International Chef in the making...

A child coming into your life turns it into an overdrive, that you hardly tend to find time for yourself. So I have been off the blog for quite a while now. My toddler is still a handful, but 2 years of being a parent has given me enough experience to juggle around my various roles and still find time to keep in touch. But yes, my social life has taken a back seat and I do not keep in touch with people as I used to. We are back in the US again, in the East Coast in a laid-back seashore town named Groton in Connecticut state.

Now that I am a full-time home maker and have more time to kill than I would have had if I were working, I decided to try something different atleast as far as the food goes and was pretty impressed with its outcome.

There is a saying that the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach.... But as I had already won my man's heart and only then married him, there was never a need for me to go in the way suggested by the saying. Still there is nothing wrong in surprising him once in a while with my culnery skills. I tried out 4 new dishes last week:


Broiled Tomato Parmasean

Tomato Pasta

Vegetable Manchurian

Baby Corn Manchurian

Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of the first two dishes... But I did take a picture of the Manchurian dishes, that we had with Egg Fried Rice prepared by my husband.

The first dish was courtsey Food Network (one of the TV channels in USA) while the remaining three were from a website called Indobase. I enjoyed cooking all these dishes and my family equally enjoyed eating them.

We plan to try out more dishes in the coming months... Will keep you posted.

Cherry Blossoms in Washington D.C.

We are back after a long break in our blogging.... In the last year and more, there has been lots of changes in our life. Now we are proud parents of a beautiful 1 yr old girl, who keeps us on our toes at home in Alexandria, VA.



The natural beauty we enjoyed at the "National Cherry Blossom festival" in Washington D.C. prompted us to write a post. The sight was an amazing visual treat to our eyes, stretching beside the Potomac river. Such wonderful colors and beautiful flowers!!!! This festival is usually celebrated for 2 weeks - from March 29 to April 13, 2008.


For those who do not know what the festival is about, here is an excerpt from About.com "Washington, DC welcomes the arrival of spring with the National Cherry Blossom Festival, a tradition that showcases the beautiful gift of 3,000 cherry trees that the city of Tokyo gave to our nation’s capital. The National Cherry Blossom Festival is an annual two-week, city-wide event featuring more than 200 international cultural performances and over 90 other special events. From arts and exhibits to cuisine and sports, there is something for everyone to enjoy! The blossoming cherry trees symbolize the arrival of spring and brighten the area surrounding the Jefferson Memorial on the Tidal Basin with their vibrant pale pink and white flowers.


The National Cherry Blossom Festival kicks off the busy tourist season in Washington, DC and includes many special events near the monuments and the museums on the National Mall." (Source: http://dc.about.com/cs/familyactivities/a/CherryBlossom.htm)




Like the above excerpt says, the city is flooded with people coming from all over the place to see the blooms and participate in the various cultural programs. We tried our best to capture the beauty through our camera lenses... Hope you enjoy these pictures as much as we enjoyed the sight in person....

For more pictures and information, you can also look at:
http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/
http://dc.about.com/od/hoildaysseasonalevents/ss/CherryBlossoms.htm
http://dc.about.com/library/maps/blmapTidalBasin.htm

Blogging and Active Life

I read somewhere that the more activity filled your life becomes you tend to blog lesser and lesser. I do not know if this is for a fact... But in my case, I can see this happening. With my family life getting busier and active day-by-day, I tend to find lesser time to blog.

Probably some of you might think I am just reasoning out to justify my lack of blogging... But believe me, though there are lots of things that I would like to blog about, I have not yet found the time to accumulate them, converge them into a topic and put them in words.

Now coming back to the current topic, I do see that some of my friends who used to blog regularly and some other blogs that I used to frequent have also become less active. I was just wondering if their lives were also getting too active that they found lesser time to visit their blogs and update them....

My Encounter with the King of the Beasts !!

