HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU......

Happy Birthday To You....
Happy Birthday To You....
Happy Birthday my dear Blog..
Happy Birthday To You....








As I stood infront of the lovely cake she baked for me, I started wondering what is it EXACTLY that this lady , my creator is celebrating. Infact, I have been around for the last four years, never was my birthday celebrated before.Why would she suddenly celebrate my fourth birthday?
As if reading my thoughts.....she said,
 "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the fourth birthday party of my loving blog , "Life is colourful". You must be wondering why suddenly after so many years I decided to celebrate my blogs birthday. Let me tell you the reason--whether its good enough is for you to decide. On a certain day in 2008, extremely tired, I was surfing the web, going through mail, reading the newspaper and the sort. My son was playing around me with his toys scattered all over the place.  He was four then.
Coincidentally I came across a blog where a mom was sharing a story about her 6 month old son. It was about  how the kid turned in his bed and held his head up. It was so nicely written and so full of love that it made me smile immediately. Nothing special, I know...all kids do that! But this "small" incident sounded so "special" in her post. I looked up at Arno and the first thought that came to my mind was, "Oh Sh**! Why did I not write about Arno's actions all this time?".
I started writing IMMEDIATELY!!
http://www.dayeetasworld.blogspot.com/2008/02/junior.html
Unfortunately I do not remember the blog which inspired me to start writing, but whoever it was, THANK YOU. Thank you for inspiring me to give birth to my blog.
What started as mere curiousity actually stayed that way for a while. This is clearly evident from the fact that I wrote 4 posts in 2008 , 0 in 2009 and 5 in 2010! However, 2011 was remarkably different where I had posted 24 times. This is THE year when I really "connected" with my blog. This year saw me making time to write my thoughts..enjoying the comments of my readers..getting boosted by the encouragement of my friends and family..taking more photos with my camera..more photos making their way out of the camera to the computer.. believe me, the pleasure is all mine... Hence the reason to celebrate the birthday.The way it has become part of my life, I hope to celebrate many such birthdays in the future....
My blog is four today..Happy Birthday once again."
;-)

Thank you my dear readers, I feel very happy at what she said ..I feel part of her life as well.

Footsteps on the Sahara (Part 3)

Beautiful Marrakech..........................

I am breaking a promise. Actually the tagine recipe that I promised in footsteps on the Sahara part 2, did not materialise. The reason is very simple and hence understandable(please). I do not have a tagine. Yet! .When I made that promise , I was a bit too optimistic on the planning side. I had seen the shop where to buy it from and thought that I can buy it ANYTIME...that ANYTIME did not occur in the history of the last few days.I did want to bring one from Marrakech but you should have seen the incredulous look in the husbands eyes ("How can you even think of taking that thing in the lugguage?"). Remind me later to tell you that story......

Anyway, whatever the reason, for the time being, I decided to postpone the recipe till later but continue my Marrakech story before I forget the interesting bits (memory being affected by age and all that..we all agree to that, right?)

So, lets visit Marrakech.

Our entry into Morocco was not very pleasant. Christmas Eve is never a good day to travel. As if to confirm that, the flight from Amsterdam to Madrid (our transit en route to Marrakech) was already delayed. We reached Madrid and nervously navigated our way from one terminal to the other by train, foot, lift, escalator and many more modes of transport as fast as we could only to find that the boarding gate of the connecting flight had just closed. Smiling ground staff informed us that "we can do nothing now , please take a right and then a left and go one floor up to the IBERIA helpdesk to ask for more information".

Not a good start to our vacation!

