Life in Dec 31,2020 - Mar 28, 2021

 

Woah, cant believe that this year is already 3 months done.  Also, looking at the conditions outside, Covid cases are on the rise again and it will be a while before vaccine comes for us, 2021 will be a repeat of 2020 only.

This year started with us going for a long walk outside Bangalore, organized by a group called Breathing green. This 3-4 hr long walk with lot of chit chat and a good greenery alongside was a welcome change. 

A lot has happened in three months. Lets start with headlines

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Marriage of Saumya & Saurabh

On Jan 14, Saumya and Saurabh got married at Royal Orchid Bangalore. 13th Jan was Sagan ceremony. 12th was mehendi with awesome chole bhature made by Jiju. On 10th, we hosted everyone at our place with an almost home cooked menu  - Fried rice, Chinese veg stir fry, coconut dal and quinoa salad. 

After the marriage, we got full into taking care of Puchka. 

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Puchka 

- Got her second dose of vaccination. 

- Got her neutered. Neutering involves an surgery followed by a week of Puchka wearing a cone so that she does not lick the stitches. Post a week, there is an inspection by vet followed by couple of days when cone can be removed. It is pretty irritating for cat and ours was no different. 

- Once the cone was removed, it was life as usual. She has gone bigger in size and maintains a very healthy activity schedule. 24x7 entertainer, more entertaining a netflix subscription. A total joy when she comes on her own and sits next to you, on you or licks you.

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Cooking

Last 3 months have been very busy with cooking.  First, in Jan, I joined this Team Sharan's 30 day Salad/Smoothies/Soups program where in they shared one recipe a day. Then in March, Kanishka & I signed up for a detox program for a week where we have smoothie in breakfast, proper lunch and salad+soup in dinner. 

As part of this, we have tried many salad/soup/smoothie recipes. This is just what I recall

French onion Soup with Cous cous salad. French onion soup recipe is what we saw on youtube. It looked yummy and simple so we decided to make it.

Three bean salad with celery

Thai red curry - all homemade and it was yumm!

Rainbow salad

Grilled tofu salad

Bombay bhel

Beet carrot salad

Pumpkin soup

Dragon fruit smoothie

But not all cooking has been healthy. We mastered the art of making christmas cake by making it again for our anniversary

And we also made homemade Gulab jamun - 

Experiments are also going on. We made baba ganoush, rajma hummus, and kababs, baked baby potatoes.

Other items without pics are Drumstick shorba, clear soup, homemade vegetable broth

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Outside of Puchka and cooking, other interesting things done were - 

- Cubbon Park walk with Unhurried and Parul and friends: Long 4 hr walk about the history of Cubbon park and what has survived since ages. Highly recommended.

- Anniversary celebration at Oota, Whitefield. One of the very few times when we have stepped out.

- Aarti's home buying celebration at Whisk & Thyme. 

- Added a vertical garden unit to our balcony

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Movies & TV

- Rewatched Americans Season 3-6. For some reason, I am drawn to the character of Matthew Rhys and felt the urge to watch Americans again. Finshed some 50 hrs of TV in a week. Pretty brutal.

- Watchmen

4/5

Very stylish, very relevant. Loved all of its twists and everything.

- Big little lies 

one episode left in season 1.

4/5 so far.

- Kim's convenience is still going on

3/5 - Good comedy drama. 

- Rewatched Ocean's 11 & Ocean' 12 

Timepass series 3/5 & 2/5. 

- Wonder woman 1984

2/5

Do not watch, unless you just want to watch it due to pandemic. 

Anatomy of a murder

4/5

Classic legal film.

Carol

3.5/5

Good film about relationships

Heat - 3/5

Rewatched it after about a decade. It was decent.

7500

2/5

Again do not watch, unless you are in pandemic.

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Books

- Finished NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy

- Almost done with the color of magic by Terry Pratchett 

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Broken Earth Trilogy Review

 Broken Earth Trilogy

The Fifth Season

The Obelisk Gate

The Stone Sky

By Nk Jemisin.

Three books launched in three consecutive years (2015-2017). Each one wins Hugo award.  It is incredible. But each book deserves it. NK Jemisin deserves it. And more. She is a black woman writer in a field that is not. She is a vocal in her activism in a world that is not. She should be the poster child of every diversity led initiative. I hope she gets her due in the annals because her work is just too good.

I finished all three books over three weekends.  But in weekdays, after long days at office, I would sleep for few hrs and get up to steal my morning freshness to immerse in this world. I have been craving for good Sci-fi and this one is one of the best. 

Earth is broken. There are earthquakes everywhere, anytime. Sometimes, these earthquakes are so big that it breaks open the Earth and molten lava with all its gases comes out which causes world-beings to go into survival mode and wait the sky to get clear. This phenomenon is called Season. 

In a world filled with earthquakes, what will be heroic super-power? An ability to control them. That is what orogenes do, born with a power to control tectonic movements. But, normal people fear orogenes. What do you do whom you fear? You kill them or you send them to an institution (read school) where they can be controlled (read taught). 

Wait, what do you mean - how can you control someone who has this power?  There is something that is more fundamental to all this. The energy that powers the core of Earth. Let's call this magic. There are people, called Guardians, who have strain of magic in them using which they can control Orogenes.  The power to control tectonic movements, that is the power of orogenes, is also a variant of this magic and some people can go beyond basic powers to unlock higher potential.

There are also somethings called Obelisks. There are people made out of stone, called stone-eaters. The world building over three books is massive and each book adds more and more layers. Jemisin's craft makes it easy to follow. Her prose is one of the best. Wait, I forgot to tell you that there is also Moon which was dislodged by using this magic but it is now coming back closer to Earth.

The series start when a massive earthquake has broken the earth into two parts and triggered a new season. This massive earthquake was not a natural one, it was done by an orogene. One of the most powerful one. In a world filled with earthquakes, what will be the name of most powerful place? Stillness. The book start when Stillness is destroyed this with this massive earthquake. 

But Broken Earth is a story of none of the above. It is a story of Essun, an orogene, who has lost her daughter  is now on a journey to find her. Essun, who on the second page has found out that her son has been killed and daughter is taken by her father, who is now ostracized, is now determined to find her daughter. 

Broken Earth is not a story of orogenes, magic or seasons. It is a story of a broken mother and her grief.  Each of the three books are journey books. The first one is Essun's journey to search for her daughter and an incredible trick that you suspect all the time but when it unfolds, it is eureka! The second one focusses on the daughter's journey and the last one is when the world building and personal story comes together to deliver an ending which is satisfying.

Back in the day, they said that Lord of the rings is not film-able.  I was born into a generation where Peter Jackson had done it.  In this post-matrix, post LOTR world, anything can be made into a movie. I would love to see Broken Earth into a movie; the novels are very visual.  My choice for Essun ins Regina King or Viola Davis. 

NK Jemisin was tending to her mother in hospital when she wrote the third book. In a prologue at the end of third book, she shared that the pain in her book is real; it is her pain. Once the saga ends, reading this smaller tidbit just makes you realize the depths of pain there could be. I always love books when they layer basic humanity values under these complex world building layers. 

The prose of Broken earth is very raw, like someone who has been describing how a fresh cut wound has healed itself overtime. It is this prose that keeps everything together. The pain is real. So is the reality. Joy? - what happiness can you ascribe to a woman who has lost both children. Beings which are made of stone are the ones who are most humane. 

Do read the trilogy. Do not read just one. These are three different books. Yet they are one. The books are not broken. It is the world that is.