Author: manuscrypts

  • Khazana

    ..is relatively difficult to locate. As is obvious, the name really doesn’t help when one asks for directions. The first guy giggled, the second guy actually asked ‘Kitne ka hai?’ But like all good treasures its awesome when you’ve located it. So, Khazana is this little, but apparently very popular food joint in Richmond Town, that you must go to, when beef is the order of the day. The directions are actually pretty simple. When coming from the Koramangala direction on Hosur Road, take a left at the junction just before you hit Richmond Road. (i.e. the Fanoos junction). On this road, take the first left. After you’ve turned left and gone for about 50m, this road curves towards the left (there’s an electrical shop at the corner), but there is a tiny road that goes towards the right. Enter the road on the right, and you’ll find Khazana on the left. Yep, you guessed it, there was no signboard. 🙂

    Parking for two-wheelers is easy. Four wheelers can perhaps find a spot not-so-nearby. Definitely not on the same street, its way too narrow. Yo fancy car may not even enter it. 😀 The place has just over half a dozen tables, with functional furniture. This is not a fancy joint, you come here for the awesome food. Remember that. Okay.

    CIMG1202 Each table has a menu card pasted on the wall right next to it.(click for a larger image)

    We wanted to try out as many items as possible. The portion sizes helped. We thought it’d be better if we gave them a fair warning that we were on a mission, so we ordered everything at one go. We were warned that everything was ready, but we didn’t heed it. so in about 5 minutes, everything we asked for was on the table. The ‘delay’ must’ve been for the Kerala Paratha, which were freshly made.

    Confession: I took the camera to get a few pics – therestlessquill has been suggesting it for quite a while now). However the first five minutes after the food appeared went by in a blur. I remembered the camera only then, and it was too late. What remained wasn’t a pretty sight. 😀

    We started with the Button Kabab, which also turned out to be our favourite item. Beef kababs, perfectly pop-into-your-mouth sized. Good masala, slightly spicy, goes very well with erm, Coke. 🙂 We then moved on the Kerala Paratha, with Chicken Kali Mirchi and Phal (beef chops). The chicken dish was quite peppery, as the name suggested, and went well with the paratha. The phal meat was very good, didn’t require a chewing marathon at all, but I didn’t like the peppery dark green masala much. We then moved on the signature dish – the beef biriyani, with mince (Kheema) for company. The biriyani is relatively non-oily and once you’ve tried it, you’ll know why people visit the place just for this. Sacrilege, but I’d have liked it even better if the beef piece had some masala too. The rice did make up for it, and with the kheema (beef), made an excellent combination.  Both the items fall in the ‘must-have’ category. Note that we only ordered one plate of each, and shared. We wanted to try an Irani Roti too, but once we’d polished off the second plate of Button Kabab, it was an impossible task.

    The menu, you’ll notice, says “Almighty gave us exquisite things to eat. The least we do is prepare them well and serve them to you.” Now that’s a mission statement that has been followed thoroughly. All of the above cost us Rs.270. So make sure you skip a meal and drop in here, to meat your destiny!

    Khazana Food Paradise, #16, Aga Abdulla Street, Richmond Town, Bangalore – 560025

  • Process pool..

    “You’re such a hypocrite”, said D, as i drummed on the laptop impatiently willing the folder to open faster. Not getting the usual retort from me, she continued, “On one hand, you want to slow down life, and on the other hand, you want things to move real time fast” A valid point, but rather than hypocrisy, I’d prefer calling it a paradox. After all, who likes to be labeled a hypocrite? 😀  I wondered whether it is possible for the two to co-exist.

    There’s another tangential constant running debate in the household. It is again related to time and time saving. It is also related to the one above because it is to do with processes. The impatience above is because I know the comp can do it faster, having seen it done before. So if it is a process, i believe it should run that way and that fast (if not faster) always. Yes, I realise that’s a simplistic way of looking at it, and there are variables involved, but yet.

