The wonderful wonderful world of biscuits

Possibly the most under-rated confectionary in the world is the humble biscuit.    For my generation, I think it was supremely unfair that we were deprived of a great variety of biscuits that are now available in India, but even with the limited variety they offered such great joy & happiness – they make it to one of my favourites.

HUM PAANCH on ZEE TV

Ekta Kapoor is the doyenne of Indian television, a brand in herself – creator of the successful Balaji Telefilms that now produces various kinds of content from feature films to TV serials to webcontent. She is most famous (or notorious depending on your viewpoint) for producing ‘Saas-Bahu’ daily soap operas the most famous being ‘Kyunki Saas bhi kabhu Bahu thi’ about 2 decades earlier and in the process also creating many super star talents.  These were for primarily the satellite television but Ekta had been doing TV series for DD earlier a lot of them equally successful.

The second helping…

One of my social acquaintances - a voracious consumer of books, movies, TV serials, newspapers etc  mentioned he’d seen only one TV series again as in twice.  No, He wasnt showing off - but it was purely a mindset that a lot of folks have including my better half - my wife.

“Why are you watching this again, havent we seen this before?” if I am watching a movie on TV - one that we have seen before. I sigh and move on.

The Dhabas of India

My experience with Dhabas is very very very limited.  But whatever I had experienced was good enough for me to be a fan.

The popularity of Dhabas in India soared only in the last few decades.  No, people knew about this earlier, but they were only accessible when you were on the road - and therefore it is only post-liberalization with the growth of personal vehicles and with a lot more people on the road that Dhabas became the in-thing.

Plays by IPTA

IPTA was a cultural organization that I hadn’t heard of till I got into the theater scene, and even then (& now) know pretty little about.

The Indian People’s Theater association, from what I could gather was part of a movement that seemed to be grassroots driven to encourage talent, and spread awareness (or some such lofty ideal).  However like all good honest intentions it seemed to wander off eventually into territory far away from what it was meant to be.

The Vagina Monologues

No two shows of the Vagina Monologues are the same, and its definitely worth watching several times preferably in different cities.

I saw only the Indian version in English of the Vagina Monologues.  This was created by Mahabano Modi Kotwal a prominent theater artist and producer in Mumbai, who saw the original show in the US and got in touch with them to produce an Indian version.

India’s Trail Mixes or the ‘Mixture’

The ‘Mixture” in India is the ubiquitous snack sold across the width and breadth and not limited to any region.  More curiously everyone calls it by the english name ‘mixture’.

A close description of it for the west would be the trail mixes and the japanese rice cracker mixes you get of different shapes and flavors.