Here’s the recipe if you would like to try at home (do try it in winters as your fridge is full of tomatoes bought at super-cheap rates). It won’t take more than 10 minutes for the entire preparation.

Ingredients:

• 4-5 tomatoes (bigger size), enough for 3 people
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 2-3 green chillies, again finely chopped (amount of chillies depends on your capacity)
• Coriander leaves finely chopped.
• 1 tsp of mustard seeds
• 1 tsp of mustard oil (not a problem if you don’t have mustard oil. You can use any other vegetable oil too)
• Pinch of salt to taste

Method of preparation:

• Wash the tomatoes first (if you are buying it at the local market, you will understand why that’s important)
• If you are using a microwave oven, place the tomatoes in a microwave safe bowl, big enough to hold all tomatoes. Cover it with a lid as tomatoes explode, dirtying the sides of the microwave oven. It may be ready in 3 minutes. Check if the insides are soft.
• If you are using a gas stove, place the tomatoes on a tava. The tomatoes will ooze water. When it softens remove it from the stove.
• Now put the softened tomatoes in a mixer and grind it into a fine paste. No need to add water as tomatoes already ooze water.  Ma would generally use her hands here. But it would leave small lumps. By grinding it in a mixer-grinder you have a puree-like paste. Also you don’t get your hands dirty
• To the paste that we got from the step above, add the finely chopped onion, chillies and coriander leaves. Add salt to taste. Mix it well.
• Take a tadka pan. Add the mustard oil and mustard seeds. Put it on the gas stove. Once you get the popping sound from the mustard seeds, add it to your tomato paste.
• Close it with a lid so that the aroma stays until you have served it.

Try it at home today. Bet you will not be disappointed. Please tell in comments how you liked this recipe.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,100 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Those were cold wintry nights. As I was in a dilemma whether to attend to the nature’s call, an old lady came and relieved me. She unzipped my short and asked me to pee.

But what amazed me most was that I had peed in the washroom. How come it wet my bed?

It was a cold wintry night again yesterday. I again felt the need to pee. I first thought of keeping it under control until the morning. Then when it pressed for immediate redressal, I checked my cell for the time. It was five minutes past three in the night – can I hold it for another five hours?

No, I felt. I removed the blanket and sat up. Through the dark, my legs finally found the correct combination of slippers.

But as I stood up, I could hardly stand. Somehow I reached the hall, but just when I was about to reach for the washroom door, I suddenly found my legs taking me towards the kitchen on the other side of the hall. I didn’t stand still near the kitchen as well; my legs again took me toward the washroom. And once again towards the kitchen. I was going round and round the hall. In desperation, I shouted aloud my brother’s name. But not a word was coming out.

And then my eyes opened suddenly. My god, I had been dreaming all along. I checked my cell for time – it was five minutes past three in the morning.

The train reached Gaya sometime after 2 o’clock, a good 45 minutes late. Also came the occupant of the window seat. Unlike his name, R.K. Verma (I had read the names of people in my compartment), that made me concoct an image of a middle aged man, he appeared not more than a college going boy.

“41 number seat mera hai”, he said to me, hinting that I make way for him.

“Haan baitho na. Mera seat upar tha toh ham soche ki baith lete hain thodi der”
(Please sit. I am on the upper berth. So I sat here for some time)

Understanding that I wasn’t without a reservation, he asked me to remain seated. He made himself comfortable besides me. I had some more time to take in the natural sights of Bihar- greenery, small ponds, children bathing in them,  large open fields, larger rivers; quite unlike the river Yamuna in Delhi that is not very different from the nullahs that abound the city.

Some half an hour later the TTE arrived looking for the passenger who had boarded from Gaya. He instantly took out his ticket.

“Koi ID hai”, the TTE asked. He produced his Election card.

“Kiska ticket chori kiya hai be”
(Who have you stolen this ticket from)

The tone of the TTE took me for a surprise. I had been watching him from the last four hours and he had been very polite in his dealings. When I asked him if he would require an ID with my electronic ticket receipt, he had said it was okay.

