ELEPHANT FALLS

Its always nice to be visiting a new place. Its not only the whole new freshness about the location that that hits you but it also gives one a sense of adventure and a great story to tell. I haven't really ever been too big on the whole traveling idea. Used to think that its over rated. But staying away from home for almost about a year now i have to say it is necessary for you to move around the new place to familiarise with it and just to get comfortable with the new territory. To be honest its been easier for be because i have been living in one of India's most picturesque states- Meghalaya. Precisely my current location is Shillong. So over the past year (almost) my friends and I have been roaming about the city stumbling upon new (to us) restaurants, shops, fairs, landmarks or just simply getting lost. This has helped us become confident about not getting lost in the new place or if we do get lost we can surely find our way through the maze. This bubbling sense of adventure was the reason we decided to visit the graveyard on all souls day. Our warden told us that it was a great attraction. This was all we needed hear to get fired up and marched towards the graveyard. Me being of the faint heart didn't cross the threshold of the graveyard. Well my friends witnessed some sort of paranormal activity inside there.Their mobile phones and cameras went haywire. And while we were moving back to the hostel one of those friends met wit an accident. Thankfully, the car that hit her didn't cause much damage.

With all the paranormal activity and "near death experience" inside the city we decided we had to try our luck on the outskirts. We decided to go to the ELEPHANT FALLS at about 10 km from the city. With some packed food we called up a taxi driver and more friends to take the tour. We started our journey at about 11:00 am from Laitumkhrah. Our trip was made easier because we had the number of a taxi driver, we called him up and there he was outside the hostel we were staying at. Seven of us including the driver climbed into his beat up maruti car taxi and drove off. At that time sheila was an infant so the car music system blared out the trysts of munni. And there after about 30 min or so we were there. Needless to say that we had a lot of fun there but we did have some friction with the guard about tickets for cameras. Apparently he was was too tired of our uncontainable enthusiasm. But we moved on and discovered the place for ourselves.

There is a split level attraction near the falls in the form of a park, the specialty here is that the you can have picnics there and simply jump into the falls which descend down there into a gentle stream. We did exactly the same, the water was bitingly cold and the experience enjoyable. We had a picnic there with our packed food and some aerated drinks bought from the stall inside. We noticed that one family was also having a picnic there but they were cooking there food right there. You can also eat right at the restaurants inside the park. All in all it was a great trip. One more thing, you can get your pictures taken at the falls in traditional attires, looks good on kids

PAPER, PEN AND A TINY WAR OF FATE

Here we are again back to the dreaded exam days. Every year every time its the same story over and over again. The new year hasn't even settled in yet and we the students have go back to our books. Maybe for people who love to do it its the best time of the year but for lazy blokes like me the time couldn't be worse. The new year is supposed to be about every thing new.. not resurrecting the demons of our past. Is it fair that what we learnt last is what we have to revise again this year to reproduce in this year's paper? It was just so painful to have said good byt to 2010..they are making its sweet memories worse this year by making us revisit the ugly side of it again. I never favoured exams neither do i endorse them now. But my biggest fear isn't really the exam, its rather the result that I fear.

THE GREEN AND THE STUFFED

Food (la. cibus) is any substance or materials^[1] eaten or drunk to provide nutritional support for the body and/or for pleasure. Food is indeed the most basic necessity of life, its food that keeps the mind going. For a few food means a whole new artistic dimension. My very own experiments with food began a few weeks back when i debuted in my mother's kitchen..she taught me how to make pitha. That pitha is what she received as a legacy from my grandmother. In a way food keeps us connected to our roots. Familiar tastes and textures can uplift our moods and make us smile. After that pitha i have tried my hand at making rotis too. I have been dying to share with everyone my very first independent food venture. Recently i managed to make STUFFED CAPSICUMS on my own. So here I am sharing the procedure:
since it was stuffed lets begin with the requirements of the stuffing: for this you need grated paneer, coriander(chopped), chopped onions, cashews and chillies, salt and pepper. For the secret ingredient to the filling i used grated olives treated with some sugar, salt and chillies. Let the mixture have rested for overnight. Add two spoons of this into the filling and mix well

Now the filling needs to be filled into the hollowed out cavities of the capsicums from which the seeds have been removed. Top every capsicum with grated processed cheese and bake for 20 minutes at 175 degree Celsius. The picture shows how my stuffed capsicums looked post baking