The land of the lord in gods own country

It is the land of lord Padmanabha ; soil of the travancore kings in gods own country.
The mighty arabian waves wash through the enchanting coast, plush green coconut trees deck up most of the land which is surrounded by seven hills.
Thiruvananthapuram, meaning "city of Anantha Padmanabha", known internationally as "Trivandrum", is the state capital of Kerala, and is located on the western coast of mainland India. If you are looking for a beautiful landscape, great food, mix of modern times set in a backdrop of medieval Indian architecture and a wonderful cultural experience; this is the place to be.

"lakshadeepam festival at anantha padmanabha swamy temple. Happens once in 6 years.

How to get there: Thiruvananthapuram International airport , the first in the state is located around 15 kms from main city and is easily accessible. It is connected well to UAE, Singapore and seasonal flights to Australia/ Europe too. The Trivandrum central railway station and bus stand are located at Thampanoor and connect the capital to all parts of Kerala and India well. The roads are great, but watch out for occasional potholes , esp during the monsoon season. The state is densely populated, so the highways are not really "freeways" to zoom through. They are narrow and there are just too many heavy vehicles using it. To commute within the city, there are auto rickshaws that are reasonably priced. Taxis are available from the airport, railway station and bus stand.

When to go: If you love the rains, the best time to go is during the harvest festival season. Onam, the main festival in Kerala, is celebrated between August - September every  year as per the local calendar. The city is decorated and there is a whole week of tourism promotional events that happen which ends with a grand procession. Spoiler Alert - Mind the rains and the crowd. Not for fussy travellers. October - February is usually considered peak tourist season. The native language is Malayalam, but the state is one of the most literate in India, so you can move around easily with English and Hindi too.

Where to stay: There are many 5 star beach resorts like - Taj , Poovar island resorts etc that a comfortable stay in world class facilities. For people who want to blend in with the city have an option of a good amount of hotels with accommodation within the city. One should think twice before booking secluded places and quite corners in the city. Homestays can also be tricky. With a sudden influx of labourers from other states in Northern India, the safety quotient of the city has gone down.

Places to see: The city has a good mix of places of historical importance, beautiful scenery and for relaxation. A typical tourist package would cover the below.
- Backwaters of Veli tourist village.
- Kovalam beach, hot favourite among tourists. This beach is one of the busiest during tourist season. It has some amazing beach shacks, resorts, traditional ayurvedic massage centres, local shopping centres etc.
- Shanghumukham beach - As the name suggest, the coast line is shaped in the shape of a conch.
- Varkala Beach.
- The Padmanabha swamy temple. There are some traditional rules followed here. Read up on some do's and don'ts before your visit to temple. For e.g: dress code. Apart from temple, there are lot more things to see and do at East Fort. Ramanayar Palace and KuthiraMalika palace museums have a good collection of antiques from the royal times.
- The city's zoo is a good picnic spot if you are travelling with kids. But do mind a little stenchy smell here and there.
-Sri Chitra art gallery. This is haven for the art lovers. They have a lovely collection of Raja Ravivarma paintings that are famous around the world.
- Kanakakunnu palace is the place where all the cultural festivities happen. It is the place to be during the harvest festival season. There are exhibitions, food stalls, traditional dance performances and a kids fair.

the lovely Kovalam beach.

What to Shop: Most tourists come for the traditional ayurvedic experience which is getting more and more popular. They come and get a full ayurvedic treatment, buy oils and consumables for a year before they head back. The next best thing that people buy is gold. Almost every street has a jewellery shop, but look for ISI mark 22 carat pure gold. It makes sense to buy it from leading jewellery shops such as Bhima, Malabar gold, Joyalukkas, Kalyan etc. The traditional off white costume with pure gold zari work , a cotton hand weave of kerala also appeal to the west. Banana chips made from raw banana fried in coconut oil is another must buy. The local shops at East Fort , Chalai bazar and Palayam market are good places to buy all of these. Brass antiques and khadi weave from SMSM behind the old secretariat building is quite famous.