The passenger was both surprised and afraid. Surprised because he didn’t expect this kind of a thing to happen even when he had a valid ticket. Afraid because of the TTE had accused him of stealing.

Frightened he asked what was the problem with his ticket.

Problem was that he was Sarfaraz Alam, and the ticket was booked for one R.K. Verma.

For the booking clerks at the ticket counter, typos are common place. But the two names were too diverse to have been jumbled.

In the words of the TTE – Ye kaise katua (a derogatory term used for Muslims) se Hindu ban gaya.

This definitely seemed the handiwork of a tout selling some other persons ticket. It turned otherwise. He had himself got the ticket done at the ticket counter.

So what does he do now, he asked the TTE. A full ticket would be issued again with a penalty but no seat, that made up more than double the cost of normal ticket.

“Dekhiye na bhaiya, ham tatkal me rat bhar line me khade hokar ticket katayen, aur ab yeh sila mila.

(Although there is a Tatkal facility available in Indian Railways, mostly it is the agents that are able to use it for a premium from passengers. If ordinary passengers want it, they need to be present at the Tatkal counter before 8 in the morning. Within minutes the counter closes. You can get the ticket only if you are fortunate. Some people stand whole night in this queue)

This passenger was fortunate at the ticket counter. But fate caught him here in the train.

What will he do now, I asked.

“I don’t have that much money. I don’t know what to do. I had to urgently reach Delhi. It will be very difficult if I don’t reach on time.”.

It’s no use crying here. Cry before the TTE instead. Ask him to take some money and allow him to travel somehow.

He came back some twenty minutes later looking for his bag.

“He won’t allow me to travel otherwise. He has asked me to get down at the next station or he will report me to railway police”.

There was little anyone of us there could have helped him with. He hadn’t asked for money. Also none of us would have helped him with money even if he had asked for it. We didn’t know him.

After he went we shared a few stories of how corrupt these TTEs are and got back to our earlier routine.

Around 5 in the evening, a middle aged man came checking for his seat.

Bhaisahab 41 number seat mera hai. Aap bura nahi mane toh please mujhe baith Jane dijiye.
(41 number seat is mine. If its okay can I sit down)

Yes sure, I said and made way for him.

As he made himself comfortable, he threw the conversation at other passengers, “janey kiska chehra dekh kar uthe the aaj. Bada ganda jatra raha”.
(Today’s journey has been very bad. God knows whose face I saw the first in the morning)

What happened, someone asked.

“God knows how my seat got exchanged with a mian (Muslim). Ever since I have been running from here to there”.

As if he had bought news of a dear one. Almost everyone asked in unison – Where is that boy? Did he get his seat?

No! He got down at Dehri. Somehow I got his phone number. I have asked him to someway reach Mughalsarai. The train stops there for some half hour. He too needs to reach Delhi urgently as he has a job to join.

So Sarfaraz was true about the urgency.

After that he would either tell us about the progress of Sarfaraz. Or one of us would ask him.

Sarfaraz missed the train by some minutes at Mughalsarai. But he made up at Allahabad.

Sarfaraz came visiting at night. He told us how the TTE was not ready to take anything less than Rs.1000. This would obviously have gone into the TTEs pocket instead of going into railways. Since he didn’t have that much money he decided to get down. He was on his way home when he received the call from Vermaji. Since that time he had been running from train to train.

Finally a happy ending.

I was loving the smell. It brought back memories of times when we used to be so excited about firing these and many other kinds of crackers. Papa was strict about bringing the crackers only on the afternoon of diwali. We waited all day for the crackers and Ganesh-Lakshmi idols. We used to show off the idols between friends.

Another smell that takes me back to those good times is the smell of paint and lime. Distemper was unheard of in those times or was too inaccesible for us. So it was limestone wash that was given to the walls a few days before deepawali. After that it was time for painting the doors and windows. While residents were allowed to mix different colours for their walls, the doors and windows were a necessary blue for all, be it a peon’s quarter or the general manager sahab’s bunglow.

