You only live twice, or so it seems
One life for yourself, and one for your dreams.

(You Only Live Twice - Nancy Sinatra)

I Travel Alone - Noel Coward

I travel alone
Sometimes I'm east
Sometimes I'm west

No chance can ever bind me
No remembered love
Can ever find me

I travel alone
Fair though the places
And faces I've known

When the dream has ended
And passion has flown
I travel alone

Free from love's illusion
My heart is my own
I travel alone

Hel-lo Canadian Music

Totally hooked on to this song lately. They play it frequently on CBC Radio 2 (my favorite radio channel since I moved to Canada). I really enjoy listening to this one when I'm driving in my car listening to the radio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f3uUUggPNc

The Truth

Despite its infinite potential, is our mind strong enough to create truth?

Take the matter of pain, for example. If you are experiencing pain, and for some reason (either a pain reducing medication, hypnosis or natural therapy) your pain eases out – is the pain gone, or is it still there but you don’t know? And if you believe the pain is gone, isn’t that the truth then?

What about love? Isn’t love a state of mind too? Love can only exist if you believe it does. But even if you do believe, does it really? Is the mind creating the truth, or following it?

And what is the measure of success? Who can weigh it except you yourself? You may reach the pinnacle of everything you aim for, but if you still feel insecure, are you really successful?

Time, life, death, happiness, God, change…do these truths exist, or are they created by us? Do we believe in them so strongly that they become?

Each of us is in search of the truth. But even if we find it, will it be real, or just something we want to believe in?

Is it ever possible to know what the truth really is? And if it’s us who are creating it, why are we even searching? Doesn’t a truth with more than one version become a lie? So do we all want to believe in lies, while we remain insatiable for the truth?    

Life Of Pi - Story Review

‘Life Of Pi’ is a book written by Yann Martel and published in 2001. The story later went on to be directed as a motion picture in 2012 by director Ang Lee. Yann Martel won the Man Booker Prize for the book, while Ang Lee picked up the Academy Award for the best director for the movie.

In Martel’s own words, it’s a story that will ‘make you believe in God’.

The story explores the travails of a Pondicherry boy named Pi whose father owns a zoo. Pi is curious about understanding God and tries to find him through different religions. He is also curious about animal psychology, and has the opportunity to interact with the zoo animals at different levels. Circumstantial developments necessitate for the family to sell the zoo and most of its animals, and move to Canada. The Japanese freight that is carrying them across the Pacific sinks midway, taking with it Pi’s family and most of the animals making the journey. Pi survives the shipwreck and finds himself on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and…a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. At the end the only ones left on the lifeboat alive are Pi and Richard Parker. Pi must survive the Pacific while keeping the tiger from killing him. And survive he does. After 277 days at sea in a small lifeboat and a raft he builds to protect himself from Richard Parker, both he and Richard Parker reach safe land alive.

At the end, Pi attributes his survival to the tiger. If it wasn’t for Richard Parker, he wouldn’t have survived. In order to protect himself, he had to develop a special relationship with the tiger. Pi uses different techniques to communicate with the tiger, to send across a definite message that he will provide for the tiger and feed him, but he must not be attacked in return. They both must coexist, if they had to survive. The presence of Richard Parker helps Pi find purpose each day at sea, while he discovers and deals with the wonderful and dangerous aspects of it. Stranded in the middle of the uncertainty of the ocean, he finds familiarity in Richard Parker. The story’s crux is about Pi’s complex emotions while stranded at sea, and his relationship with the tiger.

This is a story you will never be able to forget. It’s so fantastic that it will be difficult to believe it, unless you do it from your heart. There are multitudes of interesting aspects to the story, but what captured me most was the final interpretation of what really happened on the lifeboat. Martel leaves that interpretation to you, the reader, with the strong belief that his audience would be intelligent enough to figure it all out. And based on your interpretation of what happened on the lifeboat, you will have to understand Richard Parker - which is what you will take away from this story.

Who is Richard Parker? In Pi’s version he was a Bengal Tiger. Who, or what is he in your version? We all have a survival story. Richard Parker always plays the same part. Someone or something that is so strong that it can destroy us, but if used to good, can help us survive. Without Richard Parker we would not make it. He could be an external or internal force, but we each have one of our own. We all need a Richard Parker, even if he comes in the form of a 450 pound Bengal Tiger.

I'm on a mission

I started cooking (which means more than being able to make an omlette) sometime in 2008 (anything before that was too amateur to consider). Although there was purpose, there was no passion. And though I have never made anything too salty or too spicy (it has always been just right), there was a lack of character to my dishes. There was no exploration. It started and ended with something quickly made to ease the appetite.

Things have changed since my son started eating solid food. What they say is true, being a mom does transform you. A mother cooks with love, and love brings passion. My cooking has matured since the newbie attempts of 2008. Now I explore, and the intention is to provide home-made, healthy, balanced and nutritous meals to my son and myself. A mission always brings out the best in me.

I have two cooking teachers right now - my mom, and the internet. And my newest mission is this - I really like one cooking channel available on the internet (she shows authentic south indian and other recipes and I'm a big fan of south indian food). There are 140 recipes available on it right now. My mission is to cook each recipe available on the channel. That's it, cook all of them. I'm not following any particluar order. And I don't cook something from here all the time. It just depends on the availability of the ingredients, time or what I feel like cooking or eating that day. And though I may already know how to cook a lot of these dishes already, trying it a different way is always fun. Each recipe is wholesome, challenging enough, and seriously flavorful. Everything I have made yet from this channel has been a very satisfying meal. Then again, it may just be because I am partial to the South Indian style of cooking :) The beauty of cooking is, you can make the same thing a thousand different ways. There are no rights or wrongs, and whatever way you choose, becomes your distinctive style.

When I am writing this, the following recipes are done from the channel (successfully!) -

Sooji Toast
Semiya Upma
Shahi Paneer
Beans (South India style)
Dal Tadka
Daddojanam (South India style curd rice - my son LOVES this!)
Masala Corn
Vegetable Pulav
Mushroom Rice
Green Chutney
Chana Masala
Rava Dosa

Not much, but a good start. A goal keeps me interested, and keeps cooking from becoming just a chore. I obviously don't follow any recipe a 100%, there's always a little me in everything I cook. Luckily, my son loves what I cook for him (most times, atleast). Which is really what it's all about, actually.

And this evening I'm baking him a chocolate cake - a popular favorite of both mother and son :) This from a woman who as a child never once got into the kitchen to watch her mom cook!

A Toast

We may be flawed, but we can forgive. We may be vulnerable, but we are a force. We may be hopeless, but we have faith. We may be reckless, but we know how to land on our feet.

And while we await a better tomorrow, we hold the reigns to today. Today is a better version of yesterday. Tomorrow may be better or worse. And even though we don’t know, we still have our today.

Here’s to right now.