The temptation to commit the crime was really big. We were senior most class in our small school and we thought of ourselves as kings and the idea was simple, to assert our authority and probably impress few girls also in the process. The plan was perfect – a small semi broken chair in the classroom pleading to our violent instincts to take it all the way. The idea was to simply break it into small enough pieces and throw it out of the window in our classroom. So the escape plan was also perfect as there was no signs of humanity beyond the lonely window in our 2nd floor classroom.

So what could go wrong here. But then you know, Mr Murphy did not become my friend recently. I have had a childhood relationship with Mr Murphy. We broke the chair into tiny pieces and threw each small piece out one by one. What a pleasure it was to break it and throw it. This was our way to declare freedom against the teachers we were so scared off. But to our misfortune somebody who had a small home probably half a kilometre away from our school saw some UFOs coming out of a small window. He did something which I have no idea why any sane human being who has a job will do. He collected all the wooden pieces and brought it to the principal of our school. He also figured out the class from where these UFOs originated. We were caught red handed.

The punishment was swift and embarrassing. We were made to stand in the sun and since the principal could not figure out who did the crime, he punished the entire class. We representing the senior most class standing in the sun and all the small kids around asking us why we were standing like that. Only if earth could break up, I would have gone underground and hid my face.

But then after some time fairer sex was getting too concerned about loosing fairness in the bright and hard hitting sun. So they stuck a deal. The girls in our class told the principal all the people who were involved in the act and they escaped the punishment. Four of us were named by them and I was also part of the list. Others who were also listed were Samrendra, Dalbir and Vikas( I am not sure of all the names although). Our punishment continued and we spent the entire day enjoying the sun.

So girls of my school, if you happen to read this now, I just wanted to let you know that I have forgiven you for this. I can understand the fascination for fair skin. Fair and Lovely was not so popular during 1980s. Anyways if we end up meeting, I am sure you can at least buy lunch for a non-alcoholic and vegetarian me to make up for the calories lost.

Just go and press the like button on our new FB page.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bhoole-Bisre-Geet/111281795585260?ref=ts

Great music will get delivered to your FB wall on a regular basis and do not forget to like the songs which you enjoy so that it continues to appear on your wall.

The session started with usual fight about what to make first. Everybody had a different starting point. We adopted a democratic approach to break the deadlock. The dark chocolate won the battle to my surprise. I never thought that kids will be fond of slightly bitter tasting chocolate. We decided to mix some apples to the chocolates. Small diced pieces. We melted the chocolate in microwave and mixed the apples once it was molten. Then we just put them on a steel plate which was greased a little bit with ghee to ensure that that chocos don’t stick. And here they go to deep freezer or at least that is what I thought. Everybody was so keen on opening it after every few seconds that it tested the Samsung quick freeze technology to it’s limits. As soon as I took the chocos, I was just ambushed by all the kids. An empty plate is all I was left with within a span of 30 seconds. The scene repeated multiple times when we made white chcolate with corn flakes, milk chocolate with cashews and coffee.

Besides the chocos we managed to make some cheesy potatoes on our grill. Thinly sliced potatoes grilled to make them crispy and the a little bit of cheese over them before serving.

This was the last day of the session and my initial nervousness had transformed to sheer joy. It was fun to work with so many enthusiastic kids and get them interested in creative art of cooking.

Lot of pushing and pulling. Somebody wanted a combo of Mirinda and Thums Up while some other kid wanted just ice cream. When there is so much of ice cream and soft drink around, some of it got to go to the floor also. Anyway we came back to Bhel Puri after that. We moved on to doing some yummy Papdi Chaat after that. The next thing was Aloo Chaat made using green chutney. The chutney was a little bit spicy and all the kids found an excuse to have more soft drinks. Chaat Masala and Kala Namak added amazing twist to all the chaats.

The next thing on the agenda was Mint Julep. Let me accept it that it was my first time making it. I was pretty nervous on how it will taste. But it came out really well and the best part was kids also loved it and multiple refills. The only problem with all these juices was that enough got spilled on the floor. I also loved the taste and planning to add this to my restaurant menu.

