Whaddaya wanna be?

Life, it seems, is the world’s most popular STD.

I read somewhere that life is the whim of a few billion cells to get together to be you for a while. Pretty serious stuff if you wonder what if all those cells are like Indian politicians and if they belong to a coalition party ;).

So my big bro keeps telling me that I need a goal in life (making sure I diligently reach home on time to catch the 9 PM movie does not count). He says that we all need to make long term goals, and relentlessly strive to achieve them – that, in his opinion, is the “beauty of life” (nope, he does not know about double burst cheese pizza). Bro also says that my life is like an elevator in which I still don’t know which button to push (I know… pretty deep stuff here. And Vegas is not a button, it’s just geography J)

Since total world domination was already taken by the Austin Powers movies (and world peace by the beauty pageant industry), I needed another objective in life.

And as I looked around, I see everyone following the same path – study well, get a high paying job, get married, have kids, buy a house, go on annual vacations, work for the kids’ education and then retirement.

I wanted to go the less trodden path; I wanted to do something which nobody else did; I wanted to make my mark in an area which affects everyone, I wanted to dwell deep into my soul and find out what I really, REALLY wanted to do – in short, I wanna be a pornstar!

Ok wait, I take back that – I just realized that porn can totally suck after a while. OK, so porn’s out of the window.

I could opt for politics, since I am getting the hang of asking random fine people to vote for less than worthy causes ( vote for this post here) – but I realize that the other guy with a name that sounds similar to mine is currently lodged in Tihar, which is not exactly my choice for a holiday destination (also the poor guy has not gone beyond 2G while my devices r 4G compatible). Again, I fail to see the fashion statement in white clothes and white ambassadors – it simply crams up my style. Oh well, so much for politics.

I could be a swami (no, not that swami, u filthy mind! J) and hold the government to ransom by threatening to fast. But since my art of living is the holy glory of junk food, booze and a sedentary life (my definition of ‘work out’ is flexing my fingers to change the channel on the tv remote – so yes, I do ‘work out’ regularly ;)), I figured swamihood may not give me the job satisfaction I’m craving for. Maybe I could threaten the government by ‘accept my demand or I’ll overeat till I die’ – that could work!

Or I could be the other swami (yes, yes that very swami, u bhola sa mind! J) and I could conduct holy acts with holier-than-thou actresses in the name of holiness to help them in their holy pursuit of eternal happiness (or “nithya ananda “;)).

I could become a banker since I always had an eye for figures and (vital) statistics. But I really can’t seem to be able to keep money – there always is so much month left at the end of the money. I found out that there is a powerful urge in me to blow up money. Its only later that I realized they even had a rule about that - they call it “a fool and his money are often parted”.

I’m starting to understand that there’s more to IT than just buying shares of companies like Satyam (great idea that turned out to be). Sure the lifestyle is tempting – 18-19 hours of a desk sitting job, a computer stares at you in the face almost all day (and vice versa), you eat only fatty and oily food and that too, at irregular intervals, and your idea of social life is online chatting, youtube videos and facebooking. You work hard and party harder – even though party is defined as getting sloshed at some seedy bar with the same people you just spent office hours with. Maybe I can consider….. Oh wait, I am in IT.

Or I could be a movie star – I’d get to wear goggles bigger than my face, tell my name with a weirder accent and carry a bottle of evian mineral water all around (cos even though evian costs ten times normal drinking water and contains the same number of germs, its cooler to be seen with). But since people like Salman, Hritik n now Ajay (et tu, Devgun?) have upped the ante by being so bloody damn fit, I don’t think I could even stand a chance against them (six pack, for me, has always been a beer can denomination at the supermarket).

I might even consider being a chef like the ones on TV who emit long (mating?) drawls after sipping or nibbling anything and everything that is made with and without fire. Like Nigella Lawson, I could popularize food porn, all the while having people drool at my preposterous weight problem. Oh wait, I don’t know jack about cooking…..

Making the most of your life is really a tough call. And the irony is most people have no clue what they’re doing with life. They just flow with the flow rather than make the flow flow (in spite of so many Rajnikanth movies).

Oh well, screw the elevator.. I’m getting late for my 9 PM movie.

J

Resto-review: Healthy Affair, Bangalore

My friend Soju fasts five days a week in order to hog on junk food for the remaining two. And this bright idea has not changed his weight, his body shape or his ever expanding waist line. Soju keeps lamenting his Health-Taste theory: “Everything that is tasty is not healthy and everything that is healthy is not tasty”.