What makes you nostalgic about the Deepawali of your own childhood days?

My relationship with God is very much like my relationship with neighbours – I don’t deny their presence; my hands automatically move for the incense stick after bath, like they join to say namaste whenever I cross paths with my neighbours; I celebrate the various Hindu festivals just the same way as I attend their functions – but I remember both, god and neighbours, only when in need.

I was preparing to sleep. Things to do the next day kept coming despite me trying hard to let sleep take over.

The train of thoughts was finally slowing down when I felt a mosquito settling on my forehead. I slowly raised my hand, not to let it feel the movement, so that I can catch it unawares, crush it to death, as a revenge for disturbing my sleep.

I was almost about to finally come crushing on the mosquito when the train of thoughts resumed.

Would it be good to kill the thing? Wouldn’t god be angry for having killed a living organism, one of His creations? What if his anger also spills over to the big thing I am planning to do tomorrow?

I remember that as kids we used to deliberate a lot on paap (sin) and punya (goodness). More often it was about paap. It was our parents’ way to instill fear of bad.

You have hurt that dog’s puppy. Tumhe paap lagega.

While the results of paap were not explained in detail to us Hindu kids, the Muslim kids were told that the sinners would have to burn in fire and hot oil on the day of the Quyamat.

But I have long grown up from those times. Why am I deliberating on those things now? Just as a lawyer who uses loopholes in the law, I too have used religion in the way it suited me – on colder days if bathing was necessary because of a Hindu ritual, I have skipped saying that a Brahmin never gets dirty.

So why today? May be its because I want god’s blessings for the important thing I am planning to do.

What wrong is it when we kill an insect that bears diseases? So many people die of Malaria and Dengue every year.

I had taken a lot of time making up my mind. The mosquito had long left. So had my sleep. Unable to sleep I decided to blog about it while killing at least three mosquitoes in the process.

Turned out she was not here to ask for work. Instead she stayed in our colony and was wife of a now deceased Coal India employee. So, how come she had fallen to this state?

Time for the woman’s story, who we later addressed as Dadi.

Abdul Sattar Khan had four wives. One divorced him and two died. Dadi was the second and the most favourite wife. However, it was the fourth wife who bore him a daughter before dying during childbirth. Care for the child, Shama, fell in Dadi’s hands, which she carried out as well as her real mother. In Shama’s sixteenth year, her father died one night. That fateful night, as he was returning home from the colliery, making a short stop at a country wine shop, he was hit by a speeding truck. The mother-daughter duo was still in mourning when they heard another bad news.

As Sattar Khan had died during office timings (officials decided to ignore for a pricehis detour to the wine shop), his job would go to someone in his family. Sattar Khan was survived by his wife and daughter. However, the job fell in the hands of another woman, Yashmin (again with the help from the officials). When the couple was childless, they had come to treat Yashmin, a relative’s daughter, as their own. Even when they had their own child, they continued to treat her in much the same way, also making all arrangements for her marriage. Yashmin paid for all the love in this manner. She had her reasons. Her husband was not doing very well in his carpenter’s job. She, along with some officials, managed to transfer the job to her. As Dadi was illiterate, she had unknowingly put her thumb impression at all the right places. So now the job that should lawfully been hers, was of another.

To get the job back, she wanted assistance from father. Papa was in the Personnel Department and Dadi had been assured that he would help.

Papa helped. After much paperwork, it was finally proved that Yashmin had unlawfully taken what was due to Dadi and her daughter. By the time, the order for return of job arrived, Shama had already become a major and there was no problem in her taking up the job.

But the story doesn’t end here. Unlike movies where the climax is generally happy or sad, life has a series of climaxes, alternating between happy and sad.

