Gujjus, Food, Gujju Food, Foodie Gujjus etc.

Gujjus and food go hand in hand. They are always talking about food. No matter at what time you land up in a Gujarati household, you will be offered food. If nothing is available then they will cook something for you. I remember mom cooking food for guests at 1 am. Proper thaali. And they ate it. Even though they had had dinner en route. It's a kind of sin not to offer food. Even bigger sin is to not eat it. And biggest sin is to order food from outside. You HAVE to cook for your guests.And feed them more than they can digest. But they can in fact digest much more than that too.

Gujjus have weird food preferences. They have weird menus. They will serve you the weirdest combination you could ever think of. They will cook the weirdest dish you could ever imagine. They make Guava sabzi, sev ki sabzi, papad ki sabzi. They even make onion ki sabzi. They add aam ras to kadhi, dumpling can replace aalu in any damn thing, bananas are used instead of potatoes in all the jain preparations - the list is endless.

Their definition of dinner is another story. I remember mom making upma for dinner. Or even Poha. Yes. Just that. Or just Dhokla. Or Khandvi. Or Haandvo. Or muthiya. (Please google these terms, you will get the perfect idea of the dishes I'm talking about). There was another dish - dumplings made in a kind of kadhi for gravy. And it was called Manchurian. When I came face to face with Manchurian for the first time, I refused to call it that. Later on realised that moms can be wrong too!

If you happen to live in a Gujju area, you will come across Jain version of all the possible dishes. Even Chinese food. I don't know how is it even possible, but it is. Popular food chains too compromise in their menu just to serve jain food. Because majority of the people eating out are Gujjus. And Jains don't eat onion, garlic and potatoes. In fact a few Gujarati community people do not eat onion and garlic. 

So far as eating habits are concerned, Gujjus have one ritual - they do not cook on Sunday evening. They have to eat out. And most of them (be it rich or middle class. There are no poor gujjus. You won't come across any. Even if they are poor, they will pretend to belong to middle class.) will be spotted in some area eating roadside food. In all the Gujju areas, you will fine one Khau Galli (Eatery lane literally) selling snacks items that Gujjus usually call 'Dinner'.

But one thing is there - you will rarely come across any Gujju who makes lousy food. They are gifted when it comes to cooking. And they will serve and feed anyone. Even if the person comes unannounced at their doorstep. Gujjus will usually land up at your doorstep unannounced. During dinner time. Without having their own dinner. And after you are done with your dinner. And they cook fresh food, with a smile on their face. Good tasty food. Full thaali. Because it's all about food for us. You are judged based on the dishes you served to your guests. Meetha and namkeen have to be served no matter what. They are always stocked up at home. Usually homemade stuff.

Travel Agencies have special Gujju tour packages for abroad trips. They promise to serve Gujju food to their customers. When Gujjus go for one day picnics, or even tours, they have to pack theplas. Even when I travel anywhere, mom packs theplas. Every time. Theplas are our elixir of life, to be had thrice a week in different meals. 

Phew! I can write so much more. We live to eat. Literally. They say this about Punjabis. But punjabis are more about the quantity of food. We are more about the variety. And weird combinations. We think about food first when we plan a trip. Not the destination, not the journey, nothing. Is Gujju food available there? Or at least veg food? These are our first two questions when we plan a holiday. 

Yes. We are awesome like that.

Are you a guy? Tough luck bro.

I have seen so many people talking about how difficult it is for a girl to survive in a male dominating society. Well it's true to a greater extent. But that doesn't mean that we girls take the feminism flag every time and abuse guys. They have a difficult life too.

I have seen them suffer so many times just because they are, well, men. No matter what they do in a girl's presence, their intentions are doubted. Well I believe that they should be allowed to think whatever they want to, for you cannot really change that. But we girls do the same too. It's a kind of secret code and thus I won't reveal what we really think in our mind about a guy (or even a girl for that matter in spite of being perfectly straight). When a guy offers to give a lift to a girl, they say "chance maar raha hai". If he doesn't offer, then he is a jerk. Ah poor guys.

Today I was waiting for a cab to go to the class. There was one guy standing right ahead of me. We were waiting for almost 10 minutes before one empty cab finally arrived. The cab guy didn't stop in front of him, but he stopped in front of me. Asked me where I wanted to go. I saw that guy come running to the cab. I let him ask the cab guy first as that was only fair. The cabwala refused him and took me.

