Recipe 1 - Saada Yakhni Pulao

Hello Readers!

Thanks for visiting my blog, here comes the first recipe as promised a bit earlier.

This recipe is for an Indian / Pakistani dish called Saada Yakhni Pulao (Rice)

Saada Yakhni Pulao

Ingredients per 250 gms rice:

• 1 Bay Leaves (Tejpatta)
• 5 Cloves (Laung)
• 2 Green Cardamom
• 5 Black Pepper (Kali Mirch)
• Salt according to taste
• Mixed Spices (Garam Masala)
• 250 gms rice

(For Garnishing)

• Finely chopped Onion
• Chopped Pistachio (into 2 halves)
• Chopped cashews (into 2 halves)
• 1 tbsp. oil

Recipe

Heat oil in a pan, Add bay leaves, cloves, green cardamom, black pepper.

Stir for 2 mins, then add 2 glasses of water in it.

When water starts boiling, put salt and mixed spices into it. Add rice into it.

Now leave pan on high flame. Let the rice soak water, when there is little water left, low down the flame and cover the lid.

Let the rice cook for 5 minutes.

While rice is cooking, take one more pan, heat the oil and fry chopped onion till brown, once onion is fried till brown, take it out of the pan and now fry cashew and pistachio.

Now, Use fried onion, pistachio and cashew as garnishing.

Alright guys, this was a small yet really delicious recipe, my first recipe, courtesy of my fiancee.

I hope you guys enjoy this recipe and let me know through emails / comments if you guys happen to try this recipe.

Have a wonderful day.

Apple Apple Apple Everywhere!

Well, this is not about the fruit Apple, instead it is about the world's most valued (Market Cap wise) company, called Apple Inc.

Its official, Apple's upcoming Sept. 12 event, as events of Apple near their airing date, people start losing their mental stability and probably you as reader of this post are one of those hundreds of thousands of people who have already decided to queue outside Apple stores from Sept. 11 midnight in various parts of the world, without even actually knowing if the new iPhone is going to be made available from Sept 12 onwards, or is Sept. 12 only the date of announcement.

Click on image to Enlarge it!

Its crazy how Apple is taking on a ride everyone with so many rumours about upcoming iPhone 5 (so called worst kept secret in the history of Apple so far).

People seem to really get crazy and nitty gritty about the upcoming event and after having had a recent look at CNet's AppleByte, they have made a whole RAP song on Apple's senior executives like Tim Cook, Scott Forstall, Phil schiller, etc.

There are so many alleged iPhone photos and people like Brian Tong of Cnet are busy trying to decode what the flyer for upcoming Apple event showing "12" with some shadow below it that Brian says looks like making a "5" is all about. May be I am getting stupid at it, but what's there to decode in it? there is less than a week to go for the event, don't we have anything else to move on till the event date comes up?

Tons of photos of the repair site iResQ demonstrate that the new iPhone is going to have a two tone design and Apple is going to throw away the rear glass (probably Apple has learnt about the dropping tests of iPhone, the way the glass completely smashes away!)

But then there are also rumours that these all photos are of a chinese phone called GooPhone. Although several reports and google search results claim that GooPhone i5, the so called Chinese iPhone 5 is actually a leaked version of iPhone 5 prototype. And as usual, there may be some more legal suits against Apple or against Chinese phone maker. Who knows whats true? (Heck! why can't we just wait and watch?)

(Click on images to enlarge them)

There are also videos on chinese website vgooo.com of the alleged next gen iPhone 5 with same boot screen as current iPhone, however as the phone boots it shows "We are unable to complete you", doesn't that show that someone has forcefully tried to install iOS on a non Apple phone and so the phone actually suffered a failed boot up? Well undoubtedly it does seem a dodgy video completely released with a thought of attracting visitors and making some money along side getting some popularity.

Another feature we humans including Brian Tong of Cnet (mobile phone users actually) are really getting crazy about is the wireless charging feature as shown by recently launched Nokia Lumia 920 a Windows Phone.

