Life has a strange way of presenting options. I turned 31 last week, and in the midst of the euphoria surrounding learning how to snowboard, navigating through serious discount sales and realizing that the job market is absolutely shite because no one can send out 30 job applications and have no callbacks…unless, my resume just isn’t stellar

 
Alors, I decided that if nothing is going to happen for me, then i shall make…French Onion Soup! This isn’t related to any particular event (or rather, non-event in my life being Far more plausible), but I thought it would be a good effort on my part. Beats trying to force my way into yet another KFC in Paris. 

One begins by chopping onions, as so. Pan-frying the onions in a pot with a chunk of butter, a tad of sugar and a tablespoon of flour. Looks good, doesn’t it? 

The magic ingredient is red wine, or sherry. I got a 2 euro bottle of red stuff, where the wine colour was probably colouring and the taste of alcohol was artificially introduced by some enzyeme. My soup turned immediately a dark shade of red after I poured the wine in. After stirring religiously for 15 minutes, my soup turned….grey. hiyah.

Secret ingredient #2 — one beef cube to add robustness to the grey soup.

Last step is to take some ready made pastry - best would be to get your hands on filo pastry to make a little cap for the soup bowl. Sadly, i couldnt find the right kind of filo pastry, but made do with tart pastry instead, which is a tad thick. And of course, since I didn’t know how to use a French oven, i could not estimate the heat too well. But in any case, the finished product looks like…this. Ok, not so handsome…but the taste is pretty good. This is what i call, “ugly till it’s nice” - especially set against the crazy table cloth and the cheap-looking blue bowl. Hiaks! Comical food? I say! 

All in a day’s work…as hard and effortful a day CAN be in my situation!

Ciao from France…

As I sit here, aching in my forearms and scratching my forehead thinking about What the hell I ought to be doing TODAY…i decided, what better way to close off one year and begin the next by summarizing the year that just passed?

I remember sweating through 2008, complaining incessantly about the weather and running into any air-conditioned mall I could find. I remember working through sleepless nights, uncomfortable days and finding the highs in my jetsetting career, and the lows of weight gain and afternoon food comas, and yet again, the highs of learning new skills, facing new challenges and the lows of having to renegotiate my rent with my landlord. I have lived through a year in recession, lost my job, learnt more about myself that is only made possible by the virtue of time. 

I remember discovering fitness, massages and false eyelashes. It was a good year for gigs and watching Jason Mraz, Jens Lekman and Whitest Boy Alive interspersed my work world with sanity and good grace. I remember cycling through the mountain ranges in Nepal and getting drenched by torrential downpour and hanging out watching the sunset on the mountain ranges of Nagarcot. I remember expanding my wardrobe and living the life that only a young banker could afford to and loving every minute of it. Inspite of it all, I was most happy with raising a nice sum of money for The Star Shelter, working on a couple of non-profit projects, meeting the CEO of Kiva.org and learning all about microfinance and wishing I had enough strength and passion to do what they were doing. I remember finding hope in jazz piano lessons, reading books on Eeinstein, mathematics and string theory and being dazzled by the complexities (or rather, marked simplicity or symmetry) of the universe. 2008 was a terrible year, trying and for many (including myself), a glitch in the matrix that we wished we could all rub away.

But not everything has been bad, as I grow to appreciate the complexities of the industry that i chose, being tried and tested on political agendas, learning to read people and situations with more intelligence, grit and prudence. Being consistently challenged on my ethical windvanes and wondering many a time “What does this ALL mean?” Understanding that despite all the frameworks that we know, the people that we learn from and trust in, that nothing holds and there exists an nth degree of chance, randomness and a good sledge of Murphy’s law that comes around to kick you in the balls and tell you “Hey, that wasnt accounted for in your model” and “Any assumptions you  made about life, just arent meant to be.” And one lives through it.

And did I meet my personal goals? Definitely, learning to be dastardly cool (not that I could ever Not be) on a snowboard before I turn 31, was definitely an awesome achievement. Going back to playing the piano is another.

And what next? I plan to grow my hair long, run a half-marathon, continue snowboarding, and perhaps, just maybe, finish reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace, courtesy of Ashvin. The book quietly sits on my bookshelf, reminding me of what I need to do I suspect that 2009 will be lived through, like any other year, but a year that will be passed with calm and consideration. And that doesnt sound too too bad.

peace out munchkins.