National College Soliloques - I PUC Exams

I still remember my I PUC exams at National College. I hadn't studied anything, I couldn't decipher the formulae nor could I make any sense of the scientific equations and experiments. That was when I seriously regretted taking Science. The exams finally started, the first two exams were English and Sanskrit and I did quite well in both these subjects. The next one was Biology, I managed to answer most of the questions in this subject too, however the worst was yet to come. I had an accident a day before the physics exam, it was a minor head injury still I couldn't study for the paper. Not surprisingly I didn't do well in any of the most important subjects (Physics, Chem and Maths). I was still confident as every body had told me that no matter how badly the students do in the exams, every body get through the exams. So that was one hope I was holding on to.

I took off to Madikeri for 2 weeks to cool my heels and totally forgot about the exam experience. I came back to Bangalore and called my friend B, she mentioned to me that the results were announced. She had passed with a first class and I had got second class. I was happy to note that I didn't fail. My friends M, B and A were discussing about II PUC tuitions, some of them had already finalized the tuitions for PCM with prominent professors like RKJ, GV for Physics and Desikachar for Chem. I started to worry as I hadn't done anything of that sort. My friend Anand mentioned to me that there were still few seats left in one of the tutorials run by Professors NAR and KR. I went to meet with them and they gladly accepted my application and I was enrolled for Physics and Chem classes.

I still hadn't enrolled myself for Mathematics tutorials. My friend Viji recommended Prof. A.K.Manjunath. I found out that he was located very close to my home and was a well known lecturer. I met him and asked if he had any seats left, he said he was completely full and had no seats left. I was disappointed and worried so much so that I was close to tears. I told him "Sir, everywhere else the seats are booked, I am not very good in Maths and need all the help I can get, please accomodate me", he said he didn't like the word "booked" as it seemed like it was a business that was being run for profits. Finally he relented and agreed to take me in. I was in a batch of 6 girls and we met twice a week on evenings. Some of the names of the girls who were in my batch were, Pavani, Sandhya, H.N.S, D.V and Roshni Rajkumar (the one who had appendicitis surgery, I am sure orchid will remember when she reads this :)). I must say, of all the tuitions, I liked Maths the best, because A.K.M was a very good professor and his methodology of teaching was excellent. He was also very strict and quite short tempered. Thankfully we didn't get into trouble with him.

The over all tuition fees came up to Rs. 5000 (!).

Off to London

I am off to London for a week and will be back to blogging once I get back. I have been assigned to a new project which requires some travel to our UK office. So Queen of London, here I come!

Take care y'all!

Visit to Vidyarthi Bhavan

The hubs and myself had prepared a list of restaurants that we wanted to visit during our tenure in Bangalore and one restaurant which figured high on our list was vidyarthi bhavan. Vidyarthi Bhavan was started 63 years ago and has come a long way since then. My dad mentioned to me that this place used to be a regular hang-out for Masti venkatesha Iyengar, T.P. Kailasam, even Sir M.Visweswaraiah used to visit this place frequently I believe. I visited this jaunt for the first time with my dad when I was 6 years old and since then have been addicted to their masala dosas.

My SIL and FIL were conducting some homa in Gandhibazar so we decided to go to vidyarthis for breakfast and head out from there. We reached the place at 9 a.m and it was a sunday. The place was jampacked, on top of that it was very hot (around 40 degrees to be accurate) and we were sweating like hell. This is a very small place, may be around 1000 sq. ft or so I guess. There are around 20 tables, enough to accomodate 50-60 people. There is a narrow passage next to the seating area where dosa lovers like us stand and wait to pounce on any seat that becomes empty. My pouncing skills have weathered down as I haven't been to Bangalore for long and I seem to have forgotten them completely. However my FIL saved the day by finding an empty seat for all of us. Even before we all could sit there was this huge sumo wrestler who plonked herself on the seat. I usually ignore such incidents and try to find another seat, however this was vidyarthi bhavan and I was waiting for 15 minutes in that heat, no way was I ever going to let her do this to me. I immediately told her in a loud voice that we were the ones who reserved that place first and glared at her. All this I said by standing in my professional kick-boxer pose. The look that I gave her must have scared the hell out of her, she immediately got up and mumbled a weak sorry. I heaved a sigh of relief, and sat down with my family. My daughter was really excited and kept saying "Othelle dose elli??", meaning where is the hotel dosa. Immediately we placed our order and after 10 minutes or so our waiter came by carrying 20 plates firmly balanced on his right hand. Now this to me is a skill. You need to balance these many plates and move through the narrow passage and you also have to make sure that you don't get hit by any of the bystanders (read pouncers).

Finally the fragrant dosas were placed on our table and we all mentally said "attack" and finished them off in a jiffy. The dosa was crip and reddish brown in colour and the inside was slightly thick and smeared with red chutney. The coconut chutney and the fiery sambhar were out of this world. My daughter is a fussy eater, and she is about 2 and half years old. She managed to polish off one and a half dosa and was asking for more. A dosa at vidyarthi bhavan is incomplete without coffee so we ended up having that too. The coffee was also very good. In the end we all came out with a very satisfied look on our faces. This visit was well worth the wait and the heat. God bless vidyarthi bhavan!

Bangalore - Gastronomical Delight

I have travelled all over India, but nothing comes close to Bangalore when it comes to good food. Hubby, my daughter and I literally gorged on the restaurant food every single day. Of course nothing can beat the food cooked my mom, she took a lot of pains to cook all my favourite dishes. At G's(hubby)place we would make it a point to order piping hot idlies, spicy sambhar, crispy vadas from Sukh Sagar - Koramangala. Oh my! my mouth waters even now while I type this. My daughter absolutely loved to have Othell Dhossa (hotel masala dosa). Infact I tried to trick her into having the dosas I make here by packaging it just like the way it is done in Bangalore, but she could make out the difference in the taste (!).

Udupi Krishna Bhavan has also opened a branch in Koramangala close to Jyoti Nivas College. The food that they serve is heavenly to say the least. They make the best Open Dosas. This is actually a huge soft dosa smeared with spicy chutney powder and on top of that there is a huge mound of aloo dry curry (palya)and of course a glob of butter.

Another casual eatery that I have to mention is Mast Kalandar. This is a small restaurant started by 3 IIM graduates which got so popular that they have opened 3 more branches in the last 3 years. You get awesome paranthas, khichdis, and ofcourse Aam Ka Panna. The food is very light and not oily at all. G and I would go there at 10 every night to try their paranthas.

We also had lunch at this place called Gramin, they offer a very good Rajasthani menu and food is out of this world. We had the Kaju corn masala, and hara bhara kababs, and some other paneer dish which was very good. Adigas fast food joint is another place that I love going to. I love their lunch thalis, these are priced at 30 rupees per plate and you get a naan/roti, a curry, and a dry palya, rice, rasam, sambhar and yogurt and a sweet dish. How cheap can it get??

I also visited the famous SLV fast food joint of Banashankari II stage, I am sure fellow blogger Deepthi knows this :). I was in for a pleasant surprise as they also serve Dosas now. They always served yummy idlies and vadas.
BTW I used to go there after finishing my 10 std tuition classes with my friend A.

The best part of this trip was that I never had to cook even once. I made anna saru and palya just once, but that doesn't count.