Bands in India ought to wake up and smell the goddamn coffee. Most bands are musically unaccomplished and have only gimmicks up their collected sleeves - Fake accents to sound cool; Resorting to metal to cover up their inadequacies. I mean metal is energetic and everything but that doesn't mean you don't need tight music to go along. Metal is not just making some loud noises and screaming w/o the musical talent to support it.

Just happened to chance upon a show called "Launchpad" on Channel V (which is a t.v. channel I learned to avoid long ago). The finals featured a band called "Faridkot". They were perhaps the only guys that really did make music from the heart. Whilst the other bands took to gimmicks that showed none of their talents, these lads made music. Sad that they didn't win but what they do is what bands in India should learn to do - make music not sound.

Oh, and TAAQ rock solely cos they do that. They make music.

Yeah, yeah. It is the same grilled chicken recipe from the last post but with a brocolli sauce. Yep, you heard it right. I had once before had brocolli sauce at some restaurant and remember it being surprisingly good. Got the recipe from here and it came out decently well. Not as awesome as the restaurant sauce but doable.

The original recipe was from here. My marinade was Olive Oil, Red wine vinegar, ground pepper, coriander, shallots and a lil bit of mint. Don't ask me why though. :)
The grilled chicken turned out a bit dry. Should have used more oil.

The brown sauce recipe was from here. I tried this first but screwed it up totally. It wasn't even brown. Of course, the second attempt was only ok. At some point during the making, the sauce appeared good and very flavorsome. Then my experimentation took over and it ended up with a bit extra flour. Wasn't a total success but I was cooking for myself. :-D

The side was steamed green beans and brocolli tossed in olive oil and pepper. The brocolli could've been a little more done though.

Happy with the attempt. Probably will attempt this gain next weekend. :-) Practice makes perfect, innit?

To tell you the truth I am not that old. In times before, I would've been a mere few years over the limit. In the current state of the age-psychology I am just a few years away to the magic (and disliked for god-knows-why) number. I know you are not here interested to read this. I know that you most probably inadvertently tumbled in here for no fault of yours. So. Let me get to the point of the post, if it does have one.

I used to play tier- volley-ball in school. I was ok at it, relatively speaking. I was in a proper team and all that (It's a different matter that we didn't win much). Other than volley there was a spot of cricket (aarrghhh, I hate that game) and a bit of badminton, where some trained champs that I had for friends mercilessly smashed my egos to pieces. On a side note, there was one day when, one champ smashed another's awesomely light, all-graphite Yonex racquet that cost a small fortune even then. The owner, surprisingly, held his own and resisted smashing the breaker. Damn it, there I go off-tangent again.

So I used to do some active sporting in school. That vanished once I got into college. For one, the college team was no place for a frail, unaccomplished player like me. I don't remember any active sports/games during those four years. After that, when in my new job, a few of us got together to play weekend volleyball or cricket. That must've lasted for a few months but once again given up on. Beyond this, it was an occasional game during a team outing or such. Until this weekend that is.

Folks in my apartment community have been playing some clubhouse cricket on weekends. Our club-house is supposed to host a badminton court but right now it's just one big four-concrete-walled room. So every Saturday and Sunday a group of anywhere between 3 to 10 people gather around and play some bat and ball. After promising to join them quite a few times (and obviously not waking up before 09:00), I finally delivered on my word. This Saturday I played some no-net badminton for a half-hour. On Sunday played some cricket from 07:00 to 08:00 before totally giving up. I can't bat for someone's life or bowl for mine. Though I was in the zone for a couple of rounds, it soon became apparent that I am just not cut out for cricket. That and I was beat tired too. Thankfully no aches and bruises. I missed the touch-wood incantation and the thanked joy was short-lived. By evening I could feel my muscles pulling up tight and not the good kind of body-building tight. My back was sore, my shoulders were sorer. This is what sudden activity after a long hiatus does to you.

Anyway here I am (on Monday afternoon) boring you to death and still nursing some aches. Nursing them like a bad tumbler of blended whiskey - you don't really like it but you can't dump it. I am hoping that with continued persuasion it all becomes a nice, warming scotch on the rocks.