We followed the instructions and reached the information desk. More smiling staff informed us that there were no more direct flights to Marrakech that day. However, they can arrange for a flight via Casablanca after 6 hours!! AFTER SIX HOURS! We did not really have any option...with grumpy faces the vacation family settled down infront of the big airport lounge TV. The airlines gave us lunch and snack coupons to  make up for this fault of theirs. We were made to believe that the positive side of all this misery was that we could choose ANY airport restaurant and eat all we can with these coupons. The joy of this compensation vanished very soon when we discovered that there were about two and a half restaurants in this terminal out of which one sold only soggy sandwiches. So not so positive after all. For the next half hour, CNN and Discovery channels in the airport lounge filled our heads and minds with repeated incidents of how Syrian troops shelled their neighborhoods and how a frog in the Amazon catches a fly! After a while I could not take any more of the fly-catching frog or the Syrian troops...so I went for a walk..in and out of the airport shops..buying a Toblerone...gazing at a Gucci hand bag...sipping a cappucino....spraying some PRADA from a test bottle...staring at the flight schedule monitor with hopes of the clock ticking faster...father and son duo were busy with their i-pod, i-pad, i-phone thingies....

Finally the "boarding" sign flashed for our flight.

So we flew via Casablanca (a short wait) into Marrakech finally late in the evening.

Hold on. The story gets more interesting. We lost our luggauge.

Tired and irritated..we took the cab to the hotel...ate a room delivered pizza and went to bed in the same clothes...I was sure that the whole vacation would be a disaster.

Next morning we spent two hours at the airport to get back our luggauge...rushed back to the hotel to shower and put fresh clothes on...and then, only then our vacation started.
The hotel claimed to be a 4 star hotel. Honestly either its a different "star-system" they follow or those stars were just wall decoration. We had a  "royal-suite",whatever that meant.The first day the DVD player was not working, the second day the TV blurred out, the third day our toilet flush would not budge, the fourth day there was no coffee for breakfast. The service was very good, so good that at times it appeared as if they knew. The moment we complained about anything, the reception guy smiled and said, "I will send someone IMMEDIATELY". Look at the one of the boards they had by the lift... such a spelling mistake in a 4 **** hotel! FEIR?
;-)

However, the location of the hotel was worth atleast 2 stars. It was right in the middle of the old medina and the new gueliz area of Marrakech. That was fantastic...

The old center square is known as Djemaa el-Fna. It is a large square lined with food stalls and other shops. Fortune tellers, snake charmers, musicians, Henna artists...name it and its there.It is actually a riot of activities..all happening at once..all demanding your attention...all equally interesting as well. Coming from India, maybe the surprise element for us was lower than that for my dutch friend who was visiting Marrakech couple of weeks back.

On one side of the square stands the tall and majestic Kutubia Mosque beautiful against the bright blue sky.On the other side is a line of horse drawn carriages waiting to grab the tourist for a city trip..the owners shouting their rates, each trying to offer a better bargain. We sat down on one of these terrace restaurants for lunch and started the day with a cup of delicious Moroccan mint tea. As I took my first sip and looked outside...I knew I would enjoy every moment of the next six days....

After satisfying our stomach..we hopped into a city tour bus that took us to all the landmarks of the city. As the bus navigated its way through the many crowded roads, it strangely reminded me of India..of similar hustle and bustle back home. One thing that I found immensely pretty is how the streets were lined with orange trees, loaded with oranges. My camera could not stop clicking..oranges from different angles. People are very friendly and informal. I remember one incident. When we were getting on the horse carriage for a city tour, Arno was very excited. He started touching the horses tail and patting the animals back. The father freaked out saying (in bengali) " Arno, keno hath dicho? ei nongra hath ta abar mukhe debe" [Arno, why are you touching it? later you will use the same dirty hand to eat]! The horse man looked at us , smiled and confidently commented to Abhijit..(Offcourse he does not understand Bengali)..

"He is a kid..and he is on vacation...ignore these small things"

It felt funny.The way he said it , it almost sounded like "Chill yaar!"
;-)

People on the streets are very much aware of Bollywood Hindi Movies. Wherever we went people spoke about our movies. One shopkeeper told me, "India-our friends", another said , "Mumbai ? Mumbai". One was very excited and asked , "Sharukh Khan? Mohabattein?". Hence pictures of our big stars in Marrakech airport did not surprise us anymore!!.


Now to the subject I love. Food. DELICIOUS!
I actually had tagine everyday.
Tajines in Moroccan cuisine are slow-cooked stews braised at low temperatures, resulting in tender meat with aromatic vegetables and sauce. They are traditionally cooked in the tajine pot, the conical cover which has a knob-like handle at its top to facilitate removal. What taste, what colours, what flavours....even as I write and remember the tagine dishes, my mouth starts watering.....the best I ate was a lamb with prunes tagine.....ummm....

