Shubham Choudhary's Blog, page 9

Independence… Or well… maybe!

It’s definitely not my 66th blogpost, but I so wish it was. Anyway, this is going to be a long one so let’s switch to the subject straight away. This is my third (kinda) serious post after Daughter’s day: Time to rethink and Republic Day. Yes, I am serious on all special days (except for the valentine day when girls don’t take me seriously).

Here I am telling you a few things we do, which are wrong and how we can do simple things to help our country develop. Believe me, they are simple. Try, you won’t get bored.

So… Ever got caught speeding and paid a hundred bucks to save your license from being punched? Or did you buy a pirated movie CD because the movie wasn’t good enough to be watched in theatre. I am pretty sure all of us, one time or the other, threw a polybag right there on the middle of the road. And well, who waits for the green light when there is no traffic inspector around.

We’re not good at sticking to the rules; we suck at following simple things… I tell you what we’re good at, planning and blaming the system for not executing the plans.

Also, we’re great at showing how intellectual and thoughtful we are on the online platforms. (Guilty as charged, I am doing the same here). On Facebook and twitter, every person sounds intelligent. Everyone is a genius describing how selfish Aamir Khan is when he promotes Satyamev Jayate or what an utter failure Anna Hazare is.

But here’s what I think. At least they are DOING something. Which is way better than… well… not doing anything. I realize Aamir’s heavy preaching in a TV show with so many lights glowing up his thoughtful face isn’t a solution to casteism or honor killing. But sitting at home and cursing him isn’t either.

The question is, are we ready to bring the change? Is there a Bhagat singh within you struggling to come out? Well hold it there BubbleHead. I for one, most definitely know there isn’t. Yes, you are enraged now, as you have watched a patriotic movie, listened to many tracks that show the love to our nation, saw at least a thousand Facebook posts saluting our martyrs and maybe watched our president’s speech (Which was awesome by the way). But you also know, it’s been like that from past many years. Let the day get over, we’ll see how ‘patriotic’ you stay.

So, since we are not going to do anything ‘heroic’ to save the nation (as you can’t do it), and also I am not going to preach you in heavy words with an exceptional command over vocabulary (as I can’t do it), let me tell you what you and I can do. It might not bring some big change, but I am sure our country badly needs even a little effort from everyone.

Do not litter. Seriously, would you like to see a banana peel near your pillow?
Save: Electricity. Petrol. Water.

I know it sounds like a cliché, but after seeing those power grid failures, I am bound to say we’re not doing it. Walk a little, switch off the fans and lights when you leave an otherwise empty room. And this goes for the public places and offices too. We all know we do it at home.
The average time we spend texting, calling and on internet, please spend just twenty percent of it reading about the government policies. At least blame them with facts, don’t follow a trend. (This goes for everyone in my age circle, especially engineers, who open newspaper only when there’s a placement interview the same day.)
Help someone. I don’t want you going to old age homes or orphanages, but there are a lot of homeless people you’ll see on your way, while you look at them; ask yourself, what exactly will you do with that 3 year old T-shirt of yours at home.
While we are at it, believe me, you are not donating 1$ for every share on Facebook to the girl suffering from leukemia. You’re just proving that you’re dumb.
Save some important numbers in your phone. The ones you can always use in case of you need help.

108 is the one for any kind of emergencies.

1098 is for Child Help. This number is NOT the one you call when you see leftover food and you want them to pick it up. It’s a hoax. But when you see a child in problem and need help, this is the number to call.

There are a lot of such local numbers for organizations like ‘Help in suffering’, ‘india against corruption’ etc. Take out 10 minutes and search for them.
Try to donate. It feels good. And you can always brag about it
Raise your voice. Against corruption, child abuse or maybe the illegal constructions near your house. With current levels of technology, even an anonymous call or just an email to the right place will do wonders. Experience speaking here (no more details please ).

photo courtesy: Google Images

We have over 1 lakh people, fighting for us on the borders, putting their lives at risks so we live safe. A man (not baba ramdev) is doing hunger strikes to ignite a fire within all of us, maybe it is overrated, maybe it is hyped, but I think maintaining this in headlines is better than watching Sunny Leone crying in her movie promos!