The end of the day discussions included revision of all the items and also a little bit of home work. I asked all the kids to ask their parents their favorite dish so that I can teach them how to make it.

PS:

1. These cooking lessons were part of the summer camp organized by Noah’s Show.

2. The cleaning lady needs my apologies again.

That is when tragedy stuck us. No power and electric grill can not work. You have noisy kids in front of you and you got to act first. We soon moved our action upstairs where we had access to a gas. Now the next challenge was to make sure that we keep kids away from gas and hot tawas. I had to resort to a little bit of shouting to ensure that kids maintain safe distance from gas and hot tawa. We changed our plans and instead of making Panner Tikka and grilled Baby corn, we decided to make Vegetable Kababs on tawa. The kids were waiting for it to get them and they were putting so much pressure on me to cook it quickly. The chaos started as soon as the first round of kabas came out. They were finishes within a minute and everybody was shouting to get more. I had to use two burners to do it faster.

By the time we were done with Kababs, the power came back and we resumed the action on the grill. The problem was again to ensure that kids kept a safe distance. We did layout the Paneer on satay sticks and placed it on the grill along with baby corn.  We took lot of photos of the grill. Kids loved Paneer and we had to make another extra round. Some parents had also come around by that time and we shared food items with them also. We could not make some of the items like grilled cheese potatoes because of power cut but we had enough fun making all the stuff.

One interesting aspect I have started noticing in kids now is that they are asking me lot more questions related to ingredients, decoration and also stories of their cooking experience. I did hear from some parents that some of them went back and cooked some stuff at home.

Looks like it is working!

The next one on my agenda was a fruit salad not made using cream or ice cream but using lime juice and chat masala along with some Boora (powder sugar). Kids loved cutting all the fruits and usual fights erupted in an effort to cut more fruits. We also made an interesting version of fruit salad by covering it with wet bread and spreading some curd over it. This approach to salad completely transforms it to look like something else and tastes great. I also taught them how to make a quick shahi toast by spreading home made malai and sugar over a piece of bread.

Then came the storm, the chuski or ice gola. Simple crushed ice with Rose and Kesar syrup on a stick. The kids just got too excited and soon everybody was ready with the most innovative reason why he/she should be the one to get it first. The worst part was that crushing the ice was a manual process and took us some time to get it. The pressure was mounting and the demand was much more than supply. The entire room resembled a chaotic ice gola shop with a very sticky floor. Some kids wanted only rose and some other wanted to mix it and check out the color. Adults also got bitten by the chuski bug and we also enjoyed it.

We had few minutes left before parents would come to pick up the kids so I just started chatting up with kids. All of them were telling me how they will decorate or make a dish in a different way. Some of them started telling me jokes and one naughty girl put a ice cube inside my shirt. Overall lot of fun and one thing which I was certainly happy about was that kids were not just thinking about standard way of making a recipe but also were thinking through variations of the dish both in terms of ingredients and looks.

We also discussed last days home work and I told about the lot of recipes which can be made with left over food. A satisfying day indeed. Kids have become very friendly with me and they are also understanding overall picture of cooking.

Next day’s home work was ask all the kids to find from their parents if they had ever invented a dish. Let us see what they come back with.

PS:

1. These cooking lessons were part of the summer camp organized by Noah’s Show.

2. My apologies to the lady who came to clean up the room after the mayhem.

And the last stumbling block was that the stuff I was trying to teach was a little bit new to me. The first day syllabus was three varieties of salad – Coleslaw, French Dressing, and Russian Salad. Since we were primarily teaching no fire cooking, we chose dishes which are safe enough for kids to make.

We started with a small introduction with all the kids and then I introduced myself. The nerves were still not relaxed. I asked all the kids to wash hands and also tie their hairs ( I also had a rubber band on my hairs ). Now we started cutting some vegies for our salads. It was so tough to ensure that kids cut vegetables without hurting themselves. Then there were some fight between kids to cut vegetables. We also did a little bit of grating and struggled to ensure that kids keep their fingers away from grater. By this time I was getting a little bit more comfortable. I realize that kids were enjoying their cooking a lot and they were keen to learn. The coleslaw came out pretty good and then their was a small fight to taste it. Next item was French Dressing and followed pretty much the same sequence. For russian salad we got the vegies boiled under adult supervision and mixed all the stuff in front of the kids. All the salads were kept in the fridge so that we can have them in the end.

