Hare and Tortoise

I am sure everyone heard about the hare and tortoise fable. Recently my husband told me the extension of the fable someone made up. I'll start from the beginning:

Once upon a time A hare and a tortoise decide to have a race. The hare being a fast runner got a good lead. But being overconfident on its abilities, decided to catch a nap since there is a lot time anyways. But it overslept and when it woke raced to the finish line, found that the tortoise has reached it already.

moral: Slow and steady win the race

The next day they decide to have the race again. This time the hare learnt its lesson and raced to the finish line, winning the race.

moral: fast and steady is better

They decide to race again the next day, but this time the tortoise chose the track. The hare as usual sped away, but came to a halt when it encountered a stream on the course. The tortoise came slowly, swam across the stream and won!

moral: If you cannot win, change the playing field to your advantage

They decide to race again the next day, but together this time. So for the first part the hare carried the the tortoise and ran to the stream. Then the tortoise carried the hare and swam across. They both reached the finish line in record time.

moral: Teamwork is the best option!

ganesh chathurti

chicken biriyani

A couple of months back I finally overcome my distaste on handling meat and started cooking chicken. After experimenting on all my favourite chicken recipes, I thought its time to try the king of chicken dishes- "The Chicken Biriyani". Literally a dish for the kings, chicken biriyani was invented in the kitchens of the mughal and the nawab kings. No wonder its made of the richest of the spices and when made just right, it appeals to all the senses. Having never missed out the chance to dine on a good biriyani on every visit to Hyderabad, I took this attempt quite seriously. I pored over several online recipes and made my own changes/additions to what i thought would work. Well, here is the result.



Suffice it to say everyone ate nothing else for a couple of days!

House no.1

House hunting... whew... Anyone who has any experience house hunting in bay area CA would know how stressful it can be. Endless hours of going around and weighing pros and cons of every house you saw. I dont how the market in other parts of the country, but in bay area it is very aggressive and and always been that way.Above is the house we put in our first offer ever last week (makes us feel all adult and grown up signing all those papers!), and sadly came to know we lost it today :( So there goes all the dreams I have built over the weekend of painting and furnishing it. I call it house no.1 cause god knows how many offers we have to put it before we finally get our dream house.
So house hunting here we come again...

random things

I had given a lot of thought on what to write as the first post. And I do have a lot of ideas. Really... But either they are not good enough, important enough, or equally good, that I didnt know what to pick :( Then deciding to keep in sync with the blog title, I am just gonna write whats on my mind right now.

Sometimes they are things in our lives that you just cant get rid of. You dont want it, but they keep coming back. You can passively ignore them, actively fight them and after you are exhausted, just pray. But its still there. And then starts the internal struggle. Do we really have so little control of our lives? Do we not have the right to decide what we want to keep and what not? Esp for a person like me who has always decided how I want to live my life. After finally seeing the inevitable truth that it a fixture in your lives, you have to learn to live it. and it makes you wonder what fate has in store for you. Is it all for your good? or do I always have to be cautious?

As i write about this I am reminded of a telugu movie called 'Yamadonga' in which the protogonist has a necklace since his childhood. He keeps disposing it and every chance he gets, but it somehow finds its way back to him. It was an ok movie, but i enjoyed it very much since I was a huge fan of the hero. I say 'was' cause i changed preferences recently. Suprisingly lot of people were very happy to hear that. :(

whoa.. i can run!!

Rewind back to 4 years:

At 6 in the morning,
Dad: deepu, get up.. lets go for jogging.
Me: dad… i get some weird feeling in my stomach. I don’t think I am feeling well.
Me: dad.. I was studying till late in the night. Dont wake me up so early…
Or
I would just pretend to go on sleeping till my dad is fed up and leaves.

Sometimes once in a blue moon, I would actually succumb to his nagging and go out for a jog,
After 3-4 blocks: dad, my ankles are paining, my lungs are exploding. I just don’t think my body is designed for running.

and my dad being one of those people who is fitness crazy, (he actually lived on raw vegetables and roti for 4 mnths and tried to make us do it too….actually, no its too painful for me to go there) he just couldn’t comprehend how anyone could not like running.

Play back the same scene once every month. Get the picture???

Now a few months ago, in a temporary bout of craziness I let a friend of mine convince me to come to the kickoff party of the marathon training program. (or maybe I agreed since he just treated me to a nice lunch). In course of 3 hrs, the inspiring speeches given by veterans, the contagious enthusiasm from other beginners, the motivational presentation shown or maybe the samosas and tea served, caught and lulled me into false sense of confidence and optimism which led me into signing up for a half marathon. ( I think some of my brain cells were still alert since I only registered for a half)

And so began my training. We started off slow enough running a mile followed by some stretches. Just as we get used to it, our mileage increased. Encouragement from my mentor veena, support from running team helped me stay committed. More than all that I got addicted to the runner’s high. Everytime I complete the day’s run, I would feel incredibly good, filled with all the positive energy,lots of confidence and optimism (ahh well, I do know its due to release of endorphins… blah blah..)

Braving occasional shin splints, and knee aches I labored on. And when I had never thought I could run 2 miles without life support, last weekend I ran 7 miles!!!!!

Do I still complain? Oh yes, after a half mile, I still feel the pain in my ankles, feel I am breathing heavy. But now I also know I can overcome them. I stop thinking about them and they cease to bother me. Now I enjoy the breeze against my face, the trees going by fast, the perfect rhythm between the heart beat and my pace and also there is nothing like a fast paced song on my ipod to give me a boost when Iam tired…

And now:
Friday 9.30 pm

My roommate: hey deepthi, lets go out for a movie and maybe for icecream later….

Me: oh no, I have a long run early in the morning. I need to sleep at sharp 10 so I get sufficient rest………

-deepthi