Bhendi Fry

Today, for the first time in my life, I cooked a curry (of course, under the watchful eye of my mother). If you don't mind handling gooeey stuff and washing a very stubbornly greasy kadai, I think Bhendi Fry is one of the easiest curries to cook. Below is the recipe :)

Ingredients:

Lady's finger - 0.5kg, serves 4

Garam masala - 1 Tb sp.

Ginger garlic paste - 1 Tb sp.

Turmeric - 1 tea spoon

Salt - 1 Tb spoon

Oil - Approx. 50 ml

Optional ingredients: My mum suggested Til and grated coconut. Add anything else that you feel like adding :)

Time:

Takes about 30 mins (assuming you have already chopped the bhendi)

Procedure:

Chop the bhendi into small pieces. Pour the oil in a kadai. Add a little salt (apparently, it prevents the bhendi from sticking to the kadai).

After the oil becomes a little hot, add the bhendi. Wait 5 minutes - mix well. Repeat this at 5 minute intervals until about 80% of the gooeey stuff vanishes. Then add salt, turmeric, ginger garlic paste, garam masala (and everything else that you want to add). Mix well. Turn off the stove after another 5 minutes. Bhendi fry is ready :)

It came out pretty well, dad said super (yay!)

That's all for now.

Suggestions, anyone?

-Prashanth

Update
Do not close the kadai with a lid throughout. Keep it open :)

Lost in translation

I saw this notice on Old Airport Road today. The kannada text reads "ಅತಿವೇಗವೇ ಅಪಘಾತಕ್ಕೆ ಕಾರಣ" meaning "High speed is the reason for accidents".

The honeymoon period

It's been 3 weeks since I joined Oracle and I have gone through 3 weeks of extreme joblessness. My manager calls it the honeymoon period.

Well, the honeymoon period officially came to an end last night with my first night-out at office. (It was actually fun working on a saturday night). This morning, I got a mail from my manager with my first assignment and deadline. All this while, I used to think that Prof. PB is the only person crazy enough to work on weekends and nights.

In conclusion, managers don't sleep. I finally have some work. Things look good :)

Last day at IITB

I leave IITB in about 3 hours. And I have a lot of people to thank :)

• The mess workers for keeping us well fed throughout. Though a few may complain about food, I feel that I've had the best food of my life here.
• The house keeping staff, especially at H12, have been excellent. I can't imagine how things would be without them. 
• The office staff who have been so kind and helpful. They have been so patient and such a great help during our final stages. I find it in stark contrast to the office staff at RVCE - ask 3 questions and you are shouted at.
• DC++ hub owners - thank you for the unlimited supply of entertainment.
• The man at the H12 printer shop for providing low cost, good quality prints; and also for the nice chats every time I visited him
• The excellent faculty who made us stretch our limits in every course.
• My guide, for giving me good grades and finally letting me go :)
• The government of India for setting up such wonderful institutions. I wish them success with all the new IITs.
• All my friends who made my life here so colourful.

I will surely miss my friends, the ambiance, the food, the fun, the freedom, the courses and everything. But I'm certainly not coming back for a PhD.

So long.
Prashanth

Navjot Sidhu's funny and inspiring talk on courage

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54UG-ILhRKU

Remaining parts are here

Happy :)

A few nice things happened in the last 24 hours, and I'm reaaaallly happy about them.

Last night, my parents called to tell me that they received my Oracle offer letter (finally!). Today, I came to know that they've pushed my joining date by a week (exactly what I wanted :) ).

My thesis defense is over (Y!). Both the internal and external examiners hinted that they have given me good marks (\m/) . And the external examiner bought me a pack of biscuits (Hide and Seek, my favourite!) and gave his blessings(!!!) when I went to see him off.

Only 15 days of IITB left!!!

Downtime@IITB

Officially, my first rant on blog

The last 3-4 days felt like we had gone back a decade in time.

To start things off, it was 12.20 at night when boom - the power went out. And it is so humid all the time here, it is impossible to sleep without the fan. All we could do was queue up laptops and watch movies till the power came back at 5 in the morning, using notepads to fan ourselves dry. (God help the people who were refactoring their code at 12.20)

Then, 2 days ago, a construction worker at one of the million construction sites in the campus had this bright idea of chopping the campus' optic fibre backbone. Result - no network for 2 whole days! With project presentations coming up soon, I must say, great timing.

Yesterday was supposed to be a no water day. But thankfully, we did not feel the pinch.