A shout for a blackout...

I was watching FRIENDS on Star World this morning. Strongly believe in starting off the day with a laughter watching my most favourite show so that I can remain in a good mood the whole day. :-) But today is one of the few days when situations permitted me to watch it. The one with the Blackout was today's episode. Loved watching the friends sit and chat during the blackout and I thought to myself, "Wow! How wonderful it would be if such a thing does happen". :-) And I started pondering as to how much time we actually spend with people these days.

To us, and to many others I know, our ideal weekend would be to go to a theatre and catch a movie, eat at a favourite place, buy a DVD on our way back home and watch it and also watch the good movies in TV. Well, a correction, our idea of an ideal weekend would be to finish some of the pending tasks (like trying to sort out a shelf for the last 6 months, do some general reading/study etc.) and also relax, while the practical weekend would be the formerly listed ones. Anyway, it's been quite sometime since we went to theatres, but the TV comes to our rescue. Last Saturday and Sunday, we kept switching channels only to find that none of the channels had interesting programmes. We thought that maybe it was God's own way of saying "Switch off the TV and do something useful". :-)

I remember my school and college days when we had no cable connection, just our dear old Doordarshan. Life was way better then, I found time for just everything, learning what I wanted to, learning what I didnt want to, reading books, assisting dad (well, my dad doesn't read my blog, so doesn't matter), staying in touch with a whole bunch of friends, relatives, etc., going out, coming in, oh common, whatever! I just found time for everything. I remember complaining(pulambufying) so much when mom won't let me go and watch movies. She'd say, "common it's only 6 months since you watched the last movie". Grrrrr! I swore to her that one day a man will come to marry me and that he would be a movie freak and we would watch so many movies together and I would make up for the lost 24 years of my life. Sometimes when people asked me in front of my parents as to what guy I wanted to marry, a Doctor or an Engineer, I would exclaim "One who loves watching movies and has cable TV at home" :-). Doordarshan should be grateful to us for we were the ones who were watching the last telecast of 'Chithi' on Podhigai when the remaining Tamil Nadu was watching chithi grown into Arasi.

Anyways, my wish was fulfilled. My husband does happen to be a movie lover and I used to call up mom every weekend after wedding to let her know that we are going for a movie. :P:P. Although I still miss those days of catching a movie every weekend at Sathyam or Inox with husband and buddies, I realise the things that am missing out in life by giving TV priority when I shouldn't actually be. I dont watch TV when I have some work to do. But somehow idle times are spent with just the TV. I have a very dear friend here in Bangalore who I haven't visited yet. It's been a year and a half since we came here, but we still haven't found the time for visiting our friends who were one of the appealing reasons for relocating to Bangalore.

Gone are the days of chatting with family and friends for long hours. Mom would literally say "Shut up and go and read your books" when my sis and me keep on talking to ourselves or to her. Gone are the days of catching up with friends and having a hearty talk, never a gossip though :-). It's been quite sometime since I'v been in touch with my friends also. We crib saying that we don't find time for anything. Over here, although I'v quit working, I' v been quite busy lately. I would define the best way of relaxing as sitting and watching TV while ealier my idea of unwinding would be sleeping, useful hobbies, catching up with buddies and reading. So now, am either busy or watching TV. I'v realised that I found time for more things when I was busier. :-) and that answers our cribbing too. :-)

So, here's a weird wish to have a sudden blackout for a day. When all that you can do is talk. :-) A blackout it will be, but no cooking also, we'll order something from outside. Oops, shouldn't the delivery boy and the restaurant enjoy a blackout too? :-) Ok, let there be cooking at home:-). And also, a fan, that's so essential at any circumstance, you see! :-)

Anyway, no denying the fun behind watching TV with family and friends. And no denying the fact that there are so many wonderful movies that should be seen. Couch potato-ing is fun and life without some fun is a bore. A weekend without a movie with your dear one is definitely not complete. Just that in the process, one needs to be balanced and not develop the subconscious addiction to it. These days, everybody including those retired men are so addicted to TV, especially their serials. But one good thing out of the whole story is that it's nice to go out shopping on the days of festivals for everybody's at home watching "Thiraikku vandha sila maadhangale aana putham pudhiya thirappadam" or "thiraikke varaamal odivitta putham pudhiya thiraippadam". :-)

It's all about consuming..

Last night was fun. Just a day before, I had immense dehydration due to food poisoning. I generally shop at Nilgris for its excellent quality of groceries. But certain stuffs in Nilgris in that particular area are bad (Note : am not aware of the other Nilgris shops. Anyway, their groceries are fantastic) like vegetables, pasteries. Day before, I purchased the recently introduced dry kachori. I had one of those (hey! they were small ones) and found them to be awfully bad and old. Then it was the jam bun that I guess ended up to be the final culprit.

So, on the same day, there was immense puking and dysentry and all that. The situation was brought to control the next day. However I continued to be on electral water. We have copper jug at home as drinking water in that jug is considered to be very good for health. I mixed electral in the water in that jug and after a few hours, gulped down half the jug of water only to find at the last gulp that the water tasted extremely bitter. I asked my husband and he shouted at me for having mixed electral in that jug as the jug is copper and electral was full of salts. Found the contents of electral to be K, Na (wow! I love showing off now writing all these :P ) and Cl2. Oops, Chloride, maybe was that Copper and Chloride combination? Well, whatever my bird brain could understand, I poured down the water and found it to be blue. My fear knew no bounds. I forcefully puked out everything that I drank and found some mental relief. :P:P. But then my mother in law suggested having butter milk. Looks like in case of any such food poison like this, butter milk is one's way out. Anyway, am fine now, not to worry! :P:P

End of day, lessons learnt,

1. Be careful about what you eat. In my case, I should have bought bread and buns from a bakery, freshly baked. And, it's important to gain the ability to identify the spoilt goods, trust me, the bun looked just perfect, but on conscious observation of the other bun, I found it harder and a little different from the usual ones.

2. Never have too much of anything, even water, before tasting it. Have a taste of anything and everything before beginning to eat or drink. My three year old cousin is better off when she has a taste of everything and then decides whether to eat or not, be it even the food that she has regularly. ;-)

3. In case of immediate realisation of having consumed adulterated food, have a cup of butter milk (not curd) immediately.

4. During and after dehydration, have plenty of fluids, atleast for the next four days. Man, it's hard to remember to drink fluids once you are fine, but that's so much vital to be able to feel fit again. Important, have only bland food for atleast four days after recovery.