Food Time

Well taking the trend of my 'simple pleasures' series forward where I would write about the books I have been reading or the movies I have been watching or anything that adds to contentment, here is another. 

On Tuesdays I usually have sandwiches for lunch because we have the Toastmasters session from 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm. So, I get very less time for lunch on Tuesdays and I don't want to waste it standing in a queue for the food in the canteen. Now Toastmasters happens to be an International speech club, which is meant for Leadership and Communications. I never miss those sessions, in fact I look forward to them as they are an escape from my mundane office work. But I am not going to talk about Toastmasters now I will save it for another day. Today I will write about my food trip.  

Since I had just sandwiches for lunch I wanted to have something good in the evening snacks. But sometimes you get so held up in your nine hours I.T job that you can not make time for snacks as well. Luckily today was not one such days. I had some free time so I thought of having an early snack. I asked a team member to accompany me and we went on a food spree. It is one such days when you don't care about your strict diet or gaining weight, and you just let yourself loose. We went to try the street food. There are lot of hawkers who put on their stalls outside office and people dawdle around them all the time, right from their morning teas to evening snacks and cigarettes. We too go there when we are bored of the canteen food. Since it was only 3:30 pm we decided to have something light. We started with tea, the roadside tea stall sells very good masala tea in small paper cups and the very smell of it lifts my mood. I took few sips from it, closed my eyes and forgot all worries that were hanging on to my mind for quite sometime. Even in a crowded public place I felt at peace. The next trip was to the sweet corn stall. Now the boy there offers you two ways of having corn, either he boils the bajra for you with spices and you eat it directly or he rips off the corn from the bajra with a knife and hands it to you in a plate with masala and lemon. I prefer the later. So, I took spoons full of sweet corn and relished it, what a break from work! But wait I am not done yet, there is some eternal relationship between a girl and pani puri which we call 'gup chup' in Bhubaneswar. So, how could I miss that. The pani puri stall is a little far on the other side of the road. But you see no street snack is complete for any female without tasting her favourite pani puri. So, we took a small walk and gulped those pani puris one by one till the count reached ten. This is something which I would have called 'the pursuit of happiness' but we decided to end the food spree with some imli candies which I bought from a shop near by.

As I walked back to office I was full of joy. You see a break at times is important and a break from the regular food that you have is a delight. I had seen a board in front of a cafe once which said "We are what we eat". So, I think good food is good mood and we must always start good things when we have had good food. At least I haven't  got any good ideas when I was hungry!



Please like my page on facebook "Click Here"

Family Time

Well taking the trend of my 'simple pleasures' series forward where I would write about the books I have been reading or the movies I have been watching or anything that adds to contentment, here is another. 

This December 30th I turned a year older, I am now in my thirties and the years just pass by like days. I have also completed more than ten years at work and I already feel like retiring. 

This December 30th I thought of spending only with my family. So, I got up quite early in the morning, got ready and put on my new dress. The dress that I had meticulously chosen from central, one of the malls I always hang out in the weekend. The colour was a bright yellow with golden work on it. I had hesitated to buy it but a  friend had insisted that I try bright colour. Putting that on I felt like eighteen again! Now the restaurants in Bhubaneswar keep changing, there was this place called 'Blue Berry' that sold many nice grills and I used to go there with my friends on Wednesdays and Fridays, the days when they had non veg. We relished Mexican grilled chicken sizzler, the seafood sizzler and the exotic prawn sizzler. However one fine day the restaurant completely shut down though it's sister restaurant called 'Wild Berrys' is still open about three kilometers away from it in the other side of our office. The new restaurant that has come up in it's place is called 'Go South'. A pure vegetarian one with all kinds of dosas and South Indian Thalis. I have tried the thalis twice and it is not bad. Since it's vegetarian, people go there on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays because those are the days people usually have veg here. In Bhubaneswar there are days for veg and non veg and there are restaurants to go accordingly!

My mother insists that we have vegetarian on birthdays because that is kind of auspicious. So, I planned to take my family comprising  of my parents, my maternal uncle and aunty to the all veg restaurant 'Go South'. Not so sure if they enjoyed but like a typical middle class family they were terribly worried about the bill even if I was paying. So, after a decent meal and decent bill we set out for twin city Cuttack, our ancestral place. My younger cousin brother was more than happy to see me. My aunty had carried a lot of cakes and chocolates with her which he relished. There was no typical candle lighting or cake cutting ceremony but my grandmother and my aunty each gave me a five hundred rupees note. I felt as if I was ten years old again ! Actually I always feel that every time I go to my ancestral place. My granny is about to be eighty years old and growing weaker but she is delightful. I still love talking to her and had an amazing time. After spending the whole afternoon there we went to the Chandi temple in Cuttack, where my mother and aunty were lost offering prayers and then finally we returned back to Bhubaneswar.

It was a day well spent with my family and worthy to be remembered because sometimes in the hassle of the job life and the outings with friends we often forget our aged relatives who won't be around always and do need our time.   



Please like my page on facebook "Click Here"