Brian says this seems to be a big deal in coming years especially with businesses like Airports, Virgin Atlantic, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and so on… However, who really cares about it? I mean, there are tons of ways to charge a phone without a electricity outlet, every Aircraft these days has a USB port where in you can plug in your USB charger and let your phone and other gadgets charge, and if not Airplanes, I am sure you guys are aware of XPalPower like stuff, that lets to carry electronic charge for your gadgets.

Another thing, again that may be valid if Apple goes for smaller dock connectors is, according to iLounge, Apple is to be the sole maker of the Dock connector Adapters, this may mean, Apple is saying, go My way or the High Way, so we would need to buy only Apple branded dock connectors in case our original dock connector goes bad! Clearly Apple here wants to limit competition, but again, small local manufacturers do end up making duplicate connectors, especially the road side phone repair shops, etc try to invent new cheaper stuff which costs less to make but sells at a good enough price getting them some nice profit. Well everyone, including the roadside mobile repair man wants a share of Apple's success..

On the other hand, this might also upset existing Apple users who are used to those 30-pin dock connectors. And so all there old accessories, portable speakers, etc may not be any more usable on the new iPhone 5 which is like to adopt a smaller 19-pin dock connector.

Anyways, who knows whats exactly going to be true? Apple might just come up with a different type of Micro-USB charger simply to be one of the crowd and get more flexibility when it comes to connecting Apple iPhone to various devices like Laptop, etc.

A report from Apple Insider, also says, Apple's alleged 9-pin dock connector may be of the same size as Micro-USB

So lets simply wait and watch and see what is Apple upto rather than getting hyper about the rumours surrounding Apple.

Recipe Time - Tons of Recipes to come soon!

My "going to be wife" (Fiancee) loves trying different recipes, tasty yummy dishes, and I am not often the first one to test her cooking skills (thank God!), although, I am aware of her passion for cooking which sometimes makes me crave for her food.

The reason why I am not very often the first person to test her new recipes is because, as an Indian, according to our culture, we don't generally live in together before marriage, and being in a Long-Distance relationship, I hardly get to see her once in 8 months to a year's time.

Anyways, following on to suggestions given by my better-half, I have made up my mind to start sharing with my readers, her recipes! (Please be aware, try at your own risk though! :-P)

So, from now onwards, I shall be posting two to three recipes a week that comes from the great treasure-like recipe diary of my fiancee. I may post a bit more or a bit less in some weeks, depending on how frequently she sends me the recipes that she wants me to share with my readers (yes, she won't allow me sharing her entire own written personal recipe diary!).

So friends, do keep visiting here or subscribe to my posts and let me know how you find the recipes that I shall be starting to post anytime soon now. You can send in your suggestions and any experiences (if you happened to try the recipe) through emails or through comments below.

Thank You very much, I look forward to hear from you guys..

And Thanks My Love (My Fiancee) for letting me share your personal work on my public blog!

A Little Bit of Heaven - Amazing Movie

Wow, What an amazing feeling! I just finished watching a great movie called "A Little Bit of Heaven".

Source: Wikipedia

At first I thought it was just another movie about living life the way we wish to rather than having boundaries and limits about everything in life binding us from being the very ourself. However, once you keep watching the movie for at least a third of the running time, you start realising there is something different in this movie. It's not just about living the life to the fullest, but it has something more to it, some deep message may be.

Keep diving more into the movie and as it goes opening up, the movie just makes you feel WOW!, its not always about living your life to the fullest that matters, but what is more than just living your life to the fullest is living it happily with everyone attached to you in some way or the other.

Its important to learn to trust in yourself and your loved ones and forgive others for all things that they might have done wrong in the past, as no person remains same for the whole life and no person is equal by any means to other person, so judging someone is by far the most common mistake and most stupid thing one would ever do. We need to get ourselves up and above this, and let others dive into our lives and give them a chance so that they can show and prove it to us, that they are not really that bad as we perceived them to be.