    Now this is something I carry outside the comp too. And so it is that when D is doing a chore, I immediately strive to enlighten her on the exact process to be followed for maximum efficiency. My logic is that if I have walked a certain path, and learned from it, I should bring her up to speed, so that she can build on it, rather than start from Step 1. D hates it, especially when I can remark that as a software professional, i can understand why she should absolutely abhor processes. Cheap thrill, you guessed! Meanwhile, it doesn’t help that sometimes D discovers more efficient means of doing the chores. I shall, of course, have my revenge soon, when I become a home maker and master that ancient mysterious art, that in spite of several examples to the contrary is still considered a playground dominated by women – cooking. 🙂

    And its not just D, I inflict this behaviour on poor unsuspecting folk who appear on my chat window and want to discuss things I would be interested in. Thanks to the blogs, it sometimes turns out to be something I have written about, and so I immediately share a link. Its a way of sharing my perspectives before we discuss the matter. I look forward to a time when i can do it in real conversations too. A ‘Matrix’ like USB port in your head, so that i can feed in the knowledge, and you can say ‘I know Jujitsu’ and factor in my arguments when we discuss. I believe this will save us both time. But of course, I’ve been warned by quite a few people that its positively rude, so these days I politely manage to repeat what I have written earlier.

    But now comes the clincher, I sometimes have a problem when someone does this to me. I irritably say “Let me do it myself/my way” and also add for good measure, “Don’t you have any respect for my subjective experience?”

    No, its not erm, hypocrisy, I still think its a paradox, or perhaps two ends of a spectrum. On one hand, processes  help crunch time and on the other, the subjective experience is important, and perhaps might help discover better ways. The choice, I guess, depends on the situation, our interest, and our intent. Or does it run deeper and tell us how we want our life to be? As Morpheus said in a different context “..there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path”

    until next time, don’t respond with links in comments!! :p

  • Golmaal Paratha

    No, I didn’t make that up. There is actually a restaurant in Koramangala by that name, a couple of buildings before Tunday Kababi, and almost immediately after Coconut Grove. (map) The bright green board is difficult to miss, parking isn’t too difficult. We got there by around 7.30 and were the first customers, but by the time we left, many more tables were filled up. The color theme inside the restaurant might make the non vegetarians and Martian paradnoids uneasy. If you are a super-heroes fan, you’d be pardoned for wondering if you’d stepped into the Green Lantern’s/ Riddler’s secret lair. People who’re fond of green might have to be restrained. Yep, it is that overwhelming! But non-green people, don’t worry, you can focus on the food.

    The menu has 99 items, and has been uploaded by the wonderful Roopashree, on Burrp. For once, the vegetarians have a clear advantage, while the non vegetarians have about a dozen choices. But to be honest, there are so many veg options that those with a less steely resolve might buckle. Greens, beans, chinese, cheese, pepper combinations, hot’n’spicy, ginger, corn, potato, green chutney – these are some of the few… sections! Yep, you read that right, you have choices within these!! Now, even with a dozen options, the non vegetarians might find it a little difficult to narrow down, and after a few rounds of discussion, we chose a Chicken Kadai Masala Paratha and a Mutton Pepper Masala Paratha. An entire page is devoted to drinks too – lassi, milk shake, butter milk, coolers, fresh juices, jaljeera.. So we also ended up ordering a Mango lassi and a Mint & Ginger Lime juice.

    The Mint & Ginger lime juice arrived first and was quite tasty though the mint overshadowed the ginger completely. The Mango lassi, we were quite sure was made of Slice (or some such) and not fresh mangoes, and that was quite a disappointment. We were told that the chicken paratha would take a while. There was heavy traffic, so it must’ve been difficult for it to cross the road. Ok, sorry 😀

    The parathas arrived a bit later, and no, they weren’t green :p . Each paratha comes in a thali-plate with curd, pickle, chana, onion and a couple of chutneys. The hot’n’sweet red chutney is quite good. I started with the mutton paratha, and it was quite spicy. It didn’t help that i decided to try out the chilly too. The pepper was a bit unevenly distributed and the salt was a shade above what was required. The chicken paratha was very good, though you should avoid it if you don’t like capsicum. Unlike the mutton, which was minced, this one even had tiny pieces of chicken, and was only moderately spicy. The parathas are much larger than the regular size, so unless you’ve been fasting all day or are especially aggressive with food, one should be adequate.