Food lovers paradise: When in the capital, a must have is the traditional tapioca and fish curry meal. A wide variety of local seafood flavours are available at most of the restaurants here. Mubarak, a non vegetarian paradise is located in the busy streets of chalai bazar. There are specific hotels for pure vegetarians. One should look for chains of  "Aryaas, ananda bhavan, arya bhavan around the city. You can also get a decent North Indian, Chinese , Italian, Maldivian food around the city quite easily. One should also definitely not miss the late night food stalls, popularly known as "thattukada". The hot dosas served with sambar and spicy chutney is sure to leave your taste buds wanting more. While at it, do not miss the double omelet and end it with a piping hot cup of "chaya" (tea).

I am pressure cooked. Yes, thats exactly how i feel right now. How does one explain in a better way the water that is boiling inside the pressure cooker that is up on the flame with its whistle on- boiling hot, but no outlet to go. 

And while you are boiling, you are also cooking something. Technically everything seems to be good. Food gets cooked. Once cooked what do you do with the remaining water? Throw it away!! Yep... that is what I really am. 

DrumStick leaf and Cauliflower Curry

We had a big drumstick tree in our backyard at home back in Kerala. Every time I buy drumsticks and its nutritious green leaves for a couple of dollars I miss my tree which gave me all that for free! And to add to the woe when I buy these leaves from Little India they give a bunch full. To wash and clean the whole bunch picking only the leaves you get a masters degree in Patience.

Initially I had issues with storing it without making the leaves dry. What I now do is once I have washed and cleaned the whole bunch,  I wrap it in a news paper (not the glossy shiny one..the classic traditional newspaper) and store in refrigerator. It stays for more than two weeks without loosing moisture. Alternately you can even spread the leaves to strain water on a newspaper and then put them all in a box and store it in the refrigerator. Both these ways of storage have helped me a lot.

There is whole lot of benefit from their tender leaves. Read more on the below website on them.
http://smartwaytohealth.blogspot.sg/2013/01/drum-stick-leaves.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa_oleifera

Now I know that "Muringa" as its called in Malayalam/Tamil came from its botanical name or may be vice versa.
To let another secret out I am not a great fan of the taste of the leaf and I hate all stinky veggies which includes Cauliflower. So when I saw these two lying around in my fridge I wondered how I can cook it so as to entice me. Here is how I managed. Luckily it turned out tasty too apart from holding all the nutrition. :)

So to cook this curry what you need is

Cauliflower - half the flower. Cut and wash the florets neatly. Its one of the most insect prone veggies as well. Why don't the worms get put off by the smell? But then they eat is raw.
Green Peas - handful washed and strained. Fresh is always good and healthy. Stored ones would do as well. You can even skip it for this recipe. I just wanted it to be there along with the other veggies.
Drum stick leaves - whole bunch.
garlic -1 pod
ginger- a small thin slice.
1Tbsp pav bhaji masala
1tbsp garam masala
1 Onion diced.
Cashew nuts-a full cup ground into a fine paste with little water.

Fresh Drum Stick leaves stored in a box in fridge stays 2-2.5 weeks.

Make a tadka in pan spluttering mustard seeds, dry chillies and curry leaf. Add the onion and required salt to taste.Add a spoon of fresh ginger garlic paste and sauté till onions are golden brown. Now add the cauliflower florets and green peas. Add the pav bhaji masala and garam masala. Mix well and steam cook this for 5 minutes closing pan with a lid. Add a glass of water and add the drum stick leaves.Allow it to cook for 5-6 minutes. Now add the cashew paste. Mix well and allow the whole thing to cook for 7-8 minutes.
Add coriander leaf to garnish before serve. Goes superbly well with rotis/phulkas/any Indian bread. I think it  should go with plain white rice too.

cauliflower green peas drum stick leaf curry

It worked for me since my son would never eat the leaf when cooked with lentils or coconut. He does not eat cauliflower as well!
In this he could hardly feel the taste of the leaf so he actually ate all of what was served for him.

Berry time!

I am a freaking berry and grapes fan. I can sit and finish up a whole kilo all by myself. They are small, have this sweet and sour mix and are so nutritious being rich in antioxidants.