Last weekend, I was coming back from some place. There was a guy sitting next to me in the flight. His friends were sitting right behind us. He tried 2-3 times to talk to me, just tried, but didn't succeed as I kind of carry that intimidating look with me wherever I go. Especially when I travel as I don't like to be disturbed. And flight is the only place where I get a peaceful sleep. And I didn't want to compromise on that. It was a two hour flight. After we landed, his friends very bluntly asked him why he didn't talk to me. And I heard it. He was embarrassed. Very embarrassed. 

A friend met with an accident. She rammed her bike into a car. It was her fault entirely as she lost balance. But onlookers started abusing the guy even though he was being sweet to her and trying to help her. His good gesture was mistaken as his error and poor fellow had to listen to everyone around him. He eventually took my friend to a nearby clinic. Thankfully she was not hurt much, but it was still a good deed. He didn't even take any damages from her. Insured car maybe, but still, WTH.

And every damn time, they are expected to carry heavy bags, or open the car/restaurant door, impress the girl, be funny, can't afford to be boring even a bit, can't praise other girls, have to compliment girls moderately, do hundreds of the things to make her fall in love with them, spend money on them, earn money for everyone - phew!

Poor guys. Thank God I am not a guy. I can be as lazy as I want to. The biggest advantage of being a girl. Really. There are hardly any guys who are really out of a girl's league. If a guy is single, and a girl is even average looking and she likes him, he will say yes to her in all probabilities. But she won't ask him. Ever. And she gets away with it. If he doesn't have guts to ask her out, someone else will. She will never run out of options, while he gets just a few options in any case. A guy's ugly is a girl's cute.

Dear feminists, please leave them alone. Really. They are mostly cute.

Ranting away

Now when I feel like blogging more regularly, I don't know what to post. Not that I lack subjects to write about, but I somehow don't feel like writing about general topics anymore. They have been written about by so many people and in so many different ways. But writing something is required because you want to write. Rants have all been already written about, so repeating same thing again and again will not help either.

Latest controversy - Sanjay Dutt's conviction. Sanjay Dutt was awarded 5 years of imprisonment for possessing and destroying illegal weapons. There have been mixed reactions about his sentence. People say that he has already suffered enough after the bomb blasts and till now. These 20 years were no less than punishment for him. He has already spent 18 months in jail and remaining sentence shall commence after he surrenders, and he has been given four weeks' time to do so.

Now former Supreme Court Judges are suggesting that he should file a petition to grant him the pardon as his conduct in the last 20 years has been pretty much civil. I remember when the bomb blast happened back in 1993 and when he was arrested, people boycotted him and swore never to watch his movies. I am yet to understand why did he take the illegal weapon from the person who was actively involved in the blasts and even tried to destroy them if he was innocent. 

Plea for granting pardon to the Governor - this right can be exercised when one feels that the court has been too harsh on him while granting him the punishment. But in Sanjay Dutt's case, court convicted him for the period prescribed in the act. Now, if everyone starts filing petition just because one is popular or has always had a good conduct, our Government's entire time will go in reviewing these petitions.

Further, isn't Supreme Court's order final and binding? Why such preferential treatment should be given just because one is a celebrity? According to me, he has committed a crime and he should pay for it. If the Government starts overruling Judiciary's decisions for such celebrities, will people be able to trust the Judiciary in future? High time that we start looking at celebrities as regular citizens so far as law and order is concerned.

I have heard many stories about 1993 bomb blasts and his alleged involvement in the same. They can be wrong stories. And since the Court did not find him guilty under any of those charges, we cannot comment anything about them. But those were some serious accusations. Had there been anyone else in his place, I don't think that person could have even seen the daylight post the blasts and till the judgment day.

But again, we are nobody to decide anything about anyone. Many people who have committed crimes are roaming around freely. Innocent people have lost their lives. Petty criminals have spent five years in jail for stealing 100 Rs. because his case date kept getting postponed, mercy petitions don't get reviewed for decades as the President has other important things to look after. Ministers are busy with the scams and people are posting awareness messages online to show that they are doing their bit even though that won't serve any purpose.

So, how was your weekend?

