Noodle Salad and Peanut dressing

Guess what... I completely forgot about my last post. I did not remember that I took a decision to become a fitter person and that I decided to publicly record my journey... What a fantastic start to me being healthy!

I don't think there is a need to state the obvious, and yet I have to do what I think is absolutely unnecessary... Although, in my head right now I am quite sure that I don't want to beat myself up for not following through. Honestly, it's easy to wallow in self pity and even easier is to put myself down and berate me for not keeping promises I made to myself. It is quite easy. So yes... things did not go as planned. But for all the things that went wrong, here are a few things I did accomplish in the last 3 and a half months.

• I walked 3 kms in the SBI pinkathon and finished the walk in about 30 minutes
• I wrote and submitted my practical log book and assignments for my MA Psychology course from IGNOU
• I went on an amazing holiday with my husband and stayed in a place that was on my "to do once in a life time" list 
• I fired my cook and have now started cooking all our meals at home

Not bad I think! 

So about the cooking at home part... I have to make easy lunches and dinner. I don't do elaborate very well. Even when I am cooking for a big group of people, I will make 4 to 5 dishes but they all have to be simple. I do not like complicated. No wonder I don't cook Indian food as much. I always felt it was boring. But in the last few weeks I have come to realise that I do like to cook Indian food as much as I love to eat it. It's just that I hate the elaborate prep work that goes into it. So, I have help now, she cuts all the veggies especially the leafy stuff and makes cooking a breeze for me. I have been doing a lot of lentils and rice and even pesarattus. And I am loving the food that I make these days. So for lunch today I made my husband's favourite, 'ambali'. Will put down the recipe some time later. For dinner I made a noodle salad. I am sorry for the crappy picture... I did not think I was going to post it on the blog. Although this did go onto my Instagram account. 

So for today's dinner, It was as simple as it could get... Now I live in Hyderabad... And here is when I miss living in Pune... I miss all the fresh produce I was able to source for this kind of cooking. And initially I hated it, but now I simply make substitutions and make do with what I have. So! I had roasted capsicum leftover from yesterday and I wanted to use it up today. Also I had carrots and cucumbers that I hadn't used in some time now. I decided to make a easy peasy salad... A go to dinner option at home. Prassi loves salad dinners and so do I... especially in this scorching summer heat. Most evenings I don't even feel like eating. But cold salads are enticing and make me hungry. 

For the salad:

• three small carrots julienne
• two english cucumbers julienne
• a handful of alfa alfa sprouts
• red and green bell peppers roasted on a naked flame, cleaned and cut up in strips
• half a pack of cooked udon noodles

Dressing:

• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp soya sauce
• 1 tbsp tamarind paste
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp honey
• a heaping tbsp of peanut butter
• handful of roasted peauts
• 3 cloves of garlic

So mix the veggies and the noodles in a bowl. For the dressing i just bunged all the ingredients in a blender and added a little bit of warm water from the noodles and blended till it was all mixed up... it need not be smooth. Always remember to taste though, it is easier to make the changes in the dressing before we add it to the salad. You can add jalapenos or any other pickled chilly. I tossed the dressing with the noodle mixture and added more coarsely ground roasted peanuts and lots and lots of coriander. I did not have spring onions though... That would have made a nice addition. Also toasted sesame seeds. You can even add some thinly sliced apples or pomegranate or orange segments. Its completely up to your taste buds. But I have to say... it was great on its own... N we have enough left overs for my husband's lunch. So yay! I don't have to cook early in the morning tomorrow.

of new year and new plans

Woah!!!! New year already!!! Been almost two years since we moved to Hyderabad. And I finally feel like I am fitting in.
Most importantly, I don't miss Pune as much anymore... except when we want to buy wine! Why on earth is wine so damn expensive in Hyderabad! Last time we went booze shopping was for my birthday party. N we bought just one bottle of wine... and in that moment I really wanted to be in Pune... forget about the price, the options here are so limited. Can't wait for our annual trip to Pune... or maybe this time we could go to Bangalore... get some good red wine.

For the last couple of months I have been struggling with my weight a lot! That adds to the already building anxiety of not having a job, of not having babies and general life... Actually, I am lying... I have always had body image issues. As it turns out, I am very good at repressing things that I don't know how to deal with and pretending that they don't exist. Last year someone told me, that they loved how I don't care about my weight and that I dress they way I want. I do that because I don't think I acknowledge how much weight I have put on and the fact that I am fat. No wonder, when I see my pics in a camera, I am shocked! I blame my husband and tell him that he does not know how to take pictures. I am and have been living in denial!

So, this year I hope to change all that and embark on a new journey... Day one was today. I did not go that great, I did have a few problems, but I am hoping that by the time the month is done I will have ironed out the kinks. I am wring this on a public space and am hoping to find some kindred spirits, who feel the way I do... I plan to write at least once a week of all my ups and downs. Mind you, I have had quite a few false starts lately and am hoping that this wont be one of those...

