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Horse Painting

This is my painting. As I fee as per mentioned here, Hobbies keep you happy:). One doesn't have to be an expert painter to feel the joy of painting and sketching. Let the colors flow on canvas and you will realize how much more you can do than expected. And its never too let to indulge in new found hobby.

Pocket mein Rocket

Finally, Just few ,months away from Lok Sabha election, congress has shot its most powerful rocket(you can call it  Bramhastra) to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh and to form a separate state of Telangana.

The Congress thinking is that the bifurcation will put it in a vantage position in Telangana that has 17 Lok Sabha seats. Moreover other state's regions Gorkha land and Vidarbha are also demanding separation from their mother states. Again congress will promise the formation of these states as one of the agenda for 2014 elections and will win some extra seats as a boon. Food security bill was other rocket congress has used to gain more points for the 2014 polling. May be they are thinking, public memory is short and they will forget Commonwealth, 2G and coal scam. The amount of these scams cannot be computed on digital calculator and common man cannot even read those numbers. They want us to forget it  and remember  their contribution to the development of India like Food security bills and formation of Telangana. After four ministers met PM and voiced their protest against formation of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh CM stating it as a suicidal step, the wave of concern has raised through the Congress master minds. While concern about a backlash in Andhra region looms, reflected in the fears of Union ministers, Congress has done a cost-benefit analysis based on its condition in the state with 42 Lok Sabha seats.

                Congress is trying every bit of it to impress public opinion about their last term in the centre and trying to get more positive point in their kitty before striking to LS elections. We have to wait and watch what other rockets Mr. Singh and Ms. Gandhi has got in their pocket to shoot ahead of 2014 elections. But one thing for sure these rockets are destroying Congress and damaging our nation.

Sea Bream fish curry recipe without oil

Sea Bream is a black colored single throne fish. Very testy and good for both Dry cooking(Fish fry or for baked fish in microwave) and curry. Today I have prepared curry. It was awesome. But the best thing about this fish is you should cook it without oil and the flavors coming out are amazing. Below is the recipe of my fantastic cooking experiment.

Ingredients
Onions - 2 medium size
Tomato - 1 medium size
Coconut milk - half a cup
Tamarind pulp - small ball of tamarind soaked in water
Ginger - small piece for marination and 1 small piece for masala
Garlic - 3-5 petals for marination and 3 petals for masala.

For masala
Coriander seeds - 3 tablespoons
Cumin seeds - 1table spoon
Cloves - 3-4
Green cardamom - 2
Black cardamom - 1
Star anise -1
Bay leave -1
Cinnamon stick -1 small
Red chillies - 2

Recipe :
Wash the pieces of the fish and marinet the fish with ginger garlic paste, turmeric and salt. Keep aside till we prepare for curry masala.  Roast all the ingredients under "For masala" heading and grind to the fine dry powder. To this masala powde rwe will add onion and tomato paste. Cut onion in long slits. Heat the pan and saute onions in pan without oil. After onion turns brown add chopped tomato. saute till tamotos get soft and mix well with onion if needed add little water. Allow it to cool before we add this to masala paste  and grinde the mixture again. Make fine and smooth paste. If you think you need more chillies please add more chilli powder and garlic, ginger, turmeric, again grind for a fine paste. After all the ingredients form fine paste, transfer this paste to the pan, add 3 cups hot water to get watery curry once masala starts boiling add coconut milk, Now add marinated fish pieces. Add tamrind pulp and adjust salt. Cover and allow it to cook for 10-15 mins on low heat. After opening the lid you will notice fish has left lot of oil in the pan. This oil is healthy and contain Omega 3 and unsaturated fats which are required for the body. So enjoy healthy and tasty recipe.

If you try this recipe. Let me know your experince....I am listening:)

10 Must see/do things in Dubai

This is my list to help you plan your visit to Dubai.

1) Burj Khalifa and Dubai fountain

Burj Khalifa and Dubai mall  is the main attraction of Dubai. Red line metro station has direct stop to Dubai mall. Travelers are allowed to go 124th floor of Burj Khalifa. It is advised to book for the Burj Khalifa before a week of actuall date you are planning, as advance booking is much cheaper. The best time to visit Burj Khalifa is 5:30PM to 6:30PM in Nov-Mar and 6:30PM-7:30PM from Apr-Oct. So that you can enjoy the day view of Dubai and when sun disappears beyond horizon you can have stunning view of Dubai in night. The roads, cars and building look simply adorable from above. Also you can enjoy astonishing view of Dubai foutain from above. It is one of the best experiences to see fountains from the top.
At the ground floor of Dubai mall you can have look at the fountain show. DO NOT LEAVE DUBAI WITHOUT FOUNTAIN SHOW. It is one of its kind. The Dubai mall also has very good but expensive shops. But restaurants are very good  and offer authentic test, particularly the lebanese restaurants.