Comeback, Conversations and Dates

I'm back. From where? Where did I go to? Did I even go anywhere? No place that you know of. Or even I do for that matter. But somehow off late I have been feeling some kind of a disconnect from this place. To be honest, I hated this disconnect. But now I again feel like writing. And reading. I have not been reading any blogs for quite some time. Not that I didn't want to, I just didn't feel like. Especially since the time this blogger interface changed. I stopped connecting with the dashboard. I didn't feel like opening blogger.com.

But now I feel like coming back to this space. I miss blogging dearly. Every time there is a conversation about some topic, I end up saying that I have blogged about it, or I have read about this on someone's blog. There was a time when blogging was allotted specific hours each day. It was a kind of ritual. I bet it is still for some of you. 

Whenever an interesting conversation takes place, I decide to blog about it. But it doesn't materialise. Reasons are few, excuses are plenty. A few days ago my friend asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I work, I earn and I spend. There is no goal as such set for the future. But is it even required? We spoke about my so called future plans. She seemed satisfied with my answer and since then has not nagged me for building up some savings.

Another discussion happened with another friend. It was about remembering dates. I am good at remembering dates I want to remember. Rather, I remember dates associated with people I love. Thus if I love you, I will remember all the dates associated with you - your birthday, when did we meet, when did a particular important incident happened with us etc. I even remember the dates which are important to that person. It sounds too scary to even me. And thus I never tell this to anyone that I remember this date when we did this. It doesn't really matter to me. On that day, it wouldn't even click me that it's an important day. But when I think of an incident, I remember it with a date if it's important enough. Phew! I am complicated. Not much, but a bit. And it's good. Too much of simplicity gets boring. 

In other news, yesterday was blog's birthday. I remembered it, but I was working, thus couldn't find any time to post anything. Earlier, I used to write one whole post on such things. Now I laugh at myself for doing so. But earlier, blogging happened regularly. When I used to go on a vacation, I used to set a date and time and put a post on auto publish mode so that my blog is not neglected in my absence. And now I don't even open it regularly. But I still manage to write something. I still enter some entry here however lame it might be. And I will continue doing so.

PS: Ignore the header.

About Inspiration etc.

Inspiration is such a strong word. It's like doing all the amazing work yourself and give the credit to someone else. Well, that's one way of looking at it. Had it not been for that inspiration, you might not have done that work at all. But is it so? I think not. Something just becomes a medium and you make a big deal of it. 

I have heard this so may times about blogging - I have not been regular as I have lost interest, or there is no motivation anymore. What was that factor that made you write a blog? Do you remember writing your very first post? After publishing it, you may have posted the link on every social networking site, or just pinged your friends on gtalk and asked them to read and comment. Or you may simply have published it under an anonymous name and made sure your friends/family never found out about your blog. 

The way you felt back then while writing the first post and how you feel now while writing one is totally different. When you started writing, you never expected to become so popular or so lost among many popular faces. You never thought you would get so many comments, or you never thought you would be disappointed as not a single person read what you wrote with so much of heart and soul. And yet to write. With the hope that next post will be loved by people. But the frequency reduces. The show becomes less frequent due to the lack of audience. Or maybe not. You keep writing without bothering about such things. But then whom are you writing for? Yourself? Then why not in a more private space? Why a public blog? Why not on a piece of paper or in a diary or in a word file?

I ask myself this often. Why do I write here? I love to write, but more importantly, I have fallen in love with writing here, on Neha's blog. It liberates me. It makes me feel closer to myself. I like to go back to my old posts and read what I wrote a few months ago, a few years ago. The kind of language flow I had, the kind of words I used, my emotions, my opinion, my point of view - everything was so different. I can see myself growing as a person. I can see the difference in Neha a year ago and this Neha. Some things have become better, while others, worse. But they have not been the same. People who used to irritate me a year ago are now dear friends. People whom I loved have become strangers. 

And these emotions, these patterns and these incidences are recorded. Noted. Right here. Six months down the line when I read this post, I will remember what exactly I was going through while writing this post. There is a dilemma that won't even be existing then. I will be laughing about it then, or maybe I will regret about something I should have done and didn't do it. Nevertheless, this phase will seem a lot easier and smaller compared to what I am feeling right now.

I'm going on yet another vacation. I need it. Got to introspect about a lot of things, take some important decisions. Ah I sound like a 50 year old already.