Sculpting with Spices

The heat haze above the skillet makes everything shimmer. There are little bubbles in the oil as I lean over and slowly upturn the small bowl containing a mix of spices. They hit the oil with a sizzle, the wonderful aroma of cardamom, cinnamon of nutmeg wafts through the air. Slowly I add the onions and stir until they are golden brown. Its time for the meat.



People often tell me I love to cook because I love to eat. I call bullshit. I love cooking because of the same REASON I love to eat...I love food. I love the preparation of it, I love the chemistry of two flavors mixing together to create something better than the sum of their parts, I love the process of taking different ingredients and forming a homogeneous whole, but most of all I love the expression on people's faces when they eat what I have prepared. Like most artists, good or bad, I cook for the reactions. In fact, I eat the least when I cook, because I want to spread the flavours around as much as possible.




Above: One Day, mai bhi....

Is cooking an art? I believe so. Of course that doesn't make me an artist, just a scribbler awkwardly holding a pencil and hoping that the chicken scratchings in the back of his maths testbook will someday lead to an object of beauty and innovation. And while I don't consider myself to be anything more than the lowliest student of this art form, I know I can be good because I cook out of love. Love for the food, love for the fed but most of all, love of the joy of creation.

God Loves My Country (Not what you think)

This song kinda explains why I'm an aethist.



"God Loves My Country"
by Balthrop, Alabama

And God loves my country
More than He loves yours.
He is pounding you with thunder,
He is blowing down your doors.
And your kingdom will fall
When His soldiers come to call,
Because God loves my country
More than He loves yours.

And you know that it's so,
He's on my side.
And he's ready to roll,
And he wants you to die.

And God loves my country,
I will clear a path for Him.
He is strengthening my shoulders
As I tear you limb from limb.
And the ceiling is falling
On your children as they sleep,
And the god who loves my country
Will not hear you when you weep.

And you know that it's so,
He's on my side.
And he's ready to roll,
And he wants you to die.

And God loves my country,
I will hang you from His cross.
He delivers me to victory,
He's handing you the lose.
And the nails in your arms
They are tearing through your flesh
And His sun is beating down on you
As you're bleeding to death.

And you know that it's so,
He's on my side.
And he's ready to roll,
And he wants you to die.

And you know that it's som
He's on my side.
And he's read to roll,
And He wants you to die.

And He wants you to die,
And He wants you to die,
And He wants you to die,
And He wants you to die.

Politically Correct Incorrectness

From Caves of Spiel

"Boss, I'm not one of those guys who can be politically correct. I just speak my mind." Faker words are rarely spoken. People who generally announce they are about to be politically incorrect are usually disappointing. Sure, they say things that are controversial and just plain rude, but they are usually careful enough not to say it in front of anyone who can DO anything about it.

This mania for politically correct political incorrectness has become a bane of existence. Of course, you need people to be politically incorrect. You need them to push the envelope, to walk the razor's edge, to plunge into the waters of serious discourse with nary a heed to their own safety. Problem is, very few actually do all those things. Least of those who announce they are about to be politically incorrect. Much like pimple creams, they promise much and deliver little. Also, much like pimple creams, they tend to be pasty and flaccid, but that's a whole different story.

Used to be, being politically incorrect used to mean something. Now it's become excuse to bitch, bitch, bitch. Bitch about how the prime minister of this country has no backbone, bitch about how the country is run by a "foreigner"(the fact that she holds an Indian passport and has been 'living' in this country longer than the moaners somehow making no difference), bitch about how removing Ganguly from the test/one-day/IPL/Ranji/district/gully team is going to have fearsome consequence for those responsive. Blatantly racist and jingoistic comments are paraded in the guise of political incorrectness when the speaker knows fully well those who he is railing against either (a) don't give a damn or (b) are too cowed and marginalized to say anything.

The value of political correctness has somehow been obfuscated by all this hot air blowing around. To be politically correct is to respect someone else's feelings (remember them?). To be politically correct is to maintain silence when words will only hurt, not heal, even though that joke you thought of was like, really funny. That does not mean jokes have to stop. That does not mean pain will silence humor. But who is entertained when a celebrity tweets a joke about the tsunami in Japan, when men are still fighting to save the country from nuclear disaster? The same ones who say Japan deserves what happened because of Pearl Harbour/It's not a Christian country, that's who. Who is entertained when someone tells a racist joke about a minority group too scared to hit back openly? People who would gladly watch that group burn, that's who. To be politically incorrect about those who are weak, those who are hurting is easy. True political incorrectness is what's missing. The courage to mock the strong, openly, at a forum where they will be affected and may lash out, that's what's missing.