Enter Indiranagar’s new eating joint, Healthy Affair, which seeks to make healthy food tasty (or vice versa). And it just about succeeds in this endeavor.

Healthy Affair attempts to make healthy our eating out affairs. They claim to choose their ingredients themselves rather than buy the tinned and canned versions from the markets so that they know exactly what goes into their dishes. For example, they use a lot of fresh herbs, skimmed milk powder and other healthier condiments to substitute for their commonly and widely used fatty alternatives. And they say they choose their wares with a lot of emphasis on the health factor. This idea is the central theme of the ‘Healthy Affair’ way of food.For me, my lasting impressions of Healthy Affair were the ambience, the service and their philosophy on food.

Healthy Affair occupies the first floor of the building that is right behind Kyra, 100 feet rd, Indiranagar, so you need to take the left immediately after Kyra (when coming from Old Madras road) and then the first left again to see their pale green board. Parking should not be much of a problem as there are a lot of arterial roads in the vicinity.

The ambience here is very cosy and homely and since we went for lunch, we found the place to be very well lit with natural light. In fact, there’s a lot of natural light which kinda brightens up the whole place and that gives a very positive feel about the place. Of course, I did make a lunch reservation for a table for two by the window, but at the venue, I forgot about the window side and my friend and I were ushered to another table at corner of the room, which was equally good and we never gave another thought to the window bit. The crowd consisted mainly of couples, a few families and there were quite a few number of foreigners too.

The service is good, but could have been great. The hostess, Ms Krupa Dass makes sure she comes to each table, asks if you been there before and explains their food philosophy, which I felt was a nice and warm gesture. Another thing which caught my mind was that she mentioned that the table clothes were made by the NGO she runs (http://www.sukrupa.org/). I told Krupa that my friend is a vegetarian while I’m a strict carnivore and asked Krupa for suggestions . Krupa recommended the garlic mushroom for starters and the spinach pasta in white sauce for my vegetarian friend, while I started with the Chicken Satay and main coursed with Chicken pasta with white sauce. I did feel that there were limited items on the one page menu when Krupa brought a larger and more comprehensive menu card.

The food is good – there was a herby hint in the Garlic mushroom (though we felt quantity was less :)) and the Chicken Satay was well absorbed with all the right juices and hence was very tasty. The Chicken Satay is accompanied with yummy Peanut Sauce. My friend liked her Spinach Pasta in white sauce. However she did wish that the pesto sauce would have been better and that they had chili flakes and oregano placed on the table. Also, she missed her usual Iced Tea as Healthy Affair did not have Iced Tea on the menu. Or any other cold mocktails. As for my Chicken Pasta, well this is my take: yes it was tasty and supposedly healthy (or rather, healthier). But I did so very wish that there were that taste of unhealthy cheese that I always associate with pastas. Sometimes, you just wish that there was a lot of cheese dripping in the pasta, health be damned. But having said that, let me say that it was nice - so it may not be the tastiest pasta you’ve had (but it’s almost there), its most likely the healthiest pasta you would.

Also in the desserts section, we had this same taste-health riddle – all the desserts were fruit based. We settled for the Fruit Exotica – banana and kiwi in plum puree. It had a strong banana flavor and I did miss the times when I used to end any meal with anything chocolate. You tend to miss that here. What need to be admired is that they stick to their promise – the food is light on the stomach however there are those days when I wish there was cheese dripping off my spoon. Overall, good place to go. Just remember to ask them for the bigger menu – they keep another more comprehensive menu card inside, which they are ‘in the process’ of printing, and they might hand you the one page menu, which does not do justice to their fare. Another thing we liked was that we sat there from 1:30 till about 4 in the evening there; we were the last ones to leave after lunch and we just sat there chatting and nobody came to us and reminded us that it’s closing time, like some other restaurants do.

Our bill for two with two starters, two main course and one dessert came to 920 bucks.

My veggie friend promised that she’d come back again. As for me, I might too; When I feel guilty about all the junk I eat with Soju, I’ll most likely drop by for a healthy affair with eating out. But if I want pasta with cheese dripping out in unhealthy but tasty dollops, maybe not.

But I’m sure Soju will be pleased.

J

From more of my restaurant reviews, check out here.

Happy eating.

J