Shama joined Coal India as a guard. The mother-daughter duo started to live happily. There were more things to think now apart from how to arrange for the day’sfood. One of the most important things to do was to marry Shama.

“There will be many people who will want to marry your daughter just for her money”, father cautioned Dadi.

“She has struggled a lot to get you in the place that you are now. Always take care of your mother”, he advised Shama.

However, this daughter too was to pay back for Dadi’s love in much the same way as Yashmin. Shama got married, to an unemployed man. He used to work as a fitter, but he left that job after marriage. They bore three children – two boys and one girl. It was Dadi’s responsibility to take care of them, plus do all the house chores while Shama was at her job. She did it all. They were her daughter’s children – isn’t interest dearer than principal? Despite this, the attitude of Shama and her husband was not good towards her. He used to drink and beat them all, even Shama. But they made out soon. They relationship between husband and wife is such. But there is no place for a mother – only as a caretaker for children when they are away to make their careers. Now even Shama used to beat her.

Dadi died unusually late, at the age of seventy. People didn’t feel sorry for her death. They had wished for her death for long; at least she would be relieved of the suffering.

Only the children were by her side on the day of her death. Shama was working. Her husband was out playing card.

I recently came across an example of the latter at Snapdeal, a popular deals site. I was welcomed by their daily mailer proudly stating the deal of the day – a voucher from Flying Machine worth rs. 3000 for just rs.150. That sounded too good to be true. Then I thought that may be Flying Machine has finally reallized that the brand kept apart, the cloth is not worth more than rs.150.

It turned out that Flying Machine really had no intentions of getting generous; it was just another fine conditions trick that they had played. For rs.150 you got a voucher worth rs.3000 but you could only use it after you purchased for another rs.3000.

Disappointed I closed the website instantly. And there in lies my point. I may be attracted (read duped) to click on a link or banner, BUT once I know of what lies within, I would move out. This is unlike physical stores, from which this concept of attractive banners seem to have been borrowed. Attracted by the banner I step into the store. But even when I learn that the offer comes with fine conditions, I do check out the other offers or products, basically for two reasons. First the store attendant doesn’t let me leave so easily. He starts showing me a host of other products and offers. Second my attention too deviates to the other products that the store owner has so painfully stacked. Unfortunately the same formula may not work for for the web stores as well.

What do you think about this?

The name thinking often used to be the most difficult part. From SEO point of view, it was necessary that it had all the important keywords. But that made the name too simple and thus quite predictable.

If it’s so necessary for domain names to have the keywords, why did Google not follow the rule while naming itself or its other products. Why did Facebook or say Hulu have a name that didn’t tell what they aimed to do.

So that’s where my question comes up – is it necessary for brand names to be meaningful?

By the way if you have money, which Jay and I didn’t want to spend, you can take help of a site called Pickydomains.com where you can request contributors to suggest a name for a commission to be paid to them.

Coming back to Jay again, we used to joke that he should be rewarded for buying the most unused domain names.

Changing phone numbers is so very common these days. Gone are the landline days or even days when a sim used to cost a fortune. Now a sim comes for as low as Re.25 and I have known some people (particularly plumbers, electricians etc) who change number in a fortnight.

So my acquaintance, even though not from the occupations mentioned above, happened to change her number.

My call was taken by a girl. Even before I could have explained who I was, there seemed to be a struggle at the other side to take the phone. The girl that I just talked to seemed to have lost in the struggle because an older lady started to talk.

(In a heavy bihari accent) aap batayiye to kiske ghar se bol rahe hain.

Ghar se! Ham Aditya bol rahe hain dilli se!

Dilli se? Accha aap Pathakwa ke yahan se nahi bol rahe hain?

Pathak! Nahi nahi ham dilli se bol rahe hai. Anita se bat karna tha. Wo hai kya?

Yahan koi Anita nahi rehti hai. Wrong number.

She cut the call and I heaved a sigh of relief.

Looked like I had just been mistaken for a Pathak who had something going on with the girl who took the call.