2) Desert Safari

Desert safari is a surprisingly good experience particularly if its your first visit to any desert. The Dune bashing or driving in desert is enjoyable. Here you get the true sense of UAE's nature. It is advisable to book with very good tours to get the real fun out of it. Dubai has golden sand desert, sunset is awesome and beyond your imagination of what fun desert can offer to you. You can also have camel ride, henna tatoo,etc. This is included in most of the tours. You can wear arabian cloths and get yourself clicked. The food served is Arabic food generally  Hommus, Kaboos(Arabic bread), Taboulah, Fatous, Kababs(delicious) are on the menu. Belly dancing is also enjoyable. 

3) Burj Al Arab and Jumeirah beach

Burj Al Arab. Yes, the only 7 star hotel in world. There is a photo point on the Jumeirah beach from where you can take photo with the Hotel building as a side view. And there is another photo point at the wild wadi water park to get the photos with the front view of the hotel building. Both the photo points are at walkable distance from each other. Jumeirah beacch is one of the famous beach in Dubai. You can relax and spend some time here.

4) Dubai Museum

Dubai Museum is very artistically desinged and is very informative of UAE's history. They have a shourt documentary film about Dubai's growth n past 80 Years. It also provides information about Dubai's heritage and ancient culture.

5) Dubai Creek

Dubai creek is salt water lake which divides Dubai in two main areas, Bur Dubai and Deira. Crossing the creek via Abra(small wooden boats carrying 10-15 passengers at a time) is a fun ride. Dubai creek is at its best in early morning. At night most of the tours offers Dhow cruise dinner but my experience is not good and will suggest not to waste time and money on dhow cruise dinner.

6) Dubai Gold Souq

Gold is famous in Dubai...naaahhh...Dubai is famous for Gold. And you will be convinced after visitig this market. Souq is arabic word meaning market. You will see tones of Gold in the market but no police(Here law and order is maintained strictly for the residents and travelers ). Desings are too good to resist the temptations to buy ornaments. Also Dubai's gold quality is also authentic and pure. If your country's custom department allows, its worth carrying some beatuful jwellary:)

7) Atlantis hotel by monorail

Hotel Atlantis is situated on Dubai Palms Island which is a man maid island. You can have a Helicopter ride to have an airial view of palms. But if you prefer to go to Atlantis by monorail even then you can see most of the palm fringes from the train. It is recomendade to go to Atlantis before sunset and enjoy Sunset on the front side of Atlantis and return after sunset via monorail. The view of the sun immersing in the sea is simply beatiful and the scattered colours add to the divine beauty. Also Atlantis has some awesome food serving restaurants but you needto book in advance for it to reserve your seat.

8) Dubai Dolphinarium

If you have never seen the Dolphine show visit to dolphinarium is must for you irrespective of your age. Dolphines and seals show is very entertauning and knowledgable. I promise you will fall in love with Dolphines after watching this show. I love that Dolphines are treated respectfully.

9) Dubai Marina

Dubai Marina is the perfect place to see the Dubai night life. Visit this beautiful place for a Dinner. The lighting and boats will steal your heart but don't forget to notice the twisted building. Dubai Marina is directly connected to Red line metro. You can get down at the Marina mall station to visit this beatifully streched road along Marina.

10) Dubai metro red line ride

It is a must do, as you get to see many stunning views of Dubai like Golf course, Emirates towers, DIFC, Dubai airport via red line metro ride. But on weekend evenings Metro is crowded and you can hardly find seat. So its good to go in the afternoon. On Friday mornings metro is closed till 1PM.

This is my list. These are very selective places to be covered if you are planning for 4 Days 5 nights kind of trip to Dubai, But Dubai offers much more than this also for sure.  Share your experience of Dubai with me.

