Friday, September 23, 2011

Short Film Review: 'Meals Ready' - Short Film in Malayalam- By Nithuna Dinesh


All the people who have commented below the video, wrote about how sad the video is. I agree it is sad, but I am speechless at the grandpa's strong sense of self respect. It teaches us about what is more important in life and at the end of each day - money or a sense of intrinsic happiness. The way he sees it, at least the food he is eating will be what he has earned respectfully, regardless of whatever job he does. And I think that is the lesson for all of us here, sticking to our values and upholding our self-respect no matter what.

Even though grandpa and grandma live alone and they have no family, they are happy and they will sleep peacefully because they have each other. After watching the video, instead of feeling sad, this video gave me a good feeling. You will wonder how?

Despite the fact that the restaurant owner is ill treating the grandpa, still grandpa has no hard feelings towards him. Neither does he lose his cool nor curse him. Grandpa treats it like any other job on this planet which is thankless. It is so obvious here that in every manner he is richer than that restaurant owner, even though he is monetarily poorer. Money does give us a lot of opportunities and opens up a new world to us, but the lack of it does not mean the end of happiness.

Another thing I noted was that the restaurant owner was sulky faced the whole day but this grandpa had a smile at the end of the day - because no matter how tough his day is, at the end of the afternoon he had his life partner at home to share his food and happiness. Even if the restaurant owner had all riches in this world, he may have been ridden with guilt for not even offering the old man a drink of water.

Somehow I thought the director of this video was giving the viewers two choices. Either we lament about how sad life is for the two old people who have no family to care for them or provide for them - or, we take away valuable life lessons :) I choose the latter and I am sure most of us will :)

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Homemade quickie Banana cake



Ingredients :

Self-raising flour - 1 cup
Castor sugar - 1 cup
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Eggs - 2
Butter - 100 gms
Fresh Bananas - 2, pureed thickly
Vanilla Essence - 2 tsp

How:

Melt the butter in the microwave on medium-high for 1 minute. Whisk it together when warm and mix the sugar into it. Break eggs into this mix and whisk together very very well until well blended. Now add the banana puree to this and mix together. This is the forming of the batter.

Add the baking powder to the flour and mix. Now add this to the wet batter, in parts so that it does not form any lumps. Mix the whole batter very well now, it needs to be well constituted.

Invert a tea-saucer on your microwave turntable. Grease a microwave deep dish with a bit of oil/butter. Now pour the batter into this deep dish. Place the dish on top of the saucer that you have inverted on the turn-table, and microwave on high for about 6 minutes. Stop, and insert a fork into it - if the fork comes out clean, your cake is done. Else you need to bake it again for a minute or two.

Tip : While the cake is baking, don't ever leave it alone, keep an eye on the smell and go by your instinct. Enjoy!!


I baked it for my mother's birthday early in Sep this year and it was such a grand success!! Try it and I guarantee you the same!



Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Sacred Spaces


It gives me great happiness to join in Patty's Creative Spaces linky party for this month of September :)

Let me tell you a bit about my creative space - it's a small square spot in a cozy corner of my bedroom and it is where I create most of my crafts :)


Cozy spaces attract me immensely, I feel more at ease and it helps my creativity to freely flow out :)

This drawer is where I store all my craft supplies, paints, brushes, scissors and other accessories.


My mantra is 'go green', so you'll be looking a lot of cartons, discarded boxes, and other tins when you sneak a peek into my workspace :)


Nothing gives me more peace than spending time crafting and creating some art :) Those are the hours in which I am truly content, a blissful experience :)

Do you like my space? Don't forget to leave me a comment! :)

Unlearning

Every month, I promise myself that I'll resurrect the blog and I fail to keep my promise. It is now the middle of December, on a winter ...