Tasting Satay in Malaysia

Its’s been a while here in Malaysia and one of the recommended foods one oughts to taste includes barbecued Satay. My love shared that he had had Broccoli once and it tasted good. Today, instead of eating the conventional home cooked food we decided to have the satay for dinner.

This man, near our place has a huge truck loaded with ice and lots of satays he offers. Right from the usual chicken and lamb which he has assembled with onions and capsicum ( a bit Indian style tikka) he also has tofu, mushrooms, broccoli, fish balls, octopus, eel, prawns and perhaps everything the sea food lovers can think of.

How he makes it:

The satays are picked by you from the shelf, there are two hot pots where water boils. In case you wish to steam your satay, you let the stick boil your food for a while, after which there are a variety of sauces to accompany your meat. The sauce which I especially liked was chilly garlic sauce ( akin to the one served with momos in India, but its much lighter version!).

The kind of satays we had were coated with cornflour, fried and then barbecued, leaving a beautiful crispy coating with a smoky flavour on the mushrooms, broccoli and the chicken we had. He then sprinkles them with red chilli powder, hands the stick to you, ready to be digged in.

One thing which I found amiss in the satay was salt. Coming from Delhi, which is the home of exotic chicken and paneer tikkas with beautifully marinated pieces, this perhaps seems like a feeble attempt ( of course we know it’s not an attempt, Malaysians and many foreigners love satays!) to the Indian standards. You do know I’m kidding here right! ? I’m trying to sound like the food critics. Bwaahaha!!:D

Coming soon…my rendezvous with Malaysia’s national dish Nasi Lemak

Love

Aakriti

The 6 year old secret

The secret is out in the open. Interestingly, the parts which are open have been well thought of, before they were weaved into a yarn, the individual strands carried a strength and the capacity to be able to be interpreted in ways which were ‘felt’ to be right. 

The gaps between each writing have been long, guess the real world soon became worthy of living than the virtual one! The colours in the mandalas define the beauty that is with- in. Colouring in them is so addictive. A blank mandala is very inviting. It calls on you to make some meaning out of lines. The beauty is that it’s the colours which define them and who adds meaning to the colours? I’ll leave it for you to answer! 

The sound of the sufi music is enchanting and captivating. The notes mimic to the feeling with-in, akin to finding God in the form of love. In moments as graceful as these, even tears do not know how to express themselves. It is moments like these that we define as memories. Perhaps this is what mindfulness is all about. Being in the moment and truly feeling the quietness, stillness, calmness and the beauty enraptured with-in and with-out, with-in as an individual and with-out as a couple, the intra and the inter personal. 

The good we do has a way of coming back. The whole life is a mandala, isn’t it? A circle? And we are our own masters drawing and deleting and working and re-working on the space with-in, that which seems with- out, but is actually with-in us! 

Maybe my heart was yours

Much before I knew I gave it away

Maybe our strings were entangled

Much before my thread knew its say

If it was all worked out at the life’s own bay

What did the Sun have to do

By gleaming it’s powerful rays?

Maybe your words were waiting

For me to write and for you to read

Of all the writers and readers who ever read

On couches, sofas or their beds

What was it that I said

Which in many ways led?

Us to be like butter and bread

Two souls well fed

Being each other’s shed

On days as hot as red

Leading us only to be wed!

Mandalas coloured by me!

Wishing You Well

Aakriti:)

Haiku Hello

 A quick hello since I ve been missing from blogosphere for a while. Married life has been busy in it’s own sweet ways. I visited Krabi, Thailand three weeks back and it was beautiful (  A travel post should be up soon). For now, re- connecting to my love for writing Haiku. Linking up at Haiku horizons after what’s called eternity…

  

Clock

Panoramic View of Phra Nang Beach, Krabi, Thailand

Have always wondered

The fluidity of time

Fast, slow at times benign

When "being" speaks to you ...

