Shomi Banerjee

Yet another artist discovered, and this time someone who no one will bother to write about "in posterity". After all, unlike Camille Claudel, he hasn't had the fortune to be the sibling or consort of rich, powerful and well-known individuals.

Check out his work by Googling his name, or start here - http://artwanted.com/artist.cfm?artid=44308

Image (c) Shomi Banerjee.

On the Eurozone crisis

I fail to understand why "economic stability" and "continued, steady economic growth" have become synonymous.

What's wrong with trying to get the economy stable first, without looking at growth? Can't people live without buying a newly-invented flashy gadget for a year?

Why do people talk about the Water Lilies again?

Especially when Monet could draw THIS?

this time next week, I'll be on my way to Paris

I'm sittin' in the railway station 
Got a ticket for my destination 
On a tour of one night stands 
My suitcase and guitar in hand 
And every stop is neatly planned 
For a poet and a one man band 

Homeward bound 
I wish I was 
Homeward bound 
Home, where my thought's escaping 
Home, where my music's playing 
Home, where my love lies waiting 
Silently for me 
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/simon+and+garfunkel/homeward+bound_20124586.html ] 
Everyday's an endless stream 
Of cigarettes and magazines 
And each town looks the same to me 
The movies and the factories 
And every stranger's face I see 
Reminds me that I long to be 

Homeward bound 
I wish I was 
Homeward bound 
Home, where my thought's escaping 
Home, where my music's playing 
Home, where my love lies waiting 
Silently for me 

Tonight I'll sing my songs again 
I'll play the game and pretend 
But all my words come back to me 
In shades of mediocrity 
Like emptyness in harmony 
I need someone to comfort me 

Homeward bound 
I wish I was 
Homeward bound 
Home, where my thought's escaping 
Home, where my music's playing 
Home, where my love lies waiting 
Silently for me 
Silently for me 
Silently for me

Suki Yum Soup

After a gap of two years, it was not Tom, but Suki, who decided to make a Yummy Soup. Tom's Yum recipe, which is admittedly amazing, called for certain ingredients seldom seen in the vicinity of Indian neighbourhoods.

Therefore, the recipe given here needed considerable manipulation (Editorial note: it didn't need THAT much!) Here's what we got:

Chicken, boneless and cut into fine pieces - 250g
Water for stock - 750 mL
Spaghetti, broken into 3-inch pieces - enough to fit in a teacup
Fish sauce - 30 mL
Green chillies - 2, seeded and chopped
Ginger, sliced - about 2.5 inches
Garlic, sliced - 3 large cloves
Ground black pepper -  1.2 tsp
Fresh lime - 1 (to be zested and juiced)
Lemon - 1 (to be zested and juiced)
Pearl onions - about 100g
Salt (about 4g in the chicken, 2g while boiling the spaghetti)
(Pearl onions = the small ones we put in masoor dal)

The spaghetti happened to be the stuff that needs 20 minutes of boiling in 5 times its volume of water and a fat pinch of salt. Then, you strain it and run it through cold water so that the strands stay separate.

The chicken was quickly washed in a cupful of lukewarm water, then tossed into the pressure cooker with the water, garlic, onions and 1.5 inches of ginger. Salt and some pepper too, of course. It took about 10 minutes to cook, but the rule apparently is "5 minutes from when it starts hissing".
Forcibly cooling opening the pressure cooker is a good idea at this point, but grim determination is required to forbear from devouring the product thus revealed. 

It won't take much time now.

Light the gas, add the fish sauce, pasta, chillies, lime, lemon and the rest of the pepper as soon as the mixture is boiling again. Switch off flame immediately.

Stir, sniff and adjust proportions if required.

Sip, slurp and stare.

The one it was made for decided to call it Tummy Yum. Make up your own name if you like!

 Picture Courtesy: The one it was cooked for. Also to be known here as G.

Anti-American rant, à la Curtis of Babyslime

If you haven't read Babyslime yet, do. She has the most hilarious anecdotes ever, apart from highly interesting and thought-provoking links. And controversial posts too :-). Oh, and this is where I picked up the giving-up-shampoo gag.

And here's an excerpt from her blog, where her husband Curtis indulges in "a self-described "perfect" plan to solve all of the problems going on in the US right now."

