It turned out to be just amazing, and was consumed between the three families in no time. Planning to make more of this for Diwali!

The buses still retain their character, though a lot of small changes have taken place over the years. For one, there’s a lesser smell of diesel, then what I remember from childhood. The buses have an outdoor advertising visual panel, and the overhead hand rails have laminated ad-space. I also saw an ad offering space behind the back of the seats for advertising.

Ofcourse, the bigger change is the ‘Ladies only’ seats upfront. About 4 seats (seating eight people) are reserved for women, and the ladies of Bombay make sure  they get them. Though questions have been raised about the special treatment meted to women, lets all face it. Unless the men have better civic sense and courtesy, such measures are absolutely required.

On each trip, there is some or the other incident. The conductor chastising a young lad sprawled on a seat reserved for the aged, A seemingly fit middle aged uncle who grabs the seat for the handicapped. A lot of times, though, the conductor hardly has to intervene, as people around make sure to help the old and the aged.

But with women, its an entirely different thing. A lot of people consider the special seats for women unwarranted, so what if the government has decided to have them. A lot of arguments ensue when a woman tells a man to get up so she can have it. Just today, I asked a man to give me his seat, me having relinqueshed mine to an old woman. The man got up without a word, but his wife went on and  on arguing about why I shouldnt have asked him to get up!

Anyways, all this, and a bit of pawing and shoving aside, BEST is the way to go, especially in the rains where you get a birds eye view of the roads, kids sloshing around in water and the special monsoon flavor of the city. Its great to be in a city that can boast of a public transportation system as good as the BEST!

Spent the day indoors today, playing Mira Nair’s Namesake over and over in the laptop. This is one movie that I truly enjoyed better than the book. Tabu, Irfan Khan are great as usual – but the person I think shines through is the chain smoking Moushumi Muzumdar, Zuleika Robinson.

Later, I saw her stills on imDB and she does look alluring. Now Ive to find a copy of the Merchant of Venice.

On the trivia, I read Mira intended to make this film with Abhishek. Well, cant imagine him playing the teen Gogol without the stubble…

Yesterday I made Banana Sheera for breakfast.

Recipe: Banana Sheera

Ingredients:

1 cup semolina

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup ghee

2 cups milk

Cardmom powder

1 ripe banana

Method

1. Bring milk to a boil.

2. While the milk is boiling, heat a frying pan and add the ghee

3. Fry the semolina till fragrant

4. add bananas to the semolina and fry some more

5. Swich of the gas for semolina, and add the milk slowly blending the mixture as you pour

6. Re-ignite the stove and add sugar immediately. Keep stirring till mixture dries up

7. Sprinkle cardmom powder on top

8. Serve steaming hot or chilled

Then today morning I used another banana to make ‘Banana Pancakes’. This was supereasy, just added a ripe banana to Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Mix. That also worked well for me since the pancakes came out a bit moist and I didnt have to run out to buy syrup!

Now about the movie. Much has been written already about how great the movie was, both AB and RGV defending it in their respective blogs n all that. But as a member of the paying audience – id give it a rating of about 2.5 out of 5.

I loved the original Sarkar. But the sequel struggles as it tries to live up to its predecessor. Sepia tones maketh a movie not. The characters seem rather devoid of emotions, Shankar (Abhishek) takes his wife’s sudden death in stride and seems more keen on pursuing a romance with Anita (Ash). One suspects taht the wife had to be killed to make place for the legitimate bahu.

Even the scene where Shankar dies is confusing – Anita starts wailing just as you think Sarkar is going to succeed in bringing back his son to life. The whole suspense angle too seems convoluted and a tad childish.

Sanjay Narvekar, a popular marathi actor, hams as the gujrati kantilal Vora. Sayaji Shinde is unbearable. All the supporting cast, with the exception of the graceful Supriya Pathak is just too loud and artificial.

The only high point of the movie is Big B as Sarkar especially in the second half with the rolled sleeves. Music is hardly memorable, the Govinda chants that gave me goosebumps in Sarkar are overused here and lose their charm.

If you want to preserve good memories of Sarkar, then avoid Sarkar2.

Shekhar does not blog much nowadays, most of Anurag’s posts are about the upcoming film Aamir. Aamir, the person, has an endearing quality to his blogs – I suspect he very much writes the way he talks, and once in a while, there’s an occasional typo, not too different from an email he would have personally written.

Amitabh, on the contrary, seems to proofread his writing quite a bit, and even posts an apology for the ocassionally mis spelt word. Hmm…is this a man or a copywriting team at work…a lot of people wonder. But its fun reading what is presented as the individual writing in first person, just to know what the rich and famous think of

Closer home – J is blogging now. The comments section warns employees to post ‘relevant’ comments and further cautions that comments will be filtered. Hmm, Im sure they would do it anyway, but putting it up there seems to be a tad unnecessary, and demaeaning even.

A boat was firing off fireworks in the pitch dark sky. The display continued for about 15 mins as we watched, enthralled from the window! There were reds, blues, golden bursts of shimmer, others opening one within the other before they dissolved into the sky or the inky water below.

Amazing!

Here’s a list of stuff we’ve covered so far

NY
- Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
WIndy day, but fun

- South Sea Port
Jet lagged cranky hubby and baby

- Walk over the Brooklyn Bridge
Nice

-American Musuem of Natural History
Mishti loved it!

-Central Park
Cold windy rainy. Not so nice.

-Empire State Observatory
Cold windy but great!

-Madame Tuassad’s
Not worth the money

-Times Square
Hmm…cool

-Bronx Zoo
Cloudy day, but fun

-Botanical Garden, Brooklyn
Lovely day, all in good spirits

- Lion King on Broadway
Stunning!

- Rockefeller Center / St. Patrick’s Church
Just saw from the outside.

- Walk down the 5th Ave
Fun!

Outside of NY
- Niagara Falls, Thousand Islands and Corning glass factory
Great weather. Enjoyed totally.

-Washington DC [planned]

What we’d want to do if we had more time (and money)
- Disneyland
-Las Vegas

When I am not doing any of the above, you can find me in my other avatar, that of an Information Architect, on Prymux, my blog on IA, usability and all thats wrong with the world that I wanna set right today.

Its midnight, so hitting the bed straight after this post.