Meat Lasagna

Ingredients

6 pasta sheets
1 small brinjal
3 tbsp butter
1/2 cup grated cheddar/mozarella cheese
Salt to taste

For the meat mix:
250 gram minced mutton
3 medium tomatoes
2 tsp tomato ketchup
1 finely chopped onion
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
chopped parsley leaves
salt and chilly flakes to taste

For the white sauce:
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Place the pasta sheets individually in boiling water and simmer till soft. Heat 2 tbsp butter and add the brinjal in the pan. Sprinkle salt and fry till half-cooked. For the white sauce, mix molten butter and flour and mix well so that no lump are formed. Place it on the flame and add the milk. Stir continuously and add salt and pepper to taste. Cook till it comes to a boil.
For the meat mix, heat olive oil and the the chopped onion to it. Fry till it becomes translucent. Add the minced meat and cook for a while. Pour the tomato puree made out of the three tomatoes. Add salt, chilly flakes, sugar and tomato ketchup. Cook for 20 minutes. Add parsley leaves in the end.
Preheat the oven for ten minutes. Grease the baking dish with olive oil. Place 2 pasta sheets at the base of dish. Cover partially with meat mix, brinjal, white sauce and at last with cheese. Repeat the process twice and place it in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes.
Serve hot.

Everybody loves Gaga

My theory is that- everybody either already has or eventually will fall in love with Stefani "Lady Gaga" Germanotta. Lady Gaga known for her unconventionality, has horrendous fashion sense (Lady Gaga wearing her famous meat dress is stark evidence) and her music videos are plain outrageous. Also, she has been in the limelight for quite some time because of the controversial themes of her singles. Despite all this, she has been the apple of every young individual's eyes and just at 25, she's become more popular than Madonna or JLo. I guess, it's her bizarreness that make people go nutty as a fruitcake for her.

Since her very first single 'Poker Face', Gaga has been invincible. And though she's in second place among the most popular music artists on Facebook (Rihanna's on first), I like her more. All her songs have a very strong theme and many can relate to them. For example: 'Bad Romance' talks about her failed relationships. 'Just Dance' is a very happy song and is the ideal one to be played when you're having a hard day. 'Judas' hints about Lady Gaga being in love with someone who is/has been unfaithful to her, taking Judas, Jesus's disloyal disciple as reference.

My personal favorite is 'Born this way' because of the lyrics (Lady Gaga supposedly designs her clothes by herself and writes her lyrics on her own). It encourages everyone to be confident in who they are irrespective of their religion, race, physical appearance or orientation. I especially love the following lines:

"There's nothing' wrong with loving' who you are
She said, 'cause He made you perfect, babe
So hold your head up, girl and you'll go far
Listen to me when I say

I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way!"

I don't know about others but I love Gaga!

Should Euthanasia be legalised?

Funny thing- In the past, when I wasn't aware of the term 'Euthanasia', I used to wonder why mercy killing is called 'Youth in Asia'. Funnier thing- I have observed that this phenomenon is most common among 'youth in Asia', so in a way, I was never really wrong. On a more serious note, should Euthanasia or mercy-killing be legalised?

On medical terms, euthanasia has been defined as the deliberate intervention undertaken with the express intention of ending a life, to relieve intractable suffering. So my verdict is that- only voluntary euthanasia should be decriminalised ie. only those individuals who themselves want to end their life should have the right to carry out such abnegation. E.g. A paralysed man who has lost all hopes of moving any part of his body except his head or a cancer patient with malignant carcinoma which is nowhere near recovery or an AIDs patient who has been condemned by the society and both pains-physical and mental, is unbearable, would rather prefer to die than to live.

Currently Euthanasia is considered as criminal homicide. It may be so for cases of non-voluntary euthanasia, namely child euthanasia or honour killing when two individuals in love are killed by their own family members if they are of different castes or same gotra of the same sub-caste. But for cases like those mentioned above, most certainly not!!

Tarquin Hall just became one of my favorite authors

Tarquin Hall, a British-American writer and journalist is now one of my favorite authors. He is not 'world-famous' nor has he received accolades and critical acclaim for any of his works, but he manages to glue the readers' eyeballs to his books. He is after all the creator of India's Most Private Investigator, Vish Puri (also known as the Indian Sherlock Holmes). Currently dividing his time between Delhi and London, he has traveled across U.S.,U.K.,India,Turkey,Kenya, Pakistan, middle-east and south Asia and has based his writings on these countries and is married to Indian-born BBC-reporter Anu Anand.

