Baking!

I have always been a fairly decent cook. I have tried various cuisines, and mostly my expertise is in savory dishes. Never been fond of sweets/desserts and also never tried to make them. Of course I have tried the occasional Kesari and payasam with my mother's recipes and tips. They have always come out ok. When it came to baking, I have also gone savory. I have made Au gratins, which have come out great. I have also successfully Indianised them to suit our taste buds.

However, baking desserts is something I never did, thought of doing or had the slightest idea of how to either! When I had my LG, it suddenly hit me that I was now a mother. It was now my duty to feed her and her little friends dishes that they would love (in future of course, considering she was only a month old and only BF then). That, I was certain was going to include cakes, brownies, muffins and the like. Panic hit! Then my ever amazing mom made payasam on the day she turned one month old. This got the ball rolling and I decided to celebrate her birthday every month (on the date she was born) until she turned one year old. Celebrate that is by making some dessert and making her wear new clothes. The dessert of course has always been only for us so far (since she is only five months old now), poor baby!

Since I hated Indian sweets even more and they were quite complex in their recipes for my taste, I turned to baking. I baked my first ever cake the day my LG turned one month old. My resourceful husband came back with several bags of flour when I asked him to buy one. This also was an important factor in ensuring that I had to bake more and challenged myself to do so before the infamous little weevils made the flour their food. Thus started my baking endeavour with one good reason and several sillier reasons. But amazingly, I have in five months baked about seven cakes and many batches of muffins! I am happy to report that not only can I bake decently, but I have also finished the bags of flour that my husband bought! :)

Now I am an official baker, stocking chocolates, raisins, cinnamon, baking powder, flour etc., Me! Can you imagine? Maybe you can if you have always baked; but me! One challenge faced and passed with decent colours. It has been fun. Let me know if you are like me and need some motivation and tips to start baking. Would love to help start up all the fun and fun it has certainly been! :)

What to write!

I wanted to write a post. I have been thinking of a nice post idea this whole week. The news is just bringing in more and more bad news. Girls being raped all over the place, with our politicians claiming stupid reasons and solutions. This just makes me sad and embarassed. Did not feel like blogging about it.

Women are still discriminated against all the time. Sad state of affairs and I had no interest in blogging about that in detail either. In fact I went home one day and looked at my daughter with tears in my eyes, since I produced one more 'girl'! She will have to bear all the physical pains that nature generously doles out for women, work twice as hard as a man would ever do, and still be always treated as a second class citizen! Will it be any better for her when she is an adult? For her sake I hope so, but I am not so positive about it based on history!

Will things ever change? I am not asking for equal opportunity. I do not believe I have to ask anybody for it! It is mine to take and use, but I wish 'men' would stop acting as if we are stealing what is only theirs! I wish they would stop acting as if they are children to be taken care of when it suits them, but behave as if they are the heads making all the decisions when it suits them too. Please understand that neither do you need to be taken care of nor do you get to act like bosses around women all the time.

Whom do we blame for this pathetic attitude? Society? But who in society? Parents who bring up sons and daughters differently? Who see daughters as a thing to 'protect' and as a 'burden'? Parents who do not teach their sons that women are human just like them, with the same rights and duties? Women with good careers, belonging to higher classes, don't kid yourselves by thinking you are above such discriminations. Look around and it is all around and affects the best of us. We are guilted into thinking and doing things that a man would never think of or worry about.

For example, my full time maid is from Sri Lanka. Her husband and son are both working there. She wants to send more money next month and I was enquiring why, since I knew she wanted to buy some gold for herself. She says it is Diwali and they will expect her to send money, so that they can buy new clothes and celebrate. I asked her why she has to send when they are both working and she says they wille expect her to, since she is earning abroad now. She is guilty she is earning more and living comfortably abroad! She is guilted into believing that she is more comfortable. She is also guilted into believing that she has left them abandoned, without anyone to 'take care' of the men of the house! You see how she loses in all angles? It does not matter that she had to leave the comfort of her house, move to a new country and live with strangers. She also works very hard here, but all that is unappreciated.

Well, this post just turned out to be a disgruntled rambling. What else can we do when faced with such issues, whcih we cannot change ourselves? It requires the whole community to change its views and it can only be accomplished when all women are disgruntled so and express it. So here is my disgruntled essay! My LG (Little girl henceforth), take heart. We women will keep trying to change the world for all little girls like you!

