Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

Be Indian, buy Indian.

This republic day I would like to tell the you one secret about me. When I was in school I was in the band. Not the rock band, not a pop band but the school brass band. Yup, I’m a proud member, REPRESENT!

I played the easiest of all instruments – the cymbal. My job was to clash the cymbal together every now and then. The only reason my friends and I joined the band was for the perks : free snacks at any function and the cute uniform that consisted of a white skirt and shirt, red waistcoat and a red beret. We also wore white stockings and white gloves. Yes, we were very fancy. So I would dress up all fancy just to go clash the cymbals and then gorge on the free snacks the school provided which was always small samosa and frooti pack yum!

The school band used to play at all important functions. We would practise for days which was very convenient because I got to bunk a lot of classes with a valid reason “Band practise, ‘Mam” was all I had to say. We would always feel very special on republic and independence days. We would play the national anthem and the chief guest would hoist the flag. I couldn’t help but feel a tiny smidgen of pride looking at the flag. This iota of pride was of course hidden the rest of the year. But on that day everyone was happy and proud. Plus we got free chocolate.

Happy republic day, y’all! Go eat chocolate.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 2 Comments

PLL

So the next show I’m extremely addicted to is Pretty Little Liars. Okay, I’m 23 and should have a life by now but no, I need to watch a TV show about high school kids. PLL is about four girls who get an anonymous text messages from Anonymous person who goes by the name A. At first they think it’s their fifth missing friend a.k.a the high school meanie who went missing a few years back. But a few episodes (seasons?) in they find mean girl’s body so she’s officially dead. The series has a lot of unsavory characters : blind girl enemy who gets her sight back but still plays blind, suspicions cop boy who gets killed, sister’s creepy fiance who gets killed, dead girl’s brother who comes back looking totally ripped, friend who goes to mental asylum, hot English teacher who dates one of the PLLs (creepy with a capital C) and.. you get the drift.

The girls always find themselves in weird situations : locked in a basement, car breaks down in the middle of the woods, girls investigate broken down house in the middle of nowhere and person with black hoodie follows the girls around and ALWAYS KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE UP TO BECAUSE A IS EVERYWHERE. The show has multiple loop holes but I couldn’t care less, I love it. Lots of eerie nights and a shady town with shady people make the show what it is. As for the fashion, the girls wear the most atrocious clothes to school at times. But they each have their own style like the Spice Girls. One of them is an athlete so she is Sporty Spice, there’s a Posh Spice who was an ex-shoplifter, Prim n Propah Spice who always comes first and a Boho Chic Spice. I love this show more than I would like to admit.

Watch it for eye candy and high school drama mixed with a little mystery.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 4 Comments

Revenge is best served on tv!

Thanks to the joblessness that is American television I’ve been watching way too many shows for my own good. Revenge is one such show. And omg abc.com is so cool I can just stream the episode I missed. Yes, there are advertisements every fifteen minutes or so but it saves me a lot of trouble from downloading episodes over piratebay. So revenge is full of convoluted plots and lots and lots of.. Revenge! Staying true to the shows name here. Emily is the protagonist. Her daddy was framed to be a terrorist so she goes around killing all the people involved. She was trained by Japanese monk/ninja type person so she has kick ass reflexes. She wears pretty pastel dresses and her blonde curls are always perfectly coiffed. Her arch nemesis is a woman called Victoria, rich and affluent, she was one of the main people involved in her daddy’s death. Victoria has a standard uniform of Herve Leger bandage dresses that she wears morning to night. It doesn’t matter if its a business meeting, no, Victoria is there in her cleavage enhancing cocktail dress to ruin the day. She is the Cruella Deville of the creme de la creme. Her son with his boyish good looks has the hots for Emily. Emily befriends him to get to the mother ship so she can ruin her. There are a zillion plots and sub plots. Emily, by some force of nature (and with the help of a young millionaire boy), manages to take down all the people involved in her daddy’s death.

Some of the plots are insane and have a lot of loop holes. It isn’t fabulous enough like Gossip Girl to blatantly ignore loop holes. But I do love this show! I don’t particularly are for either characters but I find myself drawn to the show. It has its share of gorgeous houses, pastel clothes and cute boys. That’s enough to keep me hooked.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 1 Comment
This is my first winter in this country and although it doesn’t snow where I live, the climate is very, very cold. And that’s okay. You turn up the heat, layer up and grab a mug of hot chocolate and you will feel warm enough. But that doesn’t prepare you for the depression. When I look out the window I don’t see warm sunshine and the birds chirping. I only see dark, depressing gloom and an obese squirrel struggling to run on my balcony. I can’t wait for summer, and for sunshine. I can’t wait to go out without layering up. Summer, come soon.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 2 Comments

Black.

I can feel the monster coming. I can feel him nudge his way back in to my life. I see his darkness on the horizon and I know he is coming to get me again. I feel him eating up my soul, I feel him shrouding my thoughts with darkness. He covers my heart with blackness and makes me doubt my very existence. His grey tendrils form a noose around my neck and slowly attempt to drag me back in to the pit where doubt reigns sovereign.
But this time I try not to be led in. I try to fight away. I fight back from the darkness. My sun makes way for the light. I intend to make the gloom disappear. I want to turn the black to white. My white should be blinding, my white should be bright, my white should be my strength, my life. I strive to make the smoke disappear. And with one breath, with one acceptance and one affirmation of who I am he disappears in a puff of smoke.
Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 1 Comment

Weekenders

I love weekends. Long walks, lazy breakfasts, forty eight hours with Jay, movies and lots of awesome food. Last weekend we decided to go to an American joint – Billy Berke’s. It is located approximately a mile away from where we live. We decided to walk to the restaurant, at night (when the characters of San Jose come out to play), in the cold (it was like eight degrees or so). But the reward at the end was worth it. A huge platter of nachos with amazing jalapeno bajjiand the best succulent Louisiana prawns with butter garlic sauce I have ever seen.

Totally worth walking in the cold for.

Totally.

I would do it again.

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Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 2 Comments

I cook dinner every week night. A couple of months back I never thought I would do this. I was always very good at eating. Please don’t mistake that for gluttony. I was just very interested in eating. I never thought I would be able to cook. Aunties of the family advised me to go for cooking classes prior to the wedding because, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, girl, didn’t you know that? I knew. But just chose to ignore it.

Here I am now, whipping up dinner every night. Some days its veggies and other times it’s a full on meat fest. It amazes me that I’m able to create something edible. I guess I have to thank my mother’s genes for that. She comes from a family of good cooks. I guess I did inherit a tad bit of that. A few weeks back I would spend an hour and a half cleaning, peeling and cooking. Now I take less than an hour for all that. I’ve never been more proud of myself. All those hours spent peeping over my mother’s shoulder in the kitchen have come to use. Funnily enough, I’m starting to mimic her in the kitchen. It’s funny but it also freaks me out.

I am also very lucky that the man I married is a whiz in the kitchen. Jay helps out a lot around the house and that makes me a very happy cookie. Except that this man, who is the supposed boon of my existence bans cookies in my house. Oh the blasphemy!

But I must applaud him for strongly supporting cupcakes. There’s the reason why I married him!

I leave you with a couple of happy cupcakes from Kara’s Cupcakes in San Fransisco :

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