The first book I read was To The Elephant Graveyard, a true story about a mentally-ill rogue elephant who goes on a killing spree, trampling to death more than forty individuals in and around the Kaziranga National Park in the state of Assam, India. The elephant is originally a Kunki (a domestic elephant under a mahout) but becomes crazy after ill-treatment by a previous owner. The book describes how Tarquin Hall, travels from Guwahati with a professional shooter into the deep forests of Assam and tracks down the elephant who is later shot by the shooter, Dinesh Choudhary. Adventurous and thrilling, though the book is supposed to be a serious read, some depictions are so hilarious that they make you laugh for several minutes.

The second one was the Case of The Missing Servant, the first book among the Vish Puri Murder Mysteries. A young maid servant in the household of a well-known lawyer in Jaipur goes missing and he is blamed for her murder. Vish Puri, stereo-typically Punjabi and obese, residing in Delhi, takes up the case and travels as far as the Jadugoda mines of Jharkhand, to prove the lawyer's innocence. Both funny and mysterious, this book is a good read.

Pasta with cilantro-basil pesto

Ingredients:
1 n half cup fusilli/farfelle/macaroni pasta
1/4 cup basil leaves
1/4 cup cilantro or coriander leaves
2 tbsp walnuts
1/4 cup grated cheese
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp butter
1 n 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion
1 small tomato
salt, sugar and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Add the basil and cilantro leaves, walnuts, olive oil, cheese, 1/4 tsp salt and garlic into the grinder and grind into a rough paste. The pesto is ready.
2. Boil the pasta in salt water and let it cool.
3. Heat butter in a vessel and fry the finely chopped onion till translucent. Add the milk and the pesto and mix well. Let it simmer for a while and add the pasta, chopped tomato, salt, sugar, pepper to taste.
4. Mix and cook for 2-3minutes.
5. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve hot.

Me, then and now

I have no idea how this amelioration took place in me after I came to college. But the beginning of college life definitely suddenly meant the end of rebelliousness and pugnacity. It suddenly transformed me into a very "Sidha Bachchaa", I don't know how!! I used to be funnier, 'ridiculous-er' and naughtier, during my school days. Enter college and I became a relatively serious, more mature and less fun-loving individual.

Back at school, my environmental science teacher used to call me 'a major source of noise pollution', while teaching, well, noise pollution. Being thrown out of class when I was in the 10th grade was a daily regime. Being asked to keep quiet or being scolded was every day's story. Trips to the principal's office were not that often, but when the time came to visit the office, the scoldings were not in scanty either. During my school days, I have been called many names by the teachers such as 'thick-skinned', 'naughty', 'useless' and downright 'outrageous'. But these were no implication that I stop the madness I had been creating in class or the school corridors; because I knew the teachers loved me. When I left school, I heard from other students that my teachers were full of praise for me. I got fairly good grades, so that helped a lot, I guess. My accomplices, on the other hand, didn't obtain such praiseworthy comments from the teachers, unfortunately, being average in both behavior and marks.

Whereas in college, I've seldom been lectured about my demeanor, always have submitted assignments on time, never been caught eating in class(in school, it was quite the opposite! :P) and maintained a decent CGPA. I have only once been thrown out of class as my teacher most probably overheard that I said that he has a 'piggish' face, and that too, on the first day of the Bengali new year. Otherwise, my etiquette has been close to perfect for the past 2years. Wonder how this drastic change could ever be possible? :O

Chicken Bharta

Ingredients:

500g chicken
1n1/2 cup tomato puree
200g chopped onions
3 black cardamom
3 green cardamom
3 bay leaves
3 to 4 cloves
5tsp white oil
3tsp ginger garlic paste
1tsp red chilly powder
1tsp cumin powder
1tsp turmeric powder
1tsp coriander powder
3tsp cashew paste
1/4 cup curd
1tsp butter
2tsp fresh cream
1 boiled egg
salt to taste


Method:

Add the cloves, cardamom and bay leaves along with the chicken and boil. Separate chicken from bones. Add oil in a pan and fry the onions till golden brown. Make a smooth paste of ginger garlic paste, red chilly powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder and water. Add this paste into the pan and stir well. Add the tomato puree, cashew paste and chicken and mix well. Strain the broth obtained by boiling the chicken into the pan. Add curd, salt and butter to the pan and let the mixture simmer for 5-10 minutes. Garnish with fresh cream, boiled egg and coriander leaves. Serve hot.