I will keep my promise for sure. Very soon, I am going to visit the tagine shop and get one, cook a lamb tagine with prunes and post the recipe here..Promise promise promise...cross my heart...etc...

My Marrakech travelogue ends here......thanks for listening...

Footsteps on the Sahara (Part 2)

.....contd from Footsteps on the Sahara (Part 1)

The car drove on...100 more kilometers to go......to the Sahara desert.

The land scape started changing. The peaks of the mountains started flattening out more into high plateau shaped structures. The vegetation started hinting on the proximity to the real desert. The greenery almost vanished, more and more of the thorny cactus trees became visible, the colour of the land itself changed into more of a sandy brownish shade, and yes....we could see camels on the roadside. My never-seen-a-desert eyes eagerly looked our of the window as if expecting the Sahara to be visible all at once!!Achmed stopped at a very small roadside shop saying, "this is where you need to buy your stock of water for the desert".We were already tired from the journey hence when he offered to stop for photos we had declined twice. But the mention of the two words "water" and "desert" in the same sentence was actually quite effective, enough to make us get down from the car and rush to the shop to get some bottles. The shop also sold "turbans", definitely not a coincidence.We  had experience putting them on for a photo, remember? Now was the "real" stuff!! The shopkeeper helped us tie these 3 m long pieces of cloth around our head and face...yahoo!! All geared up we drove to the nearby "camel-station".

Believe me, the sight was exciting!! As exciting as when I stepped into the plane (Calcutta airport --my first plane journey to Japan in 1996) or boarded the Shinkansen (first time on the Japanese high speed trains, 1998) or.... The "first time"  for anything is super exciting, right?

The similarity ends at that, OFFCOURSE!.I mean when I come to the "speed" part!

So infront of us we had these fleet of camels ...totally expressionless...patiently waiting for us to get on them. One thing really caught my attention--have been told from childhood that the ship of the desert carries its water in its hump...finally got to see it!..Do you also see it in the picture?

A camel with water stored in its hump

The camel men looked at us, did some mental calculations...and pointed each of us towards a camel. First it was Abhijits turn. He smartly walked on to the camel , got on it and even smiled for a photo (I  had my camera on to capture such a moment). Then the camel man whispered something to the camel and the huge animal started to stand! It reminded me of Lalmohanbabu's  camel ride in Satyajit Ray's Sonar Kella and I forgot to click the camera!! Do you remember his face? Could not laugh for long because then it was our turn. Arno needed to travel on the same camel as me. He got up on the camel quite easily-eyes sparkling with excitement. My turn. First, I tried to make eye contact with my camel (sort of begging her to "gently" stand up). She ignored me. Then I lifted one leg and just as I was about to sit she shook her head vigorously and made a noise which in the camel language might as well say.."Thats the wrong leg stupid!!"..I ignored her. A few hufff and puffs later I was successful. Again the few whispers by the camel man and she stood up!
THAT itself was  a journey!!! My body needed to bend and unbend atleast at 467 different angles with the camels jerky motion from sitting to the standing position. 
Our fleet of four camels started its journey into the desert. After kind of settling down into that "ship of the desert" motion, when I looked up...all I could think of is "Life is colourful". Sand does not have many colours, right?...But I was totally surprised and amazed by what the sun can do to the colours of sand .As the sun rays interacted with the sand dunes, falling on them and off them at such unrealistic angles, it generated atleast a thousand shades of "sand colour".At the far horizon,the setting  sun lent its orange , yellow and red palette to the blue..resulting in wonderful shades of pink and violet. I tried to capture some of these shades in my camera..but the pictures really do not do justice to the real colours in this case. The car road gradually vanished into a sandy road which gradually merged into the sands of the desert.

Sunset in the Sahara--what colours!

Sunrise in the Sahara--what colours!!

