo to hume yaad aaye
Hamesha hamesha
Yeh jahan ya wo jahan
Hum to vaada nibhaye
Hamesha hamesha

Un kadmon ki aahat
Wo muskurahat
Wo khila khila chehra
Narm haathon ki garmahat
Wo kaise mann se mitaye
Wo to hume yaad aaye
Hamesha hamesha

Baarish mein bheege pal
Wo haseen kal
Wo guzra hua zamana
Wo beeti hui hulchul
Wo phir mujhko bulaye
Wo to hume yaad aaye
Hamesha hamesha

10 Golden Rules

1. The most important person in your life is YOU. Not your kids, not your spouse, not your parents. You will have to take care of yourself first before taking care of others you love.

2. Never depend on anyone else to be happy. Never depend on anyone else to make you happy.

3. Accept the fact that you and your spouse are really TWO individuals. If you can accept that, then most of your problems will be solved by themselves.

4. Your spouse can have things that they like, and you may not like them. Instead of forcing yourself do those things with them and ending up bitter, just happily let them do what they want to and you do things you like.

5. Do not always expect your spouse to do things to make you happy. You do things to make yourself happy. When you are happy you automatically will do things that will make them happy.

6. Do not worry about what others say or think. Do what you feel is right for you without hurting others. You are the only person you have to answer to and also the only person who have to be better than.

7. There maybe certain things in life that you may not be able to accept. Your spouse may have a certain quality or attitude that is totally against your beliefs. Don't stand up totally against it and fight it.

8. Every one has their own interests & common interests with their partner - don't convert them forcibly. Introduce them to your interests but let them make their own decision & at the same time be open to their interests. You don't have to like them all.

9. A marriage is two people with totally different wavelengths trying to make music together. If the pitch & frequency is not complementary, no harmonious melody can be heard; only static will occur. In most situations, a woman's store of infinite patience, self-belief and seeing things in the broader context of family rather than me/mine, will certainly help, in creating a symphony.

10. Make sure, you give in - all fights should be resolved at the earliest. You give up your ego for your own personal gain emotionally. You will notice a magical change in your spouse, the next morning. This is one instance where we win ultimately by losing ourselves. You stand to gain!

Friends and life

Sometimes I wonder what would life be if my friends weren't there for me? Whether it be when I am down in the dumps and need a shoulder to cry on, or when I want to share the good things happening to me.

Sometimes you don't know how special your friends are until you've lost them... or at least you're away for a while.

A good friend is someone who is there for you and you are there for them. They understand you and welcome you in their life as a special person.

For me a good friend is someone who is willing to hang out with you, talk to you whether you are happy or in pain. You seem to just connect. You need to trust them and you in turn need to be trustworthy. You both give and take.

A big thanks to all those special people in my life - "my friends": thanks a lot for being such an integral part of my life, I can't even imagine what my life would be without you. I am truly blessed to have you in my life.

Life without friends
Is like open fields without the rain.
No one is to share a word with in a day,
No one is to wipe your tears away.

Life without friends
Is like no water in an empty road.
No one is to give you a hand nor a hug,
No shoulders are to lean on.

I am running dry, my friend!!
My tears soak the road you walk.
Give me a chance, let´s talk!!...
Why don´t you give me a hand??
You melt and bury my tears in the sand.

Life without true friends
Is a lonely life to lead.
Let me plant the love seeds
In your heart to the end!!
Would you be my true friend??

We don't choose our family but we do choose our own set of friends.We all have our own set of friends, and best friends amongst them, and more often than not we fight, argue, then make up.

A special salute to all those who had stood by me in thick and thin, all those special people in my life.

A true friend is someone who knows there’s something wrong even when you have the biggest smile on your face.Never try to hide your sorrows from your friends, they will find out anyway even if you tried hard; and as the saying goes ” Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What! You, too? Thought I was the only one.”

Thanks guys for being there, can't tell you how important you are to me...cheers to our friendship!!!

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost - my all time favorite!!!

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.