Scenes From A Journey

On the local train ...

Foliage

Untied

I got the knots out of this old rubber band with great difficulty and great dexterity - the kind that you impress yourself with. Today, I just put it in this shape and it stayed there. I knew I wouldn't have much more opportunity for photos today (as most other days), so I captured it.

Has it ever struck you that you just have to transpose one letter for 'untied' to turn into 'united'?

Darkness

Which One Will She Pick?

Actually, I know, because they just called me. For someone who has used the Internet longer than they have, the credit for this idea goes to my parents. Every time my mother spied something she thought I would like, they would take pictures of the stuff and e-mail it to me to choose. After I spoke to them, they would go and buy it.

Today, I did the same thing. I will buy it tomorrow.

It's Hot!

Notes

For tomorrow's meeting

A Great Dinner

Thanks to this post

Jasmines & Jewellery

Sometimes when we buy jewellery, the salesperson ceremoniously puts jasmine in it and delivers it. Not sure if it's just this shop or everywhere but this is at least the second time I'm seeing it.

The First Time I Cut A Pineapple

Cut, peel


Experiment a bit


Lose patience, hack, finish.

'Grilled Fillet O Fish'

Or so he would have us believe. I believe they were mere fractions, they were so thin!

A Treat

Rum & Raisin Chocolate, at work

All Smiles

Flora & Fauna

Spice Route

Or the easy way out, to be more specific.

At one teaspoon of mustard and half a teaspoon of cumin, there was no way I could use the grinder to powder this - even my coffee grinders, now defunct, wouldn't have worked. I have a small pestle and mortar but they are very heavy and I didn't feel like washing even the pestle. So I took a napkin, spread the roasted spices on one side, covered it with the rest of the napkin and pounded away at them for a few minutes. This is the second time I'm doing this and it's not a bad idea.

Shadow Play

Making An Impression

But will it have an effect? Wish me luck.

In pic: I just finished a sweaty hour of yoga. This was the first time I made an impression on the mat in the two months I've owned it, I found it intriguing and it had to be photo of the day!

Give Me Red

Actually, the splash of white is equally striking - I made rogan josh this morning and could only take two pictures before I stirred the gravy so this is the best I could get. I love the contrast between the colours though the quality is not good.

This is also an argument for sticking to Kashmiri Chilli Powder when it's asked for in a recipe!

Posing, Positioning

I don't have a balcony and my apartment is built so that the amount of sunlight it gets is not too much. I do not know why the architect deprived only this apartment of a balcony but the rest of the design was said to be good - "no heat", they said. Whatever the truth of that might be come summer, post-blogging, I realised it's tough to take bright pictures as there's no direct sunglight, my camera's flash isn't powerful and I don't do much even after reading tutorials to get over that problem. There is one room in the mornings that gets some light so I drag my 'clothesline stand' there, position the dish on the platform created by the wires and take my pictures there.

Yeah, even after the day's washing is hung out to dry.

Go here for the recipe.

To Market, To Market

Fruits, flowers, treats and spices


Bangles


A close-up of the scene in the first photo. The stuff in white is plastic cutlery. At the end of the row is what is traditionally called a 'peas shop' here - it usually sells all the stuff that makes up simple, cheap treats - puffed rice plain, fried and jazzed up in many other ways, a variety of split peas, peanuts, flaked rice, and what have you.

Stressed Spelt Backwards

At The Tailor's

Crawling With People

This scene reminded me of how ants crawl up and down the walls and other surfaces. It was noisy outside, with the sounds of traffic and people, but so much more peaceful than inside the mall. We didn't linger, just made our purchases and were out in 15 minutes, thankful for the great outdoors!

Bengali Meal

After years of thinking it had wound up, we rediscovered this upscale, mostly Bengali restaurant tucked away in a bylane today. I ordered mustard fish, this was taken just before I finished off that piece of fish. You can see the fish bones and the bitten green chillis to the side.

Bad picture, I know, but it was one of those dimly lit restaurants and I was using my mobile phone.

Household Tip

I read somewhere long ago that if there's too much smoke from frying trapped inside the house, one way to get rid of it is to wet a towel and walk around the house. I fried something today and within no time, there was a pall of smoke in the hall, so I followed the tip, as absurd as the image it created. It seemed to work rather well.

By the way, this is an actual photo - a self-portrait taken while I was following the advice - I put the camera in auto click mode and went about flapping the napkin. What a funny image that must have made!

Night Lights

This is one of those make-do pictures I mentioned in my previous post. I like the flash of green, though!

An Unusual Breakfast

It might not look like it, but this is not one of those make-do photos that I sometimes click for this photo-a-day project. For me, it IS an unusual breakfast. I usually have just the papaya or some other fruit. For some reason, I was very thrilled that I thought up this, all because I had the mushrooms and they spurred me on, reminding me of some round, gleaming fried mushrooms in a breakfast buffet on one of my much desired (and much left to be desired) holidays.

I didn't store the two eggs with the rest of their ilk in the fridge as these two specimens were very dirty and I had to perform an act of precision to ensure I broke the shell and let the yolk come out of the clean part. (Yeah, I can be OCD sometimes.) The mushrooms and the eggs were perfect - the papaya, for all its look and size, was a big letdown. It was unripe and I had to discard most of it.

Sambar It Isn't!

I used radish in place of the yam, forgot to add the jaggery, but the Gujarati dal still turned out good!

A Long, Hard, Weary Day

I guess that's how it's been for those two men, going by the way they've slumped in that vehicle.

Not So Remote

It Rained!

Last night, there was some distant thunder and such scanty rain the earth didn't even get wet. Waking up in the middle of the night, I heard water gushing out of the rainwater drains - it made for a better day than the rest we've had so far. It made for a grey day.