Once the eyes got accustomed to the colours and the mind to the surroundings, the body started becoming aware of the movements and hence the pain. Even though , I have used the expression "pain in the a**" several times till now, this is when I REALIZED what it meant. Literally. To say politely, a camel ride is NOT COMFORTABLE.
After about 20 mins, the sun left and took with it all the light and all the colours leaving us in pitch darkness. It also became very cold within moments (Thank God we had our turbans on!!).Our camel man knew the way very well, I am sure. But still the fact that we were in the Sahara desert, on camels, riding at a mind numbing slow pace,into the darkness,in the cold, no TOMTOM to happily say "stay in the left lane",...can be quite something!
I asked our camel man how far we were from the tents.He answered in a mix of Arabic and French which sounded like  "Greek and Latin" to me! I tried body language (which I realised is very difficult on a camel!). The body did not twist and turn as I wanted it to, so ended up asking nothing at all. Our camel man gave me a toothless smile (he was easily above 70!) and moved on..Ok, so surrendered to fate and our dear camel man , the little group silently continued the journey. I lied to Arno.
"No worries dear, we will be there in 10 mins"
Maybe it was 10 or 20 mins..(it seemed like 60)..we suddenly saw some black dots and some specks of light like fireflies in the far...Our camel man pointed to it and told us something...the language was not a barrier anymore.We understood we were near our camps!
What a relief..!!

A man came out of the tents to welcome us.
"Welcome to the 10,000 star hotel in Morocco"--Thats what he said. I smiled , too tired to even try intepreting his welcome message. He pointed up...I looked up...Never in my life have I seen so many stars !!It was like there was less of sky , more of stars..wonderfully bright and amazingly close. The "pain in the a**" did not matter any more, nor did the language barrier or the eerie darkness. I blinked several times to capture this wonderful picture with my own eyes..

The tents are called  bivouacs..basically nomadic tents..with narrow camp beds inside but thats it. Some very small lamps lit the tent area. We needed our own torches to go to the common "toilet tent". There were other groups of people from other tourist agents as well. We said brief hi and hello and proceeded towards our tent to get ready for dinner.
They served us a "berber dinner" which consisted of slices of moroccan bread , a thick soup and a tagine with chicken. It was very very cold..the taste did not really matter..the warmth of the food was more important. We lapped it all up. The bonfire and the berbers singing their folk songs, the open sky with its innumerable stars, the warm food served with moroccan hospitality...the whole package was awesome. Sleep descended on us.......
Next morning we woke up with hot moroccan mint tea..we were already dressed (it was so cold at night that we slept with our sweaters on)..came out..watched a wonderful sunrise again with the surprising colour variations...and got on our camels to come back to locality.
Achmed was waiting with the car to take us back to Marrakech. Definitely a relief to be back in the car ( a much familiar transport !!)...

As I looked back at the desert gradually fading away in the distance, I realised what a wonderful trip it was...

I can still feel the thrill of the vast, unknown, limitless sands of the Sahara.........

Memories of the desert

Stay with me,  tomorrow we shall visit the town center of Marrakech where we will share a delicious tagine recipe together.

;-)

Footsteps on the Sahara (Part 1)

I had only seen it on the maps. Especially the night before the geography exam when the huge world map swam before my eyes...trying to point out the rivers, oceans, mountain ranges, deserts at the right places....The great Sahara desert was one of them.

The Bhattacharys footsteps on the Sahara

Never did I imagine then that me, a girl from a small town in India would one day set foot on the Sahara desert.   Someone once said to me "lucky people travel"...I completely agree.

In this post, let me take you to Marrakech, a city in Morocco, and to the dunes of the Sahara..a trip into the desert.

It was a bright sunny morning. Actually, all the six mornings we were there in Morocco were bright and sunny (very different from our lovely Dutch weather!!!). The car was waiting for us infront of the Marrakech hotel to take us on this trip into the desert. This was a trip we booked from Holland...lots of expectations...Lonely Planet recommendations....the website promised a lot..hence excitement levels were running high!