We do have bad policies and dirty politics going across, but at the same time there are people in the same field who live for the country and who want to see it prosper.

In the end, let me put it this way, I don’t care if the rest 1.2 billion people want to sit idle and blame the government for the country’s bad situation and people’s ideology, I am with those handful who want to do something to change it. I am not good enough to become an IAS, not bold enough to join Anna, not popular enough to start my own show, but I am strong enough to voice my opinion and do my duties as a citizen of India.

In case you have thoughts brimming and you feel like thrashing me with some of them, I’d welcome them. But do remember, it’s the effort that counts.

PS: I came across this initiative by www.21fools.com. Just go to the website and send a card to the army heroes. Spread a smile.

PPS: Watch this pic. Aren’t you proud of her ! 

Tagged: freedom, independence day, india

Like a President!!

Hello guys, you have no idea how good I am feeling updating this blog. Recently I did a few experiments with my writing. While the new style of fake interviews was highly appreciated (in conversation with), the foodie post got mixed reactions (Paneer Sizzler). Also my not so usual Birthday post managed to grab good comments from all J

I promise I’ll continue them, but in order to make my regular readers laugh like hell, this one is going to be an old classic. My take on politics with a tinge of sarcasm along with my co-author and sarcasm king Anil Sharma. This is my second co-authored post with him. And since then, both of us have come a long way. I completed my first novel and he made a hattrick of award winning blog posts!! Cool eh!

Moving on, you all know Pranab Mukherjee is the new president right? This was probably the most discussed matter recently. A lot more popular than hina rabbani’s country visit and just a little less than Rajinikanth.

So here are a few things we both came up with, about Indian presidential elections and of course, our presidents!

After Pranab da became the president, Pratibha Patil was so good that she stayed at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on her last day as the president when she could have visited Nepal twice easily.
After Pranab Da’s nomination for the President, Manmohan Singh became the first ever silent FM.
Err… is it everyone or just me noticing that Manmohan ji is the 13th PM of india while Pranab da is the 13th President? Omen much?
Now we have three very important leaders from UPA:

Sonia Gandhi with an Italian accent.

Pranab Da with an unidentified accent.

And Manmohan Singh with ….Well…!

So how many of you actually think Pranab da could win Indian idol? Well he is versatile, having experienced all kinds of indian ministries. He follows whatever the judges say (you know who). And he can sing (on the tune of you know who!)
Funny thing happened in my phone, while I typed PRANAB, autocorrect changed it to PRANK, probably that’s why it is called a Smartphone!
In other news, Vijay Malaya is now on hunger strike. He says the only reason his company was still running was Pratibha patil!
That reminds me, Just like A.P.J Abdul Kalam, Pratibha also left the president house with only two bags. Err… One full of boarding passes and another full of electricity bills.
Though I sincerely want every Indian to respect the post of President, but that is post this president!
When some of our faking news correspondents asked some popular people about this, here are their replies.

Winner of Roadies: This news of new president is quite shocking for me. Just when I memorized the name of our president (Pratibha Patil), they replaced her.
Rahul Gandhi: Jeete Pranab or PA sangama, this is wrong!!
All the death sentenced criminals: We’re disappointed with this, our lives are in danger now!!
Shahrukh Khan: Is the president supposed to lift your ban on entering inside any stadium?
Aamir Khan: Please send your precious votes to us and public will decide if the election was correct!
Sachin Tendulkar: What are you asking me for? I even made the 100th ton damnit!
Chunkey Pandey: He didn’t really comment, though he did give us a free dinner for considering him popular.

 

 

Since now we have our president with us, and all we can do is to expect him to be a little attentive towards national matters (and mock him like everyone else). Still, I strongly believe that P.Chidamabaram could have been a better choice for this job, his dressing style is quite similar to the earlier president Pratibha Patil.

And since PA Sangama didn’t win, we have a new job for him. Quite matching to his name!

On a serious note, I wish all the luck… to the Indian public, after all they will have to hear Pranab Da on every Republic Day eve!