We had a langar type of setup in the end and all of us enjoyed the salads. Some of the questions which stumped me were

- Why does not mayonnaise go bad if it has eggs in it?

- Why are you putting so much Mayonnaise?

- How can it become so creamy when you mix oil and vinegar?

- French Dressing is from France, Russian Salad from Russia but what about Coleslaw?

I don’t even want to write what my answers were. The day ended with home work for all the kids. The home work was to ask their parents what they do with left overs at home. The idea was to help them understand all the great things they can make with left overs.

I was certainly feeling more comfortable by end of day with kids as well as my teaching skills.

PS: These cooking lessons were part of the summer camp organized by Noah’s Show.

Times are changing. Twenty years back I did want to write. I wanted to express myself. Options were limited. You could just dream of writing a book or publish an article in magazine.

Anyway internet and computers came along and things changed. You could write something which could be theoretically be ready by millions ( remember theoretically ). You did not need much to get started. Just a computer and an internet connection which lot of us got as part of our office work. This was freedom. I could write about anything I thought was important. My efforts in this direction did not go too far – http://geocities.com/NapaValley/2314/. Just a simple page with some Java Applet ( I am still surprised that it works even now. This was compiled using a JDK in 1996 ) and a few recepies. Blogging sites came along and made the job of making a personal site such an easy affair and aided in the growth of personal web ( opposed to corporate web ). Currently web is all about how it relates to people more than anything else and people also have embraced the medium with both hands.

But what are the innate human needs all these technologies fulfill

Immortality

This is one big deal which humans have been struggling with for ages. Everyone knows that we have to vanish from the face of earth someday but we still have the desire of immortality.We see our web presence as something which live beyond us. At some point people used to look as kids from a similar perspective. May be they still do.

Celebrity Feeling

Who doesn’t want to feel like a celebrity even if it is a fake one. We have grown up figuring out when a particular actor sneezed or an actress had an affair. Now time to get some piece of the cake by publishing to your followers that you are waiting for an auto and you got a tatoo in not so mentionable body parts. The real celebrities get attention to anything they do and the fake ones keep clicking on refresh buttons on their browsers to see if somebody responded to the status update they did. ( I have been even thinking of building a company which manages social updates for you and get paid on a per response mode)

Social Animal

Man is a social animal is an overused saying but the fact is that he/she is. We love to connect up and who do not love to do that also want to be perceived as they do. Some of these technologies have made being social so easy. No trip to Archies to figure out a greeting card. You just need to send a virtual drink on FB. These technologies have helped social people to become more social and non-social ( not anti social ) folks to fake it.

Identity

Internet presence has become an integral part of our identity. It is like a fashionable cloth somebody might wear or a car person might use to convey what he wants to be perceived as by external entities. Now people use social media as a similar vehicle of self expression. Social media has also evolved to focus on more of public conversations then private conversations to facilitate this.

Years ago you were what you read or what you eat, but nowdays you are what you tweet.

PS: I wrote this when Geocities was still alive and now my first date with internet is dead… Sob sob.

1. Crispy corn flakes chocolate

2. Mint Chocolate made using Polo

3. Coffee Chocolate

If you need the recipes, you just need to write to me.

Besides that we had an innovative cooking competition where 17 housewives participated with amazing enthusiasm. They cooked some amazing dishes. Our customers voted and Mrs Pacheesiya from Mantri Paradise emerged to be a clear winner. She made a Mix Veg ( Au Gratin Style). Second prize was won by Shaloo Agrawal and the third by Yukti from Mantri Paradise. Our sincere thanks to all the cooks as well as everybody who helped us manage the event.

Some photos to ensure that you don’t miss it next time.