an incident:and the search for the best gulab jamun is ON

*This post was written as a part of MasterChef India 2 Contest*

Let me start by saying I am a sucker for gulab jamun. I cannot, I mean absolutely CAN NOT stop myself the moment I see one of those reddish-brown/brownish red dripping beauties soaked wet with sugar. So much so that when I don’t have money on me, I avoid passing the sweet shops. Every place I go, I make it a point to taste gulab jamun in the nearest sweet shop I can find. Ditto for lassi but it’s not what this post is all about.

When I was a kid, I didn’t like sweets. I preferred chocolates. It all started with that party and those gulab jamun’s and things changed.

I don’t remember the occasion but dad had thrown a big party for some reason. And there were some 25 odd guests in the house. Caterers were called for food. We kids were required to NOT fool around and basically stay away from food. The faint memory that I have is someone offered me a gulab jamun, which was bought from a shop especially for the occasion and was kept in a stainless steel round airtight box. It was strictly for the guests. I LOVED it. After that I forgot what I was doing that night and ended up eating every single piece of gulab jamun in some half an hour or so before I realized that dad is going to look for this any moment now. I was scared just to imagine dad’s face when he finds out that there is NO sweet dish at all.

My mind was almost screaming to me: 'GO TO SLEEP YOU IDIOT, or else prepare to get thrashed.'

So by 9 ‘ o clock I was in bed and I could almost hear my dad say to my mom

‘yahin to rakhhe the yaar, pata nahin kahan gaye’ (I kept them here itself.wonder what happened?)

When I got up in the morning, my mom was all smiles and It struck me like lightning

‘GULAB JAMUNS’ ‘PARTY’ ‘D-A-D’

But before I could say something, my mom said

‘itna pasand tha to batana tha naa? Main mangwa deti aur. Papa ko nahin bataya maine’ (if you liked it so much, you could have said so. don’t worry, I didn’t tell your dad)

Lesson learnt: mom knows everything

Those were the BEST gulab jamun’s I have had in my life. After that incident whenever I am at home my mom makes it a point to keep a box of gulab jamun’s in the refrigerator. I have tasted it from every shop imaginable in every part of India I have gone to and it just doesn’t match. but I haven’t lost hope. I keep trying.

So here’s a hint to get me to do a favor for you: send me gulab jamun’s

Do you know a famous sweet shop guy in your neighborhood? Have a similar fascination for a sweet?

Do share

\m/oO\m/

Thank you steve

*this post was written 2 days after steve passed away.so keep the time frame in mind while reading*

Although a lot has been already written about him, I believe I still owe him a thank you. And hence this post

It was sometime around January 2007 that my dad gifted me a calendar which had famous personalities who made it big despite struggling so much in their life. It was some anniversary edition of some share market company still reeling from the aftereffects of economic recession. Each month had a person’s story along with the dates. Needless to say, I was going through one of the biggest challenges in my life. I had failed and felt I let down a lot of people and had lost hope.

The January cover had a picture of Steve jobs, more of a caricature kind holding a, now iconic half eaten apple. Followed by 4 lines of his life story which went something like this

‘Started apple, built Macintosh but was fired from apple and later called back in 2000 when apple was about to go bankrupt and turned the company around so much so that apple didn’t fire a single employee during recession ’

I was a fan of apple but didn’t know this much about Mr. Jobs (my internet usage was limited to orkut and gtalk then) so I was fascinated to say the least. I had 6 months ahead of me with absolutely nothing to do so I started reading and digging about jobs as much as I could. The more I read, the more i began to relate to him. He never shied away from his defeats, he still says that out loud “I failed but I learned from my mistakes”

I had screwed up with my life, friends and pretty much everything that you need to keep a sane mind beyond repair. Everyone I met saw me with pity in their eyes. It was rock bottom. Somehow all that story of jobs gave me hope. I felt compelled to try again

‘You are already naked, what else can you lose?’

Damage control mode began. I started interacting with fewer numbers of people. I changed my social circle completely, not because the older one was not good enough but because when some things don’t work out, it’s better to let it be. Set smaller goals and started working towards them. I wasn’t sure myself where I was going but this time I chose to trust my intuition. Things were not easy. I had to make amends, swallow my pride and had to prove everyone who thought I lost, wrong.

And when the result came, I felt good. First time in my life I worked hard to get something and it felt good to get it.

I owe all this to Steve jobs. Thank you dude for making me believe that superman has a MAN in him. All you have to do is give it a try.

Thank you steve, you will be missed

p.s. -- oh yes, this post was written on a macbook

\m/oO\m/