And to those who ACTUALLY think this is going to be good for our country and are really pissed off at this blog post right now, I can’t help but crack one more joke right now!

Pranab: Any precious advice before you leave ma’am?

Pratibha: Yes, always use makemytrip.com, they are good. Yatra.com just sucks.

And for the few who are laughing, you know why Pranab Mukherjee is an important person? Because he is PraMukh!!

So this is it, I hope you all enjoyed, in case you didn’t, feel free to send your criticism for Anil as he is responsible for all the (bad) jokes in this article. And yes, don’t forget to take my autograph when you meet me, who knows if I’ll be the 21st Indian president!

Err… don’t forget to visit Anil’s blog FuddledAndPuzzled, he’s on a roll!!

Tagged: indian politics, pa sangma, pranab, presiden, rahul gandhi

Fusion Paneer Sizzler: The NEWS dish!

Hola amigos. I hope I find all of you in good health, because you’re gonna need one hell of an appetite to eat what I am going to explain next.

In case you’re wondering what is happening, let me tell you, I am the same Shubham who used to write sarcastic articles and weird observations. Just that I am a decent cook and I never got to brag about it. So I thought, why not! Let’s tell people about something they would never expect from me.

Thanks to Indian Bloggers League and my team Kolkata Knight Writers for giving me this opportunity to tell you all about a dish which I call, “Fusion Paneer Sizzler”. As the name tells, it’s a sizzler made from… err… Paneer (or cottage cheese as the high society people call it). Why the word ‘Fusion’? Simple, it’s a fusion of all regions of India. (That’s why i call it the NEWS Dish, see, brain ). It unites the ingredients from the spicy south, the tangy west, the sweet east and the delicious north.

So in short, you’re going to learn to make a new dish, from a 21-year-old guy, who has blogging for only a year and has started to learn cooking only a few years back (And is still AWESOME!)

PS: Though you’re not gonna complain, but in case someone gets food poisoning after eating this, it’s because of the stale cottage cheese you used and not because I am doing a foodie post for the first time.

So let’s Start with the ingredients. We bring you the base of the dish (Cottage cheese) which is loved by the people in west Bengal, the Gram Flour Gatte popular in Rajasthan, the spices and coconut derived from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, vegetables like Broccoli and beans and onion (optional) popular in Maharashtra and the Rice eaten by almost every Indian.

Ingredients ( Quantity-wise):

250 gm. Cottage cheese cubes.

1 Tablespoon Ginger and Garlic paste

1 Teaspoon Garam Masala

2 Teaspoon Tandoori Masala

1 Teaspoon Sour mango powder

1 Teaspoon Mustard oil

½ cups of Gatte (made up from Gram Flour)

1 Cup boiled rice (mixed with a pinch of salt and butter)

1 Teaspoon Butter

1 cup boiled mix vegetable (Cabbage, Carrot, Cauliflower, Beans, Peas)

2 tablespoon soya oil

Around 1-2 Tablespoon of Coconut and grounded cottage cheese

Procedure:

First of all, put the cottage cheese cubes, sour mango powder, Garam masala, tandoori masala, mustard oil and garlic-ginger paste together in a bowl and mix thoroughly.  (Shake it baby )

Now take a sizzler plate and heat it to a temperature enough not to burn the cheese. (Not hotter than Megan fox). Fry the cottage cheese with the soya oil in a frying pen.

Spread all the vegetables and rice after mixing in the sizzler plate. Put the fried Cottage cheese over it. Now garnish it with the Coconut and Cottage cheese mixture.

Does it look sexy? Feel free to add some more peas and even little crushed bits of dry fruits like cashew to make it richer and tastier.

Put some heated butter over the mixture and a little on the plate edge so that the little sounds tell u the amount of heat it has absorbed and once the smoke starts coming out, guess what… Your Fusion Paneer Sizzler is ready!!!

The Fusion Paneer Sizzler!

In case you feel incompleteness, here is a tip: Eat this with a little Coconut Chutney and maybe some Mango Pickle. Yes, pickle with a sizzler sounds really weird, but I realized it’s awesome only when I ate this. Those who don’t like the pickle idea, how about some green chutney? Believe me, anything looks good because of the paneer in there

Unfortunately I couldn’t take a photo of the one I ate, so you’re gonna have to suffice with a photo I found in my mom’s cook-book.