Forgiving people, gives you satisfaction, a sense of good feeling, a contentment and most of all, it re-ignites love in relationships, no matter what relationship it is, may that be of a husband-wife, mother-daughter, parents-child, friends or anything whatsoever, forgiving just does wonders.

So my friends, try to watch this movie and look for the message deep hidden inside the movie. I am sure you would enjoy it just as I did. Cheers!

Empty Blogging.Org - No Projects Available

There are many websites on the internet that are looking for professional bloggers and prospective employers / Article buyers, and these websites act like a platform for these supply - demand market where bloggers can find people who need them.

One of such websites is: Blogging.org. I happened to come across this site while reading one of the most famous blogger, Darren Rowse's blog called Problogger.net. Under the jobs board he lists "Write Articles & Get Paid! at Blogging.org" (click on the link to see the screen shot of this listing.) and it is that of a recent listing, dated 10 August (2012).

Once landed on this website, it gave me impression of a copy of popular freelance jobs portal, freelancer.com. It feels like a pure copy or might be use of similar website creating software or platform plugin. Anyways, the first thing to do as I landed on this website was Register, and again, unlike freelancer.com or other job portals, blogging platforms, it doesn't let you browse the current projects available without actually visiting your email inbox and confirming account.

Now, what I am going to write about this website in a few seconds, would actually make the entire registration / confirmation process really meaningless.

There are no projects available as of now, by now I mean: Wednesday, 15 August 2012, 22:50:30 PDT. Now this thing really puts me off about this website, it wasted a good enough 15 minutes of mine and in the last gave me nothing but a useless account and now I am imagining because I have a account with them, useless spam emails would keep on flowing in additionally as these all websites often make money by selling user information like Name, Email address, etc to third party marketing organisations, and because it was a confirmed email address, they might actually get paid more for selling my information to someone else without my consent on actually doing so and giving me zero profit out of this activity.

I was so much put off by this thing, that I decided to put my additional 15 minutes in actually writing a blog to make people aware that not everything good visible on internet even though from good sources is always good.

Things can be ugly quite often so be prepared for that and don't let such things put you off.

By the last statement I meant, I am not going to stop here, I will go on looking at more available websites for blogging, and if I found more such websites who are uselessly aiming at collecting user information, would continue sharing here on my blog.

Meanwhile have a look at these great blogging resources if you are one of millions aiming to make a living through Earning online sitting at home.

A moment of joy, a feeling of achievement

Two years ago I wrote a small 2 A4 page sized article that I then planned to post online on a blog.

It was originally written in my handwriting while I was sitting in my college, observing my tutor. The article was about how my tutor inspired me to work harder in life to achieve my goals in life and reach at desired levels in life.

I used to observe her in class and even outside, everything about her used to excite me, her way of dealing with colleagues, addressing students, meeting with people, teaching students, helping students with solving their doubts and queries, etc.

She is a very active person; she is reachable on email at any time of the day and is very fast in her work approach. Her fast paced behaviour could give goose bumps to most active people, as her charisma was amazing and people would just get so much inspired by her all the time.

The one thing that I saw was really unique to her was her smile. She smiled all the time, no matter what she was doing. There wasn’t a moment in college or even outside if I ever got to see her after college hours of before college hours when she wasn’t in a happy and excited mood.

She used to tell us students in class about how much she loves teaching and she feels so blessed having teaching as her profession. May be her love for her work used to make her smile, her positive approach and work ethics made her really active whole day and so her charisma was so attractive that having her around them would just inspire people.

The article that I wrote about how much inspired I was by her, I never really published online on a blog, It was just there in a large pile of documents, and now over 2 years later I that article was actually written, I thought I would share it with my tutor, although she doesn’t teach me anymore, I keep in touch with her through emails and facebook.

So I decided to share the article with her.