I have to make this beginning count!  

Life like this...

It's August already and time is just passing by! We are already past the half way mark of the year and yet it feels like I haven't done anything in this year... In fact it been quite a while since I have felt any feeling that is even close to that of satisfaction. A sense of achievement in any aspect of my life. It's depressing talk I know...

But this has been bothering me for so long, that it became a part of my life and it is something I don't talk about or acknowledge. And it is so easy for me to ignore and for others to not see. This struggle is real and may be talking about it openly and not behind closed doors I might be able to do something about it. I don't want to go into the details and bare it all, because I am not comfortable enough yet and also because this involves other people and some of whom are really dear to me. 

It's been a while since I have had this feeling, this feeling of having lost myself somewhere in the path that I took in life. I was a lost little kid, bullied as a child and had no clue as to what was happening. I turned into a sensitive kid, the kid that cried every time anyone would tease her, the kid that cried at her friend's birthday parties because she felt she did not belong. I cried when things would not go my way, in fact I cried all the time BECAUSE I had no clue how to deal with stuff happening around me. I did not even know that when I cried, most of the times it was not because I was sad, but because I was angry about the way I was treated. 

I remember complaining about the bullying, and everyone told me to handle the situation by confronting the person. And I just never had the courage to make it stop!

They say that kids learn to cope, and that is exactly what I did. Cope! by repressing all my childhood memories, even the happy ones... I have no clue what my childhood was like. And the result was that all the crying and being sensitive led me to being labeled as the "Nautanki" / "Drama Queen". My mom called me that all the time. Not that I blame her, she really did not know what was happening with me, HELL I had no clue why I was the way I was...

This feeling of being lost and not knowing how to react to the situations I found myself in continued for  a long time. It affected me in many ways, most importantly it effected my confidence... I said out loud then, that I had an inferiority complex. I never thought I was good enough. Self doubt was a part of me.

It was when I joined college that I realised that there was more to me than being an emotional mess all the time. I made friends... I actually did well in my subjects, it came as a total shock and surprise that I could do well in my subjects without actually putting in any effort! I participated in loads of activities and it did not matter to me if I did well or not. Well sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't. I was actually the popular kid! Teachers knew me, other students knew me... they were the best three years of my life up until then.

But I really found my groove, after I started working. I took the courage of following my heart and took a break, to figure out what I wanted to do. That really helped me. I got into the perfect job I could have found. The money was sucky, but I loved what I did everyday. It wasn't an easy job and I definitely struggled, but there isn't one regret I have! I met some amazing people at that time. they saw me, the good and the bad in me and accepted me for who I was! I loved the person I was then, excited, eager to learn, I don't think I ever felt so alive!

After I got married, things turned around very quickly for me. And not at all in a good way. I had no clue how difficult it was going to be and I don't think my husband did either. I did not have a job, I did not have friends, I was in a new city and so I started clinging to my husband a lot more that I should have. It became so bad that I would not even want to get out of the house to go and buy groceries at the shop around the corner! I spent days together at home and not do a thing. I could not do the house work, because I felt that it was not my job! I did not earn and I hated the fact that I was completely dependent on my husband for money. It did not help that we had major financial issues at the time. So much so that I had to ask a friend for money. That situation really put things into focus for me! It was an embarrassing situation to be in and really humiliating!

It all came to me at one of the ISABS programme that I attended. I saw the mirror and could not recognise the person I was looking at! It easily been one of the most difficult moments of my life till date. I can never forget that moment of realisation  and the sense of loss. I lost that person that I had struggled to become and the knowledge of it completely shattered me. I came out of that experience, wanting to right what had gone wrong. So immediately I took up a job. A job that I was sure would not make me happy, but at least it brought in a big fat check. At least financially I would not feel like I was lacking in anyway. So I did. I did not like my job all time... Some days were good and most of them were bad and it was because I was treated pretty badly. I say I because in the past few years I have learnt the importance of not hiding behind the safety of a generic group. It's important for me to acknowledge the feeling as mine! I always knew it was temporary (the job) but I did not know what it was I was waiting for! So at the end I knew I had to stop for my own sanity, but I had no clue what my next step would be. I worked for a friend for few months and very soon realised that I was doing a half ass job and that it was not at all fair to my friend (who by the way, literally has put his entire being into making this a successful venture) and also to me. I should have been focused on finding what I wanted to do with my life!

And the last one year of my life has been all about that. This year I began another journey and I want this to be it! I so badly want this to be what I have been looking for all this while that the need for it scares the shit out of me! Also I am done feeling miserable, like I don't amount to anything in life and done being poor reflection of the person I was 6 years ago! I really am done!