Hope you liked it, the dish as well as my experiment with my writing. Comment your reviews and yes, how was the Dark Knight Rises huh? Watched it yet?

 

Also

This post has been published by me as a part of IBL; the Battle of Blogs, sponsored by WriteupCafe.com. Join us at our official website and facebook page.

www.indianbloggersleague.com

www.facebook.com/IndianBloggersLeague 

Tagged: IBL, Indian Bloggers league, Kolkata Knight Writers, Paneer Sizzler, Recipe

Happy birthday to me, and a thank you to all :)

Every day in the world has something special about it. But there are a few dates which are extremely special. So when I thought about making a blog, I had to decide a date to start it.

I did some brainstorming, some discussions, some reasoning, a little calculation and ultimately chose the date when I was free.

It was 16th of July last year; a random thought of telling people what I think converted my Facebook statuses to a blog. I had been blogging for a year before that but that was for commercial and official purposes. This was MY blog. Something where I don’t have to worry what I post. Only after making the blog I realized the significance of the date.

16 July, a date when the Apollo 11 was launched with Neil Armstrong inside it. A date when Shaun Pollock, Katrina kaif, Aruna asaf ali and the Iraqi constitution was born!! Not at all bad huh!

The blog wasn’t named ABugInMyMind initially. It was first named NowThatsCrap. But then I shifted the word to its title and it became Crap REloaded!!! At first I posted nothing but my old jokes… for a month no one knew about the blog except for 1-2 people. But then through the blog, my first post at at Faking News forums and then NewsThatMattersNot got published.

Since then, the blog has come a long way.  I don’t give much importance to page views (21,000 Ahem ) but apart from that, statistically speaking:

51 posts, 45,000+ words, total of 350+ Facebook shares, 1000+ twitter mentions, over 4000 Facebook likes, exactly 100 WordPress likes, 50+ WordPress followers and over 250 total followers, daily 50+ Google search results and over 100 mentions on different websites are not bad.

The bug also won many awards in which most noticeable are the two Spicy Saturday picks by blogadda. Check this page out for more: Hall of Fame.

But above all this is what I got personally from this writing… Courage to tell the world what I feel, to be confident enough to write my own book and to finally have found my passion!

Special thanks to my friend Mona for designing this pic

So this is a thank you to all my readers for making this something I could be happy about.

The bug’s Fanpage has over 400 fans on Facebook. Plus the messages I keep receiving regarding it and the excitement and response I get when I ask for a co-authored blog post is uncanny.

If I start taking the names of people who have been with me in this journey, it will take ages to finish this post. But here are a few who have always shown their love via their comments. My blog’s top 5 comment makers: Smita Ojha, Tripti Goel, Gargi Trehan, Aayush Agarwal, Pragya Vedprakash.

I can’t describe the love I have received from the Indiblogger family in form of their indivine votes and comments. Few bloggers like Deepak, Saru, Pramod, Seena, Akshay, Debjyoti have been my inspiration, while I have always felt competition from the bloggers like Anil, Soumya and Rahul.

There are almost 50 more names that I could say who have always read my posts, shared their views, liked and sometimes criticized and have been the true readers… but I think all of them know their place and importance so I am confident it’s not going to make a difference. So I’d just thank my Co-Authors till date… Akanksha (My first co-author), Gargi Trehan, Anil Sharma, Ashish Jhanwar, Shubham Khandelwal, Shailesh Yadav. You can check all the posts here.

Oh my god did I just make it like an award acceptance speech for no reason? Well, that’s what happens to a person who has nothing better to do. So here’s one promise, I’ll keep writing. Crap as I say. And in case you don’t like it, feel free to make me better with your comments. It’s time to eat the cake I have bought.

And for those who plan to read my posts in future, I have some new kinds of posts in line. The very famous “In Conversation With” category… The “What to do if:” category and the all-time favorite “How to” guides. Plus I have been trying my hands in short story writing and 55-Fiction. Let’s see if you like that or not.