The response I got was really overwhelming, it was so heart warming.

She wrote: “She had tears in her eyes after reading the article, and that she never really paid attention to her work manners and ethics” and she was really pleased that as her student I was paying so much attention to her behaviour and working style and was getting inspired by her without she even being aware of it actually happening.

She then thanked me for sharing that article with her, and said that she wished she had every single student like me in her classes. I felt really good by reading those words of her.

She has been one of my most favourite tutor, and it is a sense of achievement that a tutor (who is considered to be a godly figure in a person’s life) feels grateful for having taught her student.

I felt like I was in seventh sky that day. It was more of a heavenly experience than anything else, as I always dreamt of making my teachers, my parents feel proud of me, and here was this moment when my teacher, that too one of my most favourite teachers, clearly said to me that she wished she had all students in her class like me.

I was able to feel those words by her and was able to picture entire situation when she would have read my article and she had tears in her eyes and then she would have felt really happy and she wrote back to me such a nice email back.

Undoubtedly it felt amazingly great.

For a moment, I recalled Steve Jobs famous words “Insanely Great” although he meant insanely great computer machines, but I was feeling insanely great and content from my within.

I heartily thank God, my parents and my tutor for being there in my life and making my life so much worth it. Had they not been there for me by my side, I won’t have reached and become what I am today.

Corruption in Mobile Sim cards in India

It is one of those moments when I feel like fighting for what is right and truthful. This is an incident I just happened to come across this afternoon at a local Mobile dealer store in one of the most busiest areas in the city of Ahmedabad, India.

I have recently arrived in India from my over 2 year long education trip to London, UK. Although I have stayed in India ever since my birth before I left for my further education, I was never involved in buying a mobile phone sim card in the past and so there was very little I knew about the formalities (document submission, etc.) and the cost for purchasing a new pre paid (aka pay as you go) connection in India.

Back in London, sim cards used to be completely free, and because I was alone (without my parents) in London, that was the first time I really looked on internet on ways to get a mobile sim card and felt really normal to see that the sim cards alone are completely free in UK and they come with no credit, and can be ordered for free online on any mobile network provider's website like T-Mobile, Orange, O2, etc.

However, now in India, I was charged Rs. 40 (£0.50) for a new sim card that came with zero balance. to those living in UK this might be a very small amount and may not even be something that needs to be taken into consideration, however it is not so for those who live in India, where the GDP per capita (as per the wikipedia) is just $1,410. On top of this I was asked to submit a copy of Photo Identication proof (Driving License, Passport, etc.) which must also have my current address on it and also two passport sized photographs. Now I know some of you reading this might be laughing at me, specially those to whom this is a very normal process that everyone has to go through when they are buying a new mobile phone conneection, however because I was never involved in such a process in India, and had seen a really relaxed and easy atmosphere in UK, this was a bit of a surprise.

I asked the guy at Reliance Web World, the reason behind charging my Rs. 40 and not even agreeing to give me a receipt for the amount I paid, he says, this is the normal activation fee, there are no needs for any receipts and they have never issued one in the past for this activation fee. however if I wanted to add credit to my new sim card account, they can issue me a receipt for that.

I quickly came home and went on Reliance communication website and was even more surprised when I found that the charge for a new sim card is actually Rs. 4 and that too gets you a credit of Rs. 1 so you can immediately make your first local call (within the state of Gujarat) immediately without any need for extra top up.

I felt cheated and looted, the concern was not the money, but the reason behind the actions of that Reliance Web World executive, who did this for his personal gain and now I have made my mind to send an email to Reliance complaints department about the same.

I hope to get some positive response out of it, as considering the amount of new connections that reliance services and even other telecom services get in a day due to the sheer size of the population in this country, this is a huge corruption market, where people may be earning a really handsome figure, and who knows some stores may be charging even much more than what that store charged me as it is situated in old city of Ahmedabad which is normally where lower middle class and fairly lower class people reside.