Chasing 'Post' Stress Blues Away

I am in 'Post Stress'. Don't ask Post what?...I mean blog post...Nothing works...even thinking of this as my personal scratchpad to scratch my lingering writer's itch isn't working.

My reading backlog is a larger mountain than my laundry . And this is despite being part of the privileged class among the student masses with a washing machine and a dryer installed in my kitchen. I wake up everyday with new resolutions and then I veer off into facebook and other trivial pursuits..and then as the sun goes down, I resolve for a better tomorrow..

Moral of the paragraph: Lazy moves the ass that has the means...( Psst...I just made that up....Academic pursuits have a way of catching up on your literary skills...Nothing sounds grand anymore unless it's perfectly vague)

So there I am, staring out of my window, where the green meadows and the cows chomping on the grass no more motivate me to sing a little song and write a note back here..In fact, there seems to be a flu in the air...the 'missing home' variety..in about two months, the next set of breaks will grace my student calendar...But twoooooo months is a looooong time away... Meanwhile I have no inspiration for a blogpost...I'm what you call partially broke, so traipsing off to Brighton needs to be done with a little more care...The money that's to pay for food and other expenses might just be indulged on some fripperies...There's always a justification...Like my grand aunt used to joke - Even when you lie dead, you must look beautifully dead!! ( It sounds guffawable in malayalam..not so much in English..but I hope I still communicated the context of the joke!!) The moans and the rants can continue...But yesterday, I discovered a 'Pakoda therapy'.... Get your best buddy on chat....and rave about your favourite snack that you miss...Well for me, its the really unhealthy but supremely tasty pakodas....bhajiyas or whatchumacallits...I could bet the last two pence coin in my wallet right now, that two minutes of 'How I miss dunking them in chutney and gobbling it up' will whip both of you into a frenzy, that you might just rush off into the kitchen to whip up a batch... Unlike Mumbai, where you just need to step out of the house to the nearest market to find someone - the vadapaowalac - actually frying up a crunchy fresh batch to be had with cutting chai, here in Brighton, you go down to the kitchen and roll up your sleeves to whip it up yourself...

So I turned myself into an episode of Nigella Express - got out all the ingredients that I have always kept for this very day...

Ok, here's a quick recipe if your mouth is watering too...Cut up some cauliflower, capsicums or any veggies you fancy - it could be onions and potatoes also..mix them up thoroughly with a wee bit of salt....Now get the main ingredient out - gram flour...mix some chilly powder and a pinch of asafoetida into it and beat it into a smooth batter with water...dunk the veggies into this batter and scoop it out with a spoon and slam dunk into oil...Now the Indian way of doing it right is deep frying till crisp brown...I'm too conscientious - so I shallow fry it..But it doesn't taste as gloriously sinful this way....

So once you have a bowlful of pakodas - get back on the net...by then your friend in Mumbai or any part of the world for that matter- too should have finished frying her batch...Switch skype on, and gossip half an hour while munching on pakodas....Bonding like you never known before can happen..and the 'missing home' flu can be successfully kicked out!! The truth is the last part didn't work out the way it had been theorised...My friend did whip up a batch with onions and coriander, but we couldn't chat as we wanted to..Instead we mailed each other....So I'm still partially blue, with the pakodas doing a happy oily dance in my stomach... Atleast the stomach does not feel the distance that the heart does...Someone within me is happy..innit??