In the end, here are some interesting posts you might like:

Best poem of the blog

Most liked post

Most shared post

Personal favorite

Now let me go have my cake, you can have a virtual piece too

The Delicious Cake

 

PS: Those who couldn’t find their names in there, high time to start commenting

Tagged: birthday, blog, one year

See the language… Mr. …!!

 “Hello… I am older than all of you, I was born when people wanted to communicate. I am gentle, I am smooth, sophisticated and easy, above all. But people these days hate me. They cut me, play with me and kill me. It’s a humble request. Please don’t do that.” 

Yours sincerely,

English language.

PS: Do read this blog, it’s awesome!”

That was an email I found in my inbox yesterday. Well I have received a letter from Rajinikanth before, this is nothing.  So why this letter? Read on.

“Yesterday ma mom bot me a new cellphone… how kewl is that… ehh!!”

Yes, it’s cool, and even cooler is that the same cellphone will now be used to send thousands of such meaningless texts!!!

India is a developing country, even then why the minds of some gems of our generation aren’t developing is a big mystery. If you have been active on facebook, you’ll know this kind of people. Ruthless, merciless, rude and insensitive… towards English. They will roast, fry, bake and finally tear off each word like it’s there own property. Ironically, they noticed that I said ‘there’ instead of ‘their’ in my last sentence.

If I start giving examples, the list won’t end. But on the same time, their efforts are commendable. After all our so-called English-speaking people have made their own vocab now. To exemplify, I have some words.

They’ve replaced “picture” with “pikta”. Yes, sounds as it is spelled. Weirdness has just started. The reason behind this change is that “pikta” is easy to type and sounds cool.

That reminds me the word “Cool” is now “Kewl” now I wonder why this transformation occurred, I mean typing kewl is even more time taking than the regular one with two o’s!!

“My” is now “ma”. So apparently “ma” is everywhere, ‘ma cellphone’, ‘ma bike’, ‘ma bag’ and ‘ma college’. The only bad thing is that our original ‘ma’ might not be proud of this.

One of the revolutionary word replacements is “lyk” instead of “like” now I think people will go clean their private jets in the time they saved by typing one less character!

The next spot is taken by ‘ba’ and ‘ny’, believe it or not, these are the replacements for ‘by’ and ‘any’. Kewl, isn’t it?

Recently this is something I read while I was browsing facebook. “Congoz dude cary on… ol d bst fr the future”. But obvious, my comment was “How come you spelled future correctly?”

Now that I think, I guess around 380 million people are speaking this 3rd most spoken language in the world. English must be pretty strong right? Well not stronger than us, we kill it every day!

Just imagine, the people who fail to understand how misinterpreted their words can be when they say “can u cum” instead of “Can you come”, how will they understand the actual tough concepts, like the difference between “its and it’s”, “Their, there, they’re”, “Than/then” and above all “Literally and figuratively”!!!

Now you must be thinking why this preaching all of a sudden? Have you ever seen this status? “Hey ol, how r u… listen I got admit to clg… and ystrday was ma bday… u ol make ma liFE spEcial… THanku… ure ma sweet frnds… will miss ya…”

I saw it this morning, have been tensed since then.

I just want an answer to this query, “Whoever initiated this language, must’ve been a busy man. But did he not know that while he was busy murdering one of the most sophisticated languages in the world, there are hundreds of kids preparing for Spelling bee to honor the same!”

Now that I think, it’s not a one man task, it must have been a group thing. So we can say English has been gang raped.

Now this is something interesting I came across, not mine, credits to a page I found on facebook.

“Proper capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse.”

So all in all, I request all, those who do, those who don’t and those who do but will say they don’t, please don’t kill this language. For the sake being kewl… err… cool, you don’t use such words, it makes you look like a fool! And please, you say ‘k’ instead of ‘ok’ the next time, I am gonna take an embarrassing pikta of u and post it to facebuk!!

PS: This was my 50th blogpost, hope you liked it. It’s been a nice journey. And hence, my 51st blogpost is going to be a thank you note to all my readers.  :)

Tagged: english, mistake, not funny, rajinikanth, sms, young generation