I love trying out new recipes and the festive mood just makes me experiment more and venture out into shores I have not sailed so far. I also got inspired very much by Devaki Mami's gooseberry jam while I was in India. It was more than yummm! Nutritious and tasty put together is rare combo. So when I saw this box of cranberries the first thing that ran into my mind is why shall I not try making a home made Jam this time? No added preservatives and colour et all. As usual for all my cooking adventures I pick up recipe from the net and modify it to suite my instincts and taste.

Here is an extract about benefits of cranberries from the following website.

"Cranberries have vitamin C and fiber, and are only 45 calories per cup. In disease-fighting antioxidants, cranberries outrank nearly every fruit and vegetable--including strawberries, spinach, broccoli, red grapes, apples, raspberries, and cherries!"
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/cranberries-year-round-superfood

What I did was plain simple. Got the dried cranberries to soak in about a glass of hot water for about an hour. Ground it into a thick paste. After that I simple boiled it in a pan gently stirring it on and off so that it thicken. I added just about two spoons of sugar to it while boiling. It is optional. I have fussy toddler at home and I felt the sourness standing out from the jam might turn him off. Once the sauce thickened I turned off the flame and let it cool. Store in an airtight glass jar in the refrigerator.

So yumm that its become my daily spread! Enjoy.

Home made Cranberry Jam

Ganapati bappa moriya....

Shamefully I have to admit the reason why I like the festival so much is that the prasad is modak/kozhukkata /kozhukattai. The rich taste of coconut and jaggery filling inside the rice/ wheat based outer covering is so mouthwatering! Hail Lord Ganesha! :)

Usually in laws make the traditional rice kozhukattai, vada and payasam as the offering.But the festival was falling on a Monday morning which meant that Rajiv had to go to work on time, Sid had school and Gautham had to be fed in between. So all my cooking tasks + the offering had to be ready by atleast 7.30 am. Also the fact that I like to experiment and try out newer things :P. So I decided that I will try the North Indian style fried modak which is wheat based.  Anything which has a jaggery inside works :)!

For any such day my management expertise has helped me. I knew I would not be able to cook rice, curry and a side dish + prasad before 7.30 am. So I planned my morning ahead and finalised the menu. It would be methi chappathis and lady's finger fry for lunch to keep things simple. That way I could really concentrate on the main item of the day- the Modak.

I googled and read a few recipe but decided to customise the procedure to fit into the time frame I had-2 hours. I woke up at 4.30 am (an hour earlier than my usual wake up time these days). To ensure that Gautham did not disturb me for the next 2 hours, the first thing I did was to feed him. After putting him back to sleep I was ready. Here is the recipe I followed.

Ingredients
-Wheat flour -4 cups ( I usedAshirvad atta)
-grated coconut- 1 full coconut
-Jaggery-1 big piece. I really dont know the exact measure.
  I would say approximately 1:1.5 ratio of coconut:jaggery to keep it sweet.
-Cardomom seeds ground into a powder

Procedure:
Kneed the wheat flour the same way as we do for chappati/puri. I usually put a tea spoon of oil while kneeding the dough to make it soft and non sticky.
In most blogs they melt the jaggery first and mix the grated coconut and let it cool for about an hour before rolling it into tiny balls to make the stuffing. I decided to deviate here due to the time constraint. I just broke the jaggery into smaller chunks and ground it into a fine powder in the mixie. In this I added the coconut and cardamom powder and mixed it well.
The next step is to roll out the dough into small balls the size needed to make mini puris. Spread the dough into a circle and place 1-2 Teaspoons of the jaggery mix over this. Fold the four sides of circle and bring the folded sides together to form a modak shape.

If all that sounded easy (like I felt too) the tricky part comes here. In a kadai, heat a little oil required to fry. Once the oil is hot, gently place the modak in. If the modaks are not well shaped or tightly closed while they fry they open up and the melting jaggery seeps into the hot oil. Make sure that the modak is closed tightly as sometimes the grated coconut that falls into hot oil tend to burst. Stay safe.
Once the modaks have a golden brown color around it is done and can be removed from oil.