Back!

Wow! My last post was in April!!! So much for my resolution to blog at least few posts every month. What I have been up to is a lot though. For one I managed to create and produce a totally perfect baby girl in May this year :) This was followed by a measly seven weeks of maternity leave, plus eight weeks of annual leave. For anyone who thinks maternity leave as a 'vacation', I will have many choice words. I am tired of people who ask me how my vacation has been. My idea of a vacation is not having to push a full term baby out and then spending sleepless days and nights taking care. Breastfeeding woes will be a totally different post altogether! Initial days of euphoria, followed by bouts of depression later, things got back to normal. Well almost. Now that I had a little person to think of constantly, to worry about if she is hungry, wet, sleepy, or just bored, life was not as easy. But then things started falling in place, thanks to my adorable mom's help. Meanwhile I also got a full time maid and hence things were definitely looking better. Then mom left! Then the date I was planning to resume work arrived. Thanks to planning, planning and more planning, things were quite smooth. Now it is a month and a half since I started working and my angel is four months old! Been meaning to get back to blogging forever and finally did it today! This post is just to say hi, if at all I have any readers left. If you have been wondering thats where I have been. At least this is my excuse ;)

More dogfighting news

More great news here regarding dogfihgting discovered in the Phillippines
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/pit-bulls-philippine-dog-fights-euthanized-16067234
This time the animal welfare society decided to euthnize the poor animals rather than trying to adopt them out. A wise decision to end the poor animals sufferings if thats how mean people are! Animals do not deserve to suffer like this ever.

What kind of morons get their pleasure out of seeing animals fight in a ring or even viewing them online? What is their upbringing? I should really do some research on this and maybe get myself a doctorate based on this mental sickness!
May the dear dogs RIP and never have to suffer again.

World house sparrow day!

Today March 20th, is observed as World House Sparrow Day http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/kids/article3006413.ece
How nice it was to grow up with sparrows in our childhood along with so many other birds. We should all do our small bit in saving these beautiful, important creatures around our house and keep them from becoming extinct in the ecosystem.
Amazingly we have plenty of them in Doha, in spite of the crazy weather variations. My morning routine begins with a cup full of rice for them :)

In the News- 30-01-2012

In the news today……….
Remember the Taliban office in Qatar holding talks with the US government? Here is some follow-up:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Americas/US-Taliban-prisoner-release-talks-fail-report/Article1-804033.aspx
No matter what the outcome, I will always remember this as the time when the US negotiated with terrorists, in spite of their famous one liner “The US does not negotiate with terrorists”

On a different note, loved the new ad of The Hindu newspaper, hitting back at the Times of India with the catch phrase “Stay ahead of the Times”.
http://www.bestmediainfo.com/2012/01/the-hindu-hits-back-at-toi-with-its-new-campaign/
It is most definitely true that Times of India feeds its readers with a lot of crap and sensationalized news; finally the Hindu has stood up and made a great come back ad for it. From the point of view of ad film making in which I am involved to a certain extent, this ad is really good in making people think of what is more important- pulp fiction or actual current affairs.

Finally at least one article exploring few aspects of the baby deaths in West Bengal, India:
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/lack-of-facilities-behind-crib-deaths-in-malda/225552-3.html
Of course this article does not explore completely the cause of the deaths, but at least talks about the social issue of child marriages prevalent in this region. So far all articles reported only justification from politicians saying it was not their fault, but the other party’s’. This also came from hospital inspection authorized team lead, much to the dismay of many Indians. An inspection team is sent to explore the conditions and report problems causing this widespread problem in the state, not to publicize your personal political preference/opinion.

Also loved some of these articles and the comments section of these articles in the ‘Opinions’ section of The Hindu, exploring policies of Norway’s Child Protection Services (CPS). The first article, written by, I assume a Norway national is an eye-opener:
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article2842917.ece
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/letters/article2842992.ece
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/letters/article2837613.ece

In the news!

Inspiring articles in the newspaper today:
http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/society/article2798677.ece
And here we all are claiming we don't have enough time!

http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/money-and-careers/article2795884.ece