The Infernal Diurnal Journal

The key activity for today was a go at cooking Bise Bele Bath- a variation on a "Sambhar", wherein you mix the rice in with the watery dal all cooked together with overboiled veggies and some oil or ghee infused with spices right at the top, once everything is all one basic yellow mush. I am deeply intrigued by this type of dish because it essentially counts as a one-pot meal (OPM)- that panacea or rather opiate for the single dweller, where effort before and after cooking can be optimised against a simple recipe containing everything one needs to carry on. There are other such items I have tried a number of times and are my go-to weekday meals in general- mainly Paella ( Spain ), Jollof Rice ( West Africa), Khichudi (my Native Bengal)  and Bhaatebhaat ( also my native Bengal).  The most frequently prepared OPM, I will say, is Bhaatebhaat- which literally translates to rice-on-rice which I always found interesting. It does have rice , but what is "on" the rice is no...

 Ever since I became a line manager in my company, this is one annual November event that I seldom had much energy for. This was a session in plenary for all managers under the boss - and the objective was for each of the managers to  "pitch" their candidates for an above average performance rating for the year- and this would be subject to challenge by the other peers as well as the boss. The higher than average ratings lead to a bigger pay raise and bonus as opposed to the "Regular" rating. At the boss's overall level, the ratios are fixed on how many can get a "Higher" rating. Similarly, some had to get a "Lower" than average rating as well- these would be folks whose performance leaves a bit to be desired, although it is not so bad as to put them on a Performance Improvement Plan, whereby they might be headed eventually out through the door. These sessions were tough on me for one reason or another. In 2019 in Iraq, I struggled to get my ...

The first thing I saw when I awoke this morning was my fb feed.. loads of pictures of a house party where my dear wife had hosted a number of friends both old and new. One particular post was of a video where one of the guests had been playing guitar and singing Jamaican Farewell. I wished she hadn't posted it. And I told her so- this led to some slight tension filled exchanges but by the time I had finished my lunch ( which was bangus sisig for the first time) things had settled down amicably. The bangus sisig was much better than I had thought- I had been avoiding ordering this from the room service menu for a while- because I thought it might be too fishy for me.. bangus was milkfish - not one of my favorites. But the fish was well fried and crispy and with the onions and tomatoes tasted all right.   Following lunch I began to feel drowsy again so I lay down for a bit, reflecting. Soon I arose and checked cricinfo on my phone.  What a shock- South Africa had crashed out wit...

Today I went back to the gym and did not three but four repeats on the 4 machines that were more concerned with the lower body. I used a weight setting of 27.5 kg and that seemed not hard but I did want to go slow. I also had a fried radish cake brrakfast at Tim Ho Wan. The plan was to warch the eng va sl t20 world cup tie at h and j - a virtual knockout for England, SL already being out. So Australians today would root for Sri Lanka. The game started at 4 pm so had a few hours to kill. I cooked up some veg korma ( or something in that vein) . As it turned out, it turned out not so good. The vegetables were undercooked, salt was too less and the flavor of the gravy was too hohum. All in all, I was displeased with myself. By now, I had come to expect a certain minimum standard of cooking even without following a specifix recipe. Since this did not happen, I began to do a root cause analysis mentally. Somehow I