“Sometimes the choices we make do not speak of the rebellion we’ve been fighting with others at the surface level; they speak of having the knowledge we’ve always had, just that the enlightenment seems too blinding”

When one is used to “doing” all their life, “being” doesn’t comes so naturally. It calls for unlearning all the language you spent hours mastering and then expecting to forget it and start afresh. Additionally “being”, like always, never expects, it simply accepts and that is what it calls forth from within-you. That, my friend, is the most difficult part. It’s that part of you which whispers to you in your busiest of times and you very easily chide it off, like a fly which just interfered at the sight of your gorgeous meal. Yet, even as you choose to make it invisible, it stands there, waiting, not like a fly, but like a saint, for that’s what it knows. “Being” knows that it’s difficult for you to unlearn, to undo all that which the society expects you to do and follow. It accepts that unlearning shall take time, maybe even if it’s this lifetime. It accepts that there shall be innumerable falls than wins. It also knows that it takes true courage and determination to take a little look towards it because carving one’s own path requires passion, patience and valour. It knows you have all that in you, for if it was not the case, you wouldn’t have even talked about “being” that many times today. “Being” knows how you melt your self with the music of Piano Guys as you write this post; it knows how you saw the milk twirling with tea leaves into that pot of tea you made for yourself; it knows how amazed you were with the omelette you cooked for yourself which looked like one gorgeous delight, ready to dig your teeth into. It knows all this and more. It knows it’s not a fly to you, it’s a part of your conscious which as a matter of fact you often hide for reasons you are certainly not responsible. It often wonders why you embrace it and then leave it now and then. It ponders in your presence and also your absence. It’s there. Always. It knows how overwhelming it is for you. It’s alright. Sometimes we learn dysfunctional ways of adapting or governing in the environments that only bring pain; what’s more disconcerting is the knowledge of our whereabouts. It seems we cannot do anything about them, the truth is we can. All that we do need to do is to ‘try’ our ways out of those lessons which are now our habits. As they say, knowing is the first step. Maybe, just maybe, it’s okay to “let go” and simply “Be” because heavens have never fallen and neither will they unless we allow them to!

Happy Weekend Vanilla People!:)
Aakriti

As Time walks by...

 The clothes are done in the washing machine, waiting for me to open and be dried as if autumn was here. The vegetables lie packed in the fridge waiting to be chopped only to turn into something delicious. Ah! The pain of the knife. Don’t we all get a little chopped and scarred to turn into better versions of ourselves? The sitcoms on the laptop wait no more to be watched. In fact they know that the bored newly married girl shall reach out to them for escape. However, for now she resorted to her love; that which all began some 6 years back. Wow! Yarn of Words has come with age, hasn’t it? It keeps knitting something beautiful every now and then. It knows that people come by and read but it always cringes at the thought “Are they so busy not to leave a word here?” and then Ms. Owner thinks “Well, I’m busy with my life to visit other blogs, so….” The Yarn gets going to mind its own business.

There are times when we have a lot to keep ourselves occupied with, yet we crib and cry coz we just do not feel like walking upto it and owning ourselves to it. We simply keep waiting for the work or the task to come to us. Question: Does it ever come to us? NO! It never will! For instance, yesterday when I was struck by cold and feeling all low in the dungeons, I had to rise above that dreary state and tell myself “Wake up, you are not dying! It’s just a cold!” (as if it’s just a cold?!). Few minutes have passed since I shook myself up to change the state of my mind. Oh yeah, you see it was all gaseous awhile back and now it’s flowy and it feels much better   ( kindly bear as I rant)

I just started with a 100days of art challenge today where everyday I shall be giving myself some prompts to make some art. Today I picked up a random song, it was Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself (with lyrics). The challenge was to draw as I listened to the song. I think I did a good job with the colours and the symbols. Go ahead, listen and soak yourself with the art if you can!:)

                                 

Love

Mrs. Aakriti (Kunal, yeah from Hausle Buland:D)

P.S: I'm gearing up myself for some writing everyday

P.P.S: As I finish writing this post I recall some words by some one; it meant there are too many things to do in life to get bored. So..I'll skip...one.two...whoosh!