The curious case of Year Books...!!

Yearbooks are a fairly recent phenomenon in Indian Campuses.Before yearbooks,it was slam books which ruled over all the campuses.Then yearbooks replaced them by collating the information of the entire batch in a booklet.But in today's era of social media,they have in a way have become redundant.Well,this post doesn't intent to discuss the relevance of yearbooks but rather discuss the crazy stuff that goes into it!

In my engineering yearbook,each person had to write about what his philosophy of life is and what he would remember the most about the college.People used to copy some catchy lines from internet and paste it in the yearbooks.Banal statements like "I believe in "Work hard..party harder' ...I believe in "Working hard..honestly..respecting elders..bla bla bla..Strangely such statements used to come from people who actually didn't even work hard or party..just wrote for the sake of it.The design of the yearbooks used to be very rudimentary.In our days,even a guy with basic knowledge of Photoshop used to be dubbed as "Design Guru'.Things have changed a lot these days with the popularity of SLR cameras and social media whereby more people are taking up designing.Using photoshop, people make even a street dog look royal and beautiful :)

The B-schools yearbooks are much different from that of engineering ones.The design is outsourced to some specialized firms who are into the business of designing and printing.As any other activity in business schools,even this doesn't come cheap.It does cost a bomb to design and print yearbooks for the entire batch.The designs are much fancier than the engineering ones but they aren't changed every year.Even the introductory words by the top administration of the institute is the same every year.The content of the yearbook comprises of testimonials that your batch mates write about you.These testimonials are much boring than the content of what you see in the engineering yearbooks.People write the same crap for all!

Girls have starting lines like "She is a happy-go-lucky girl spreading happiness all around her and bailing humanity out of gloom and morose"

Other banal statements would be " She is beauty with brains...don't get fooled by her tough demeanour..she is like a tender child from inside"

Guys would have statements like "He is a honest..harworking and believes in high thinking..low living...most eligible bachelor in the batch....a perfect connoisseur of good food..Tom Cruise looks bla bla bla..."

Slam books in schools did a much better job as the person filling it was much more candor about the person to whom the slam book belonged.When the stuff gets distrubuted with the entire batch,it's when it all starts get boring!

The truth is when you turn the pages of yearbook and go through the pages of your batch mates,they look all the same..like the candles burning at the altar of a church!!

Malai Kofta

Ingredients

For the Koftas:

1 cup paneer crumbled;1 tablespoon maida,a pinch of baking powder,2 green chillies chopped,

2 tablespoons coriander chopped and salt to taste

For the gravy:

4 medium tomatoes,1 cup milk,1/4 cup cream,1 tablespoon kasuri methi,1 tablespoon oil,salt to taste

To be grounded into a paste:

1/4 cup onions sliced,3 cloves garlic,2 green chillies,2 dry red chillies,2 teaspoons

coriander seeds,1 teaspoon cumin seeds(jeeera);1'' ginger piece;2 cloves(laung),1'' stick cinnamon(dalchini)

For the garnish: 2 teaspoons chopped coriander

Steps:

For the koftas:

• Mix paneer,plain flour,baking powder,chillies,coriander and salt.
• Shape it into 8 small rounds and place them on a greased microwave safe plate.Microwave on HIGH for 45 seconds and keep aside.

For the gravy:

• Pierce the tomatoes lightly with a fork,place in a microwave safe dish and microwave HIGH for 4 minutes.Remove and cool.
• Blend the tomatoes to a smooth puree and keep aside.
• In another microwave safe bowl,add the oil and the ground paste and microwave HIGH for 5 minutes,stirring once after 2.5 minutes.
• Add the tomato puree and microwave on HIGH for 5 minutes stirring once in between after 2.5 minutes.
• Add the milk,cream,kasuri methi and salt and microwave on HIGH for 2 more minutes.

How to Proceed: Just before serving,add the koftas to the gravy amd microwave on HIGh for 2 minutes.Serve hot garnished with coriander.

Some of the Pics

Source of recipe: Samsung Book of Indian Microwave Cooking by Tarla Dalal

Besan Ladoo

Besan Ladoo is an extremely simple sweet item that can be made in just a few minutes.

Please follow the steps religiously else ONLY you would be responsible for the gastronomic disaster :)

You would need:

• 1 cup besan
• 1/3 cup ghee
• 1/4 teaspoon elaichi powder
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar

Steps:

• In a microwave safe bowl,add the besan and ghee and mix well.Microwave on HIGH(750W) for 3 minutes,stirring after every 1 minute.

• Reduce the power to 70% and microwave for another minute stirring once after 30 seconds.Remove and let the mixture cool completely.

• Add the elaichi powder and sugar and mix well.

• Divide into 10 equal portions and shape it into laddoos.

You can then garnish it with pista badam or anything else as you find suitable.

Source of recipe: Samsung Book of Indian Microwave Cooking by Tarla Dalal

Newfound Hobby--Cooking

Out of terrible "Vellapanti",I have discovered a new found hobby Cooking.It's extremely easy to cook.Cooking a great dish involves 3 simple steps:

• Google for some delicious recipes like Paneer Tikka,Besan ladoo etc.
• Follow the step by step approach as outlined.Don't use your creatively in tweaking the proportion of ingredients else that would be a recipe for disaster!
• Enjoy the delicious food with your friends and family :)

In the next few blog posts,I'll share some of the mouth watering recipes of dishes that I have tried myself and have proved to be a great success :)

Invictus

What I really liked about this movie is that it bears a clear testimony to the brilliance of Nelson Mandela as a Leader.Morgan Freeman almost flawlessly plays the character of Nelson Mandela.The movie is based on the backdrop of Nelson Mandela serving his first term as the president.Even after spending 30 years in prison,he wasn't myopic to favor his black countrymen over the whites.He had a clear vision of seeing South Africa as one of prosperous countries of the world.For that he would need the support of the whites.Although the whites were the minority they controlled the majority of the South African economy.Instead of single mindedly focussing on creating political goodwill among other countries of the world,he chose something(Sports) which had the potential to bridge the divide between the Blacks and the Whites.He strongly backed up his country's rugby's team and shared the secret of his success with the captain of SA's rugby team,played by Matt Damon.The success was finding inspiration among other things and inspiring your team to exceed their own expectations.It was his inspiration that helped his country's rugby team to beat the mighty New Zealand in the finals of the world cup and achieve the impossible.What followed was what brought tears in the eyes of Mr.Nelson Mandela.He was moved to see the bonding between the whites and the blacks while celebrating the success of the country's rugby team,the team that was written off at the start of the tournament.

It was the compassion and the ability of Mr. Mandela to forgive the whites for the greater goods of the country that played the trick for him.Compassion,Forgiveness and Inspiration were the pillars on which the leadership style of Mr.Mandela was based upon.

This was indeed a refreshing movie for me after series of movies on insider trading,NDA and collapse of wallstreet in 2008.