I couldn't imagine we were there - the Lion Sanctuary at Gir (Gujarat)- Only Asiatic Lion Forest reserve. The idea of visiting this place, when I first saw the hoarding at a traffic signal "We offer a unique and stimulating wildlife adventure - The “Walking with Lions” Safari. The lions are unrestrained and roam free as you join them on a walk through the vegetation on the banks of the river. The safari is fully supervised and professionally managed by an experienced and qualified team

During the safari inside the jungle, our guide elaborated Lions' behavior towards human intervention, within "their" territory. During the daytime the lion seldom attacks man, and sometimes even when meeting a traveler, he is said to pass by him unnoticed; but when the shades of evening descend, his mood undergoes a change. After sunset it is dangerous to venture out of camp, for the lion lies in wait. It was already 5 PM and I could sense the humid tropical climate. After an hour or so, near the so-called 'spotting area', I decided to take a little walk around the thick vegetation to calm my nerves and overcome his dreadful narration my guide gave. I was transformed into a different world, clicking photos of Mother Nature.

The pleasant sound of rushing water coming from the small river, a few hundred feet from the place where we were standing in a group, made me realize that I was indeed very thirsty for a draught of that cool sparkling water. I looked carefully around the peaceful dusk scene and listened intently for any strange sounds before venturing cautiously towards the river. Having assured myself that 'all was well', I went close the river, which was hidden by the rocks. A small herd of deers were also watering a little further downstream.

However, my enjoyment was cut short in an instant, when I spied out of the corner of my eye an unexpected ominous sight......Less than twenty feet from me, posing on the rocks, was a huge majestic Lion.

Terrified at the unexpected sight of such a beast, that seemed to have its eyes fixed elsewhere, I instantly took my camera. The moment I clicked it (the photo above), I see the lion stand up and stretch itself. Breathless and half dead with fear, I remained silent and motionless for a length of time. To my great terror and astonishment, my eyes met those of the animal, which flashed fire at me.

I do not have words to describe the feelings I experienced at that high-pressure moment. My hands are still shaking as I type these words on my computer. All of a sudden, I hear my group calling out my name aloud. I walk back, step-by-step, not showing my back to the King, thinking it might upset him and end up in a futile catch-me-if-you-can game. After I presented myself in the vicinity of my safari group, we hear the King give a loud roar and everyone was shocked to see me emerge out of the thick vegetation, white as marble !!

P.S: I am sure you enjoyed reading my encounter experience with the King of the Beasts !! Now for the climax… this was just 'spine-tingling' narration I tried to create, after remembering a fascinating piece in my eighth grade. This was about experiences of hunting Royal Bengal tigers in the Indian Himalaya by Jim Corbett, an expert in the pursuit of man-eating big cats, in his book titled "Man-Eaters of Kumaon". The above photo was shot by me at Hyderabad's Nehru Zoological Park :-)

Trip to God's Own Country - Kumarakom

We have been off the Net for quite sometime. Bharath is usually busy with his office work. Once in a while when he finds some time off his work, he blogs. After resigning my job and becoming a full-time home maker, I have been quite busy with my hands full with responsibilities. I believe that it is quite challenging to be a full-time home maker, than being a career-oriented woman. But being busy has been a great fun.



In these three months, there have been lots of interesting things that have happened. One of the most wonderful event was our trip to Kumarakom in Kerela. Such a wonderful place.... So close to nature.

We both wanted to break off from our hectic schedule. So as soon as I resigned, we planned a trip to this place. The entire credit for selecting the place goes to Bharath. We had a wonderful three days away from the hustle-bustle of the city, traffic, and work. We stayed in KTDC WaterScapes resort. It is on the bank of the Vembanad lake (the largest backwater lake). The added attraction of this resort is that, it is surrounded with lush greenery and also has an natural bird sanctuary, with many exotic species of birds...

The entire village of Kumarakom is a group of 27 islets surrounded by canals branching from the Vembanad lake. Most of the people here earn their living either with fishing or from farming. The main crop grown here is paddy.

The paddy fields are below the sea level and are safeguarded from the backwaters by just the clay walls separating it from the canals. The main mode of transport within the village is by canoes.

From here we visited an island named 'Pathirimanal'. The specialty of this island is that it is totally uninhabited. There were 8 families which were living on this island but they were evacuated and moved to the main island of Kumarakom. The tropical rain forest vegetation can be seen in its natural sense without any human intervention. The stay was sheer bliss and revived our spirits.

We had gone there during off season and hence were lucky to see the tropical climate (sudden showers) in action. It was an amazing experience. In just about a minute's time the weather changed from sunny to heavy downpour accompanied by a gale. I am not sure if my words have justified the beauty of the place...

WaterScapes @ Kumarakom comes with our highest recommendation to any nature lover, visiting this @ God's own country....