I love humor and comedy. I worship the art of George Carlin and Jon Stewart. People like them have been politically incorrect when and where it matters. In spite of that I have made mistakes. Mocked people with words that weren't funny, just cruel. I have been guilty of spreading my arms in a martyr-like pose and saying "Hey, can't you take a joke?", not realizing that the jokes weren't any good to begin with. I have failed as a funnyman and as a human being. But I have tried to learn from them. I have understood that a joke that is about someone is truly successful and meaningful only if it can make the subject laugh. They rest is just gravy.

It's time we started being more politically correct when it is easier not to be so and politically incorrect when it actually made a difference. It's time we started using the very human desire to vent to some good use. It's time I stopped ranting about this and did something constructive.

Virtual Literature

Gingerly, I reached out. The slate gray plastic was cool to the touch. I picked it up, and in spite of its stunning slimness, marvelled at how light the thing was. The only light came from a small glowing button at the bottom. I slid it, and a world opened before me.Like magic, the images on screen shifted, the image becoming a negative of itself before fading altogether, replaced by a shelffull of books, for my consideration.

When was the last time I felt such pleasure? Maybe when I was a kid, burying my nose between the freshly minted, crisp white pages of a new book and deeply inhaling the smell of new paper, gum and stories. Or perhaps it was walking into my school library the first time we were allowed to choose our own books (before that, we were handed a book apiece by a librarian. If you wanted something different or had already read that one, tugh luck kid, put your head on the desk and prepare for an hour's worth of tear - inducing boredom.). Of course, books still get me excited, but this was different, this was bigger than one book. This was the promise of a library in my hands. This was the idea of my favorite author's entire bibliography at my fingertips. This was evolution of the best kind, at least, to a lover of words.

"Ah, but don't you think technology is becoming too important? That it's taking over the art?" ask some people. The ones who are not so polite (or are loth to accept anything invented after their birth) sneer and say "Yeah right. As if anything can replace paper books. Well, I prefer to stick to REAL books, thank you very much." polishing their monocles while they do so. Or they would, if they had monocles.Well to the first group, I say "NO!!!!! First of all, stop referring to ebook readers as 'technology'. Or do you think paper books are found growing fully printed from magical trees? Everything is technology. We live in technology. Old technology does not mean it's not technology? And secondly, how does a medium take away the magic of a story? Or the importance of a well researched journalistic piece? Technology cannot convert gold to trash or vice versa. It couldn't when the words were printed on wood pulp, and it cannot now, when the words appear on a screen encased in plastic or metal."

To the second group I say "Pphhhbbbbttttttt!!!!!!". Maturity is not my strong suit.

Now sentiment is another issue. Of course I understand the sentiment people have for paper books. The brightly colored covers, the way racks of books add warmth to a room, the shuffling sound of paper, and above all, how the very touch of a physical book can take you away to a different place in your mind, a place no more real than those e-ink words floating on the screen of an ebook reader, but still more solid than reams bound in leather. Those emotions are perhaps the strongest reason why paper books aren't dying a faster, surer death. But to lament that children a generation or two later will not feel the pleasure our generation felt gripping a paper book is pure soda water. Yes, perhaps they will never know the heft and touch of a hardcover volume, but do the naysayers realise the pleasures they are missing out on even as they dig their heels and close their eyes? THEY don't know the pleasure of carrying a library full of books in the device as light as some cellphones. They don't allow themselves to feel the joy of reading whatever they want to, whenever they want to at the touch of a button. Ebook readers offer them universes, and they look away, because they don't like the window they are looking through. It's not missing the forest for the trees, it's missing the forest because the path has been paved.Our grandchildren will know so many of the joys that we cannot imagine because they have not even been invented yet, so why turn away from the ones that DO exist.

Of course, there is something to be said for physicality. But mediums change. Very few people complained about the cassete tape giving way to the Laser Disc, which then bowed to the DVD, which in turn was replaced by Blu Ray and digital distribution. Audio CDs were replaced by MP3s without a murmur. So why do so many people have a problem of change in medium when books are involved? My guess is, unlike the previously mentioned changes, books and how we read them have not evolved in a long long time. It's about getting set in your ways, rather than any real, tangible pleasure. After all, while the evolution from cassettes to CDs and more have been relatively smooth, people who were used to their big black LPs still hold on to them like some badge of honour and no argument of superior sound quality and convenience can shake them. Isn't it simply because LPs were around for a very long time before cassettes came in to replace them? I think so.

As for me, I have loved books ever since I knew what books were. But I have loved BOOKS. Words arranged to form stories and ideas, legends and songs. I have loved those castles built using that most potent of all bricks - language. The physical medium can change, and I believe that objectively, it will change only for the better, but what won't change is the sheer joy of getting lost in that special place where my mind meets the authors. The rest is just....extra. So I am excited by ebooks, I am thrilled by the idea, not because they are the next step in technology, but because of what it means to me as a reader. The stars have aligned, the time is right and the world is seeing the biggest shake up in publishing since Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg thought engraving letters in reverse, smearing them with ink and stamping them on paper would be a pretty neat idea.