Because you are a woman - Dubai Stories 3

Today, I asked my colleague to get me the iPad which he has borrowed from me for his project some days back. He handed over the iPad to me, I noticed iPad was dusty so I requested him to clean it. While he was cleaning one of my colleague(a lady) who belongs to ME was listening to our conversation, she interrupted saying "How can you ask him to clean that? You have to clean it!". Surprisingly I asked her "Why?". She replied "Because you are a woman. Men should not do cleaning and all. That is women's job". I was shocked to hear this. I have never came across such situation in my life earlier. In my family all males including my father, brother, husband and brother in law get actively involved in household chores. Why only my family? I know in India guys are helping their wife, mother or sister in daily chores. And even if people here are used to have women doing all the cleaning at home. Do we need to drag this attitude to office? I tried my best to convince her that what she thinks is not the way to look at ourselves. But all efforts were in vein. This strange but sadly true.

Dance Bar and Prostitution

After SC verdict, Will the Dance bars in Mumbai be reopened?  I was surprised to see a news on one of the Indian news channel showing how the life of bar dancers has turned miserable after the dance bars are closed. There were some 10-15 bar dancers grieving as there bars are closed and they are not employed yet. Also they are only bread winner in there family. But really in 8 long years these ladies are jobless and nothing good has happened them. Why didn't they ask for government or NGO’s help to get other  job. Are these ladies used to the easy money of dance bars. Are they used to lavish and luxurious lifestyle out of the money from dance bar customers and they are refusing to give up that. Do they want to work in other profession where they have more work and relatively lesser money like that of a household help or a beautician in the parlors or even in any supermarket as a cleaner or anything else which do not need any educational qualification or specific skills. Has that become too difficult for them to find any other respectable job in 8 long years. We cannot ignore the fact that human trafficking is increased because of Dance bars and prostitution.
                    Many unwilling teenage girls are pushed into sex business for money. Dance bars open the doors for prostitution. This happens in the darkest hours of the night in the shadow of society without the light of law and ray of Sun. Mr Patil has taken a bold step to ban Dance bars and was welcomed. But now is it the time to think on next level, Prostitution? Shall we take a bold step to legalize prostitution? Legalized and regularized prostitution can work in favor of society and women involved in the sex business. Blood test for STDs can be conducted periodically compulsorily. One cannot support to legalize prostitution and reduce STD infections like AIDS at the same time. As the women in sex industry are more prone to HIV and likewise they are able to spread the disease to their multiple partners. But regular check up and proper counseling to such women can work in favor. We can have some strict rules for the their customers for the protection to be used. We can have policies on prostitution, brothel ownership, and pimping so that the women get their fare dues and not the pimps and brothel owners. There can be ban on brothel and pimps so that call girls can deal with the customers directly to avoid the middle man. As they are trapped in illegal system, they don’t get their dues, the larger part of the income goes to pimps and brothel owners. It can be made legal, as long as it is limited by fair conditions and terms; a woman's body is HER body and no one else's, therefore she should be able to do with it what she pleases and ban pimp and brothels as they consume her income. If prostitution were decriminalized it would be fair to require that all prostitutes have frequent medical check-ups by sufficient doctors to prevent the spread of STIs. People forcing women and children into the trade could be decreased dramatically because the prostitutes that voluntarily worked could report it to authorities without having to worry about revealing themselves. Nowadays surrogate mothers are renting their womb to another couple then why is our society  not accepting prostitution as any other profession. Workers in the sex industry deserve the same rights as workers in any other trade, including the right to legal protection from crimes such as sexual harassment, sexual abuse and rape...There are some unscrupulous people in all walks of life -government, law, journalism, banking, law enforcement, the stock exchange, medicine, the clergy, prostitution, etc. If every profession were criminalized when some of its members broke the law, there would be few legally sanctioned professions. Unscrupulous people should be summarily dealt with by the law, regardless of which profession they corrupt. The illegal and forced prostitution violates the right to liberty and security, and the prohibition of slavery, of forced labor and of trafficking in persons because millions of women and girls all over the world are held in sexual slavery to meet the demand of even more millions of male buyers of sex, and to generate profits for the capitalists of sex. Studies show that prostitutes suffer high level of physical and mental abuse. Woman are literally sold and bought like property. Prostitution will happen anyway but legalization and regulation will help stem the abuses. We can take better care of women’s health and at least they will get their fare dues and they will not need the curtain of dance bar to hide behind.
                       They have to face Violence at every step. Legalization will lead to rehabilitation of their children and prostitutes who has been infected by STDs like HIV. Time is changing and so is India. We have accepted porn start Sunny Leony as a mainstream bollywood actress. Isn't it a time for us to accept prostitutes as a part of our society. Are we ready to give them the respect and dignity they deserve.