"We'll cut off America, seal it with a glass dome and launch it into space!"
"That's your plan?"
"Hey, everyone I've talked to says it's a great plan. It's flawless: first we'll give them a year to round up all the 'unAmericans' and deport them to Europe or Canada, then we start with a border fence. Except it's a wall. A steel wall. We'll use American steel, of course," he explained, "And we'll reassure them that the wall is to ensure no one gets in, when it's really to prevent them from getting out. Once we're done we'll put a big glass dome over the top, cut the landmass right off and launch it into space. Planet America. It'll orbit Mars or something." He gestured to himself. "Brilliant, right?"
I give him an incredulous look.
"Oh come on, you know there are tons of people who would be on that like white on rice. Planet America? How much more patriotic can it get! They can all speak 'American' there."
"And not have to press one for it?"
"Exactly. There's a huge chunk of the population that would eat that up. We could advertise it as a way to permanently keep the 'aliens' out."
"I'd give them three months before it tanked."
"Where's all the timber? And the power? And all the workers?! What do you mean unemployment is at -500%? Nothing is getting done! Every Wal*Mart on the planet just self-destructed... and holy shit the stock market just crashed! How are we going to survive? We can't get anything in! Oh man, I just need a joint to calm dow--- OH MY GOD, NO."
"This beer tastes like shit!"
"And where's my wine and good cheese? Whaddaya mean I can't buy named brand clothes anymore? I think child labour is wrong... here!"
"Why is everything falling apart? Wait... 'Made in America'? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?"
"Oh god... the STEEL!"
"Meanwhile the rest of the world is enjoying the quiet."
"There'd certainly be a lot of new ocean front property to sell off. We'd have to put in some sort of memorial on the border though. And then we'd celebrate every year with speeches. 'This was once the site of ... America. Every year we gather together to celebrate the launch of America. It was launched in the traditional American way: with rocket's red glare'."
I respond with silence.
"Oh come on, that was good. You can give me that one."

En avion

Sometimes, all you can do is let a paper plane fly... and hope it doesn't rain.

A few reasons why I don't subscribe to Steinem's feminism

With thanks to BrainyQuote for providing the quotes. And of course to Ms Steinem.

A liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after.
Gloria Steinem

Would a liberated person be measuring happiness in terms of coitus and dollars?
- Sukhaloka Mukherjee.

A movement is only composed of people moving. To feel its warmth and motion around us is the end as well as the means.
Gloria Steinem.

So... what exactly are you fighting for? To keep fighting? Wasn't war supposed to be a primitive show of male power?
- Sukhaloka Mukherjee.

A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
Gloria Steinem.

So what're you doing putting yourself there?
- Sukhaloka Mukherjee.

A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.
Gloria Steinem.

Correction: a feminist without men is like an ice-cream seller in Antarctica.
- Sukhaloka Mukherjee.

Because I have work to care about, it is possible that I may be less difficult to get along with than other women when the double chins start to form.
Gloria Steinem.

Ok this one? I completely agree with!
- Sukhaloka.

Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one.
Gloria Steinem.

Is it at all comparable?
- Sukhaloka Mukherjee.

For much of the female half of the world, food is the first signal of our inferiority. It lets us know that our own families may consider female bodies to be less deserving, less needy, less valuable.
Gloria Steinem.

I don't get this one at all. If she's talking about the complete malnourishment that girls, women and especially widows are subjected to in many parts of India and Africa, she might have a point. If she's talking about the valorization of malnourishment as a part of the "being-thin" process in hyper-developed countries, she might have another. But does the solution lie in eating as much as a man, and in eating like a man regardless of one's own physical needs?
- Sukhaloka Mukherjee.

Clearly no one knows what leadership has gone undiscovered in women of all races, and in black and other minority men.
Gloria Steinem.

From pacifist to terrorist, each person condemns violence - and then adds one cherished case in which it may be justified.
Gloria Steinem.

Right said, Fred! Oh sorry.. Right said, Frederica! But. BUT. How do you justify your own desire for discovering leadership in the downtrodden? (see quote above, re: leadership going undiscovered).
- Sukhaloka Mukherjee.

God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions. Once we begin to ask them, there's no turning back.
Gloria Steinem

I looked, I looked, I swear I looked with magnifying glasses, but I haven't found a single question in this forest of your aphorisms.
- Sukhaloka Mukherjee.

Saying "alvida" before going to the bathroom

is probably the best way of dealing with impending separations that will last for months.