With all modaks done and cooking complete I was on time for puja. After packing off hubby and Sid to school I sat down for some indulgence.  I hope our Ganapthi liked them as much I did. :)

Venus vs Mars

Being in a phase where we are managing a naughty toddler and a two month old infant , my husband and I hardly see any romance in the air. I guess every other couple who passed this phase would understand what i am talking about. So a couple of days ago, we got a small break with both boys tucked away to sleep. I grabbed my chance to tune into my favorite travel channel while hubby as usual logged into his laptop. Glued to our indulgences, i suddenly remembered this was our "couple time". So i gave the idiot box a pause, turned around to look at him and whispered "I love you!". Surprisingly he responds back ..."I do too...". We gave each other a good smile. He moved closer...and then...the moment stopped.
He showed me his laptop screen and said "See this, its India's latest missile..." ...or some other war weapon and is describing its design to me! .............well well well ...Where were we? :)

I could not but stop laughing and in my laughter he got my point as well thankfully! We both laughed for quite a while on that....but isn't this why they say Men are from Mars and Women from Venus? This is what our movies thrive on. We (XX) think onions and they (XY) deliver tomatoes. :) Applies vice versa too i guess.

An extrapolation of this is seen on the social media ....

An interesting observation that i have made in the last one week is that while most of the male friends on my network on FB are posting jokes about women drivers and their behavioral pattern,  the female section have been busy forwarding Brad pits mushy mushy blog about Angelina Jolie and their love!

Well, as far it is "Happys Endings" who cares where either of us come from anyway!

Indepedence day ?

I am not sure how I should feel this morning. Today I end a journey I began on Nov 18th 2002. Today would be my last day at my first job. Ironically, its Independence day!

I had just graduated and was preparing for CAT. Along that track, I had chosen to take a small diversion to attempt an aptitude test by Infosys on the previous weekend at Bangalore. The journey and skipping tests and classes at the coaching center for CAT,  mixed with my own carelessness  added to the fact that the results at mock tests in the coaching class for MBA was dropping. Dad was worried I was losing focus not concentrating on one thing. Still, I was glad I took that chance.

When I saw my name in the selected list I was first surprised! And then worried...I was so damn sure that I might not make it that I had not brought any of my books to prepare for the next step - the interview !  Luckily, I got my bible of electric machines - BL TEREJA in a bookstore close by. When I boarded the rickety BMTC bus of Infosys the next morning I noticed the people (employees) around me were quite disconnected! I mean... no one spoke to one another in the bus. Each one of them busy in their own indulgences - some on walk man, privileged few on mp3's, some reading newspapers , some engrossed in their books, the rest...happily sleeping off. I even mailed my senior in school who was already working with Infosys asking him how much a "ROBOT" he had become.

In the last 10+ years travelling in that same bus, I have become on of them...and I know the joy of tuning into radio to hear Vasanthi Hariprakash's "Good morning Bengaluru" ! Its as refreshing as the morning cup of tea. Can't give it a miss.

I was amazed at the "look and feel" of the campus  the first time I walked into the Bangalore DC for my interview. well if you think I remember anything about the actual interview ...I Don't! :)

On Diwali night, two weeks later when my mock tests were showing poor results, daddy and I sat down to discuss my future plans. It didn't quite end well like most of our discussions at that time. :) but a little while later when I showed them the invite email from Infosys , he was in tears! it must have been one of OUR family moment!

I remember the excitement when I boarded train to Chennai with daddy. My sister and I would fight so much all those years, but I saw the sorry tears rolling down those cheeks when she came to see off that day. My best of pals from college had also come (at various stations all the way through kerala) for a quick bye bye and to wish me luck. I felt glad to have such a grand see off, and sad moving away from my closest ones.

11 years from then, there has been many many keeping moments  Infosys has given me. A new city as my second home,  many new people, many different cultures, travel...a few friends who stood by me through good and bad, awesome roomies and last but not the least...a life partner! From a happy go lucky girl straight out from college, Infosys has groomed me into the person that I am today. And I do not think either of us messed up in this make over. :)
There have been bad times but no one sticks the rotten moments in their photo album.

Looking ahead, I don't know whether I will board the same train again, but this journey is for keeps. I am definitely going to miss a lot of things out there. Quite a lot! 

I took a break from the typing, I take a look at my 2 month old, Gautham, and he smiles and coos back at me. Brings the smile back on my face. A new journey begins...



PS: pardon the spelling errors and the grammar mistakes if any. I haven't had time to proofread!