    The service is quite pleasant, they check if your paratha was good and also have a good feedback form. The first place where someone actually asked my opinion too. Usually they convey their opinion of me by giving  D the form and ignoring me. Here, they gave us two forms, and even ask about the music, which was quite decent. In my excitement, I forgot to add that one possible option they could add (they ask for that) was egg parathas.

    The meal cost us just below Rs.350. Drop in for a unique menu, and decent food at very reasonable prices.

    Golmaal Paratha, 1st A Cross Road, KHB Colony, 5th Block, Koramangala. Ph: 42085757

    PS. The place has WiFi, but requires a code.

    Menu at Zomato

  • When Man was God…

    A few days back, I read this amazing article ‘Why everything you’ve been told about evolution is wrong‘, thanks to Surekha. Though it begins by rubbishing ‘creation by God’, it thankfully moves soon enough into Darwin’s theory of evolution and the epigenome (the protective package of proteins around which DNA is wrapped), which plays a role in deciding which genes get to express themselves in a creature’s traits and how much. It talks further of how a change in the surrounding environment for even a relatively small time can affect the way genes express themselves in future generations. This raises a question mark on the ‘random mutation + environment filtering’ basis of Darwin’s theory, and suggests that the environment had a hand in creating those ‘random’ traits. Lifestyle alters heredity.

    (Kindly read the remainder of the post before confronting your grandparents)

    I don’t have a hard stance against anything to do with God/faith, because I find around me many things that are not really explained, many dimensions which we haven’t been able to crack. Maybe, we will, in the future, but that doesn’t mean I will be arrogant about science now. There are so many wonderful things around me that awes my mind because of the mix of complexity and simplicity, that I like to have faith in a system/being at a higher level.

    But the article made me think about the way we have reached where we are, and our concepts of God and evolution. And that’s how I wondered whether man was ‘God’ at some far off point, and had some fun. A half-ass thought. For this scenario I’m accommodating both versions – i.e. God created man in his image OR nature threw up enough random genes to create a version of man with super powers.

    So at some point a long way back, we have a set of humans on the planet, all of them with superpowers – lifespan, various controls over elements etc, and thanks to that, a complete disregard for everything around them. The system (God or evolution/epigenome) realises this is a bad thing and starts turning down the super powers slowly. Or maybe they fought amongst themselves and turned off each others’ powers, until only a few had them. Their lifestyle tampered with their heredity. In later generations, they appeared in patches, say in a few  who are now known as rishis/sadhus/saints. These generations however, knew that earlier beings had superpowers and begin to regard them as Gods. They also began to fear the power of nature as they experienced calamities and lost things and people that were dear to them. Man now thinks that he should be beyond the control of nature. Technology  makes its entry and is man’s weapon against everything that nature can throw at him.

    Where does it go from here? Maybe nature is working to a plan – pushing man to increasingly rely on technology until the point he can no longer think for himself. And then attack man with all it has got when he’s at his most vulnerable.

    until next time, a 20:20 vision we might never have 🙂

  • The Time Traveler’s Wife

    Audrey Niffenegger

    It is easy to treat this book as a simple love story, with the added twist of time travel, but it goes much beyond that, and in that lies the magic. The love story of Henry DeTamble and Clare, who meet when when she is six and he is thirty six, though he’s only elder to her by eight years. They get married when she’s twenty two and he’s thirty.

    That doesn’t even begin to describe the story of a man, whose genetic disorder causes him to time travel unpredictably. So, without warning, he finds himself disappearing from his present and appearing in some time in the past or the future, stark naked. It is only his love for Clare that keeps him going as they try to lead a normal life.

    If it had continued this way, it would just be a good story, what actually makes it a wonderful read is the wonderful way the climax has been developed. Sadness, hope and an appreciation for things that really matter. (the last matches my perspective)

    I wouldn’t consider science fiction and romance a natural pairing, and so, the author must be credited for blending it superbly. While these two are definitely the themes, the sheer lack of control in two lives which so desperately want to be together, makes one ask deeper questions on the nature of life and human existence.