As our car sped along the Atlas range, the scenery outside was mesmerizing. The mountains had a certain dangerous ruggedness....beautiful yet ruthless. The road was very pretty on the long stretches, quite scary on the sudden twists and very interesting when there was suddenly a shop out of nowhere on the side. At that height , it was very cold and windy so these stops where hot mint tea was sold was very attractive.Most of these places had  a terrace where the tourists were busy clicking away on their camera.We did the same. Surrounded by snow covered mountains, with the blue sky above, sunshine smiling , a cup of steaming mint tea cupped between my palms, posing for photos--life could not be any better!

At one such stop, we were led up to the terrace by a guy (later on discovered he was the shopkeeper). He related a mix of history geography literature in his broken english ..the summary of which was how beautiful it is to have a photo here. We were a bit apprehensive...WE have the camera..WE are on the terrace...WE will take pictures, why was HE bothered? Our question got answered in a moment. He mentioned something about Moroccan turbans and actually did not go into any discussion of whether we want it or not. Within moments Abhijit was totally captured by this blue turban and then it was our turn. He took snaps for us and then with the same momentum led us to his shop to sell pottery and handicrafts. We were almost in a trance...our Pied Piper led us into his shop..and offcourse we ended up buying pottery! Like most customers who want to defend their buying , I said "did you see? How skillfully HE led us into HIS shop and SOLD the stuff?"Much later as we sat in our living room in The Hague, far far away from this beautiful place did we realize what a wonderful snap and experience that was..and in my mind thanked this man for this lovely picture he took for us.

Yes, thats us below.......

The Bhattacharyas in blue.....the blue men!

Blue Indigo Turban:This Saharan turban is traditional and is a very practical head dress that men use for many purposes. Men in the Sahara Desert would use this turban to protect themselves from the wind, from the dust, from the cold during those harsh dry cold winter days and also against the pounding heat. While in the hot Sahara Desert, using a turban helps keep the moist between the skin and the fabric. This way, the skin is protected and at the same time the body doesn’t loose too much water. In addition to what’s mentioned, men in the Sahara, especially among the Kel Tamashek people also called “Touareg” would wear a turban like this and cover their faces except the eyes even when they need to eat or drink. You would wonder why they would put them selves through this, but it is a cultural practice to show respect to the others especially the elders in the community. 

We drove on...our driver-cum-guide was Achmed...he was cheerful, friendly and a very good driver....we were extremely comfortable. After crossing several mountains and valleys driving through beautiful berber villages tucked away snugly within the mountains we stopped for lunch. We were SO hungry. Nicely hidden in one of the villages was this wonderful "restaurant"...a berber family taking in lunch guests (prearranged with the travel agency).

The food was colourful...simple....healthy and delicious...basically that combined with the setting around...it tasted heavenly...

Colourful and delicious

Simple and healthy

The terrace "restaurant"..what a setting to have lunch!!!

Our journey continued..it was still 100 kms to the Sahara .....

Achmed talked about the Berber life styles, their food, the climate, the culture and lot more....with a satisfied stomach...the motion of the car.....the murmur of Achmed....we drove on.....

Stay with me.....the camels and more are  yet to come!!!!

;-)

Happy New Year...

A Very Happy New Year to all of you!!!

Wish you all a fantastic 2012 ahead!

Time flies. It seems like "just the other day" when we celebrated last new years eve. One full year of 365 days becomes our past....a new set of 365 days is our future...although unknown but the new set comes with expectations and promises and hopes of brightness ahead.
Maybe nothing changes...but just the fact that the year is new gives a feeling of a "fresh start". Have you made your 2012 resolution?
;-)

2011 ended very well for me. I had a lovely vacation in Morocco.--my first time in Africa. It was wonderful...I need to tell the story. Hence my target in the coming weeks is to write a travelogue about this trip accompanied by small day to day incidents accompanied by some tasty recipes accompanied by some lovely photos accompanied by some daily learnings accompanied by.....

Stay with me....

O yes, before I forget. I know many of you could not sleep well with the tension of my chocolate cake last year..remember the one that I was supposed to bake for Arnos school dinner? It actually came out very well. Arno loved it. His friends loved it. To be honest my confidence on baking is a notch higher now (Now, dont start expecting cake recipes on my blog!!!).

 I cannot not take credit for the cake alone. Arno worked very hard. We did it together...
While the cake was being baked, he rushed infront of the oven 10,000 times just to see if things were ok.
He asked me "Mama, thik kore oven e dhukiyechile to?" [did you put the baking tray in the oven PROPERLY ?]
My love for baking was visible even to a seven year old !!!
Anyway, it was getting late, well past bed time for Arno. So with the oven clock ticking at 30 mins to go, he reluctantly left the kitchen in my hands and went to bed. I stood infront of the glass oven door trying to catch a glimpse of this fantastic object which gradually rose from its liquidness to a plump chocolate cake. It looked good. However, the last step was yet to come. I nervously stood with a toothpick in my hand exactly as instructed in the recipe...
"A toothpick inserted in the center of the cake should come out clean with no batter clinging to it"
The husband, from his sofa infront of the TV said with super confidence, "dont worry, everything will be fine"!!!!
I forced myself not to change the direction of the toothpick and waited patiently.....
Ting! the oven timer shook me out from my nervous daze....
With trembling hands I pricked the lovely brown texture with the toothpick, waited for a second or two (just in case), and lo behold!!...out comes the toothpick all dry and clean!
All excited from this huge success, I immediately started decorating the cake..the target was to make it so beautiful that Arno should feel proud to take it to school....phew....

Next morning:

Arno: Wow mama what a lovely cake ! The decoration is beautiful.  I know the design!! this is how it looks when you start your computer..................
For a moment, I did not understand what he meant...and then the bulb flashed in my mind!
;-)

[I did not see the resemblance until he pointed it out...yes, Microsoft Windows starting up at the center of the cake, do you see it?]

   

A Christmas cake..Bake it ot leave it!

I promised to bake a cake for Arnos school Christmas dinner...which is tomorrow..TOMORROW!!!

Since you have been my dear readers for a while and you know me....(Ok if not me, atleast my love for baking ), you have every right to ask,

WHAT ON EARTH were you  thinking when you made this promise?

I have the same question.

I started off by gathering "requirements" from my little customer..
Me:    Arno , what kind of cake do you want me to bake for school?
Arno: What CAN you bake?                    (Careful! Customer is small but highly focused!)
Me:    I can bake a Ricotta cheese cake (I feel proud of myself once again just by saying it)
Arno: nah....(Thinks for a minute).....Can you bake a Chocolate cake? 

This is serious. A whole chocolate cake. On my own.
I discussed this with some friends. One of them, B, kindly promised to send me a recipe. I got a mail within minutes..The subject said "Christmas cake recipe" . I was happy. This friend radiates confidence so I felt confident already...enough not to open the mail but keep it for later.Two days back, I thought its good to buy the ingredients and keep in store so that all I need to do on the day is open the recipe and get going..get baking, I mean.
So I opened the mail. Here is what it said:

Christmas Cake Recipe

You will require:
1 cup of water
1 cup of sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups of dried fruit
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of brown sugar
lemon juice
walnuts/almonds
1 bottle whisky

Method
Sample the whisky to check for quality.
Take a large bowl. Check the whisky again.
To be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink immediately.
Turn on the electric mixer, beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one spoontea of sugar and beat again.
Make sure the whisky is still OK. Cry another tup.
Turn off the mixer. Break two leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.
Mix on the turner. If the fruit gets stuck in the beaters, pry it loose with a drewscriver.
Sample the whisky again to check for tonsisticity.
Next, sift two cups of salt, or something. Who cares?
Check the whisky.
Now sift the lemon juice and strain the nuts.
Add one babblespoon of drown sugar or whatever colour you can find. Wix mell. Grease the oven. Turn the cake pan to 350 gredees.
Don't forget to beat the turner.
Thrown the bowl out of the window.
Check the whisky again and go to bed.

$$%#$%%!%%!@$#!!!

B.....B.....B ..where are you? Yeah, yeah he is already on vacation ..........

I have to leave now .....get stuff for my real chocolate cake which I need to bake tonight...the dinner is tomorrow. If it turns out to be a chocolate cake or anything that might pass off with that name then I will come back with my recipe.
(B , you do not get a single slice!)
 

Meanwhile, 

Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New year to all of you.....

Have fun, enjoy and stay safe.

Note: The Husband kindly volunteered to try out this recipe.....

A Riddle .

Forty Bengalis are put together in a house for 2 days.  What do they do?

Scroll down for the answer.
;-)

Meanwhile I give you some hints. 

Hint 1:If you are a Bengali yourself then you should have answered even before I completed the question.

No?

Hint 2:Although we are known to be a race who believes in "torko" (debate and discussion)  over anything and everything..this is one such subject where all Bengalis are united like the "United" states of America.

Bad joke, I know. But could not help it.

Still no??? more hints..okok...the last one.
 Hint 3:

..our weakness.

..our passion.

..our culture

..our identity

..our love.

......correct! Full 10 points!

The answer is : They EAT.....Food is the correct answer!
We ate and ate and ate.......The reason that I have so much information is because I was one of the forty!!

The weekend break in Belgium was designed to celebrate the success of Durga puja. Absolutely fantastic concept, wonderful choice of location, perfect company, impeccable arrangements and ...and ...and LOADS OF FOOD.
There was no no-food moment in those 48 hours. We ate as we talked...we ate as we cooked..we ate as we sang..we ate as we danced..we ate continuously.We do have something to say in our defence, though. The weather was very bad...cold....gloomy..rainy.. So even though outdoors it was really beautiful landscape..we had to stay in...and EAT!

Room one: The kitchen. Evening.

The kitchen is always room number 1 for Bengalis. This is where all the action is.  Some are busy estimating the amount of food that needs to be cooked, some are busy counteracting their estimates with "nono, thats too much" or "last time we made more" or " I hate wasting food", some are silent listeners with a smile on their face saying "carry on, I know finally I have to do it", some are "hands on"--looking for knives to start chopping the onions...some are busy stimulating their brain cells by a whiff of smoke just outside the kitchen door...some are very serious in their job(they even have the chef cap on)...some are busy commenting from far....all men.

The women are pretty relaxed...they are not cooking...one mail I sent last time with this proposal (let the men cook) and it is now cast in stone. The men serve the wine...the women relax with a glass in hand. A round of antaksri starts...more people join in...someone serves the snacks from the oven...someone lights the gas to fry more...someone is looking for the "right" sauce..someone says something which no one hears.....
...perfect relaxation!!!

Room two: Dining hall-cum dance floor

This huge room though originally meant for dining served many purposes. On demand it got transformed to the dance floor complete with dim lights...or as the poetry recital room ...or to a quick ta-ichi classroom....or a random gossip corner.
When the music is ON....you HAVE to dance! Some are dancing with a variety of steps, some are using the same steps for a variety of songs...not caring whether it is "Munni badnaam" or a  "Senorita"..Some want to do belly dancing...for some their belly dance even if they dont want it to...some focus on music..some have no clue which music is playing...some cross manly borders as they perform to Umrao jaan, some show steps that no Saroj Khan can dream of..
A few are taking full advantage of the dim lights and dozing away to glory..
...amazing entertainment!!!

Room three: Family room.

This room is occupied by the children. Some are running around (off course aimlessly)...some are planning to play hide and seek(the house is too big)..some are busy watching movies on the laptop (the show never ends as long as parents are dancing)..some are engrossed in their nintendo gadgets (heads bent, face serious)...some are hungry...some sleepy..

...restless innocence!!!

Room one:Kitchen. Morning.

Some people just woke up..rummaging through supplies looking for tea....last nights dance-and-drink effect still lingering on.....someone wants to eat an omelette...that triggers a certain omellete-making-spree which ends only when there are no more eggs to break..the omelette-maker thinks he is Keanu Reeves in SPEED...if he stops the sky comes crashing down...the ready made omelettes vanish as soon as they touch the plate...some start talking about the lunch menu...others shut them up....more people wake up and wander into the kitchen...more tea...more omelletes....

...hungry madness!!!

My intention was to post the recipe of the wonderful mutton curry the chefs cooked that evening...but..the chefs themselves dont remember any more what they put in...actually they dont remember ANYTHING...
;-)

All this and more made it so interesting..... yearning for more.........



Note:Special thanks to photographers Ruby and Dhritiman