Was going through my collection of pictures when this picture caught my eye. I remember standing there and a feeling of being in another world filled my body and my mind. I've dreamt of a visiting a place this after getting lost in surrealistic art where there are stairs everywhere in different directions. Thats what life feels like sometimes in a strange but a soothing way. You sometimes don't know which way to go or which staricase to take, you see people taking the wrong one. You know its wrong as you too climbed these steps once. You meet people on different staircases as in different stages of life. Some, you never see again.

Stairs by Vanitty from Deviantart.com

I just love condensed milk. I've grown up with it as most Indian/Punjabi sweets are made of milk, which is condensed by cooking, sometimes until its dry. And yes it tastes much better than the canned one, because of its natural texture and sweetness regulation according to your taste. Anyways I bought two cans of condensed milk and wanted to do something creative with it. I found a very easy recipe of a cake on the Internet.

As I only use recipes for inspiration and I never follow them completely. I always experiment. They usually work as I imagine the taste in my head, and try to combine different tastes because good food is my passion. So this time I used this very easy recipe and did nothing more dramatic than increasing the amount of butter (as always), putting lemon peel and lemon juice in the batter to enhance the taste of condensed milk. I also cooked a little condensed milk in a pan without the tin to make it thicker. I then glazed the cake with this frosting. I also added a pinch of salt to reduce the smell of eggs.

The final product is very easy to do something creative with. Anything could work this...fruits, berries, nuts, chocolate.....

Here's the recipe

Aftonbladet

Recently I've been feeling so productive that I've started working on a course which has its deadline in may. This behaviour has involved a lot time in front of the computer. I usually take constant breaks in the writing process and surf the internet and I have a small problem. The problem is that I just visit two or three (maximum 5) sites while having a break.

A swedish tabloid named Aftonbladet is included in these 4 or 5 sites. Its just a crappy newspaper written by the dumb for the dumb. The news are allways biased in foolish directions and always exaggerated. The language is so undeveloped that it seems to be written by a 5 year old. The content, now thats an example for itself! The content is overloaded by sex. Writing about rapes making these problems visible is just a good thing, because our society needs know the problems that women (and sometimes men) and children face. However I don't need to see different sexual positions when I read a newspaper in the morning or which celebrity slept with whom or how fat I am and ten ways to get rid of the extra fat so that I could achieve a
six-pack until summer. Achieving a six-pack is according to this newspaper the only way to show myself in a bikini. I usually get depressed when I read this tabloid because of its hipocricy and it tells me about the horrible world I'm living in. But is this worold really that horrible?

I once stopped reading this journal and believe or not, I felt much better, I was happier. But then I fell into the misuse again. It is so hard to not click on the link in the bookmarks. And I really feel stupid for that. From today on I'll try to quit reading this stupid newspaper because I let it affect my life too much.

Marriages

I recently sat and thought about marriage system in India and Finland and the differences between them. In India it is more common with arrange marriages but nowadays love marriages (i.e. the western way) are also becoming more and more acceptable. In the past love marriages weren't considered as something to be strived for because of the consequences seen in the west, in other words a lot of divorces.

Arranged marriages work because both in the couple try to fit in with eachother, do compromises and try not to give up so easily. But you still are married to a stranger, whom you chose yourself, and the thought of that scares me. Sometimes people even sacrifice themselves for children sake and stay in a bad marriage as divorces are harsh on kids. (So are some bad marriages). In west it's common with the phrase "your kids, my kids and our kids"; step-siblings, halv-siblings, stepmothers and fathers are, for me an absurd, reality in every other finnish kid's life.

I am not trying to justify arranged marriages or defame love marriages as I don't think that the problem lies in the marriagesystems, it is the mentality. In India it is expected of the girl to bring a big dowry along with her, as marriage is something that happens between two families. In the poorer regions the girl's family is not allowed to live peacefully by the society if the girl is seperated from her huband. But these things are gradually changing and the middle-class and upper middle-class people already are more broad minded.

In the west people usually give up too easily on marriages and rush in some cases after that into unwanted relations just to not feel lonely. To get a divorce you just sign two papers and demolish the house of love that you had built brick for brick. But thank god that mentality is changing. Of what I've seen people are becoming more serious about the constitution of marriage and about building a family. People nowadays tend to fight more to make relations work. Of course it has to be done from both sides, but still.

To be clear, I'm writing this on the basis of what I've seen in majority in both countries. So don't blame me for generalising. Here I would like to cite a famous comedian Russell Peters "I don't make up stereotypes, I see them".

Back from India

Yeah and my trip to India is over. I am engaged with the man of my life. I got to see my sweet sweet niece who is just 1 month old. With a stronger indian identity I feel at eaze with myself.

I must admit that I was impressed how my ALL my relatives accepted my fiancé open mindedly without ANY prejudices. They loved to talk to him and vice versa. As he's not a shy person he loved spending time with my grandpas and cousins.

We just had so much fun. I showed him places I loved. He also tasted my favourite dishes. And above all we had an engagement party in the way we always wanted i.e. the real indian way, with lots of happy people, lots of dance and lots of really good food.

Namaste

And I'm on my way to India, after sooo many years. This time its special. As my finish boyfriend is coming with me. My relatives and my boyfriend are very excited to meet eachother. He's more excited than me. It's weird that whenever I visit India, It never feels that I'm going on a journey. More like I'm going to my second home. But It always feels good to come to Finland as, believe it not, I belong here.

The funny part is that I haven't told my granpa (dad's side) that I'm coming so it'll be a surprise for him, hopefully a pleasant one. So I'm going to Punjab. Chandigarh is my hometown. But wish me a nice journey!

Karma

A random memory popped up in front of my eyes when I told a friend to wipe the side of his lips as he had a (big) drop of mayonaise there, while eating a hamburger. Here's the scene. Last summer I was looking for a job and I was called for an interview. The guy who interviewed me seemed to be the boss, an employer or some kind of leader. A person on a higher post. Anyways, he had cooked tea and coffee for this interview and served chocolate cookies to go with it. I took a little tea but not the cookies as I didn't feel like eating. After the first five minutes I noticed that he had a big spot of chocolate on his cheek. I don't know how he managed to get i there. He just wen't on asking questions and babbling about his job. I just didn't know what to do! Normally I would point this kind of stuff out, as I expect people to do the same when its me. But this situation was just to awkward, so guess what...I kept quite about the spot. When the interview was over I went home. And no, I didn't get the job.

The same thing happened to me earlier this week. I wen't to a person's home with snot under my nose. I personally find it very disgusting. I had been at this person's house for about fifteen minutes until I went to the toilet to blow my nose. To my my surprise I found this wet, green and grey stuff visibly located on the "mustasch" area. And yes, I really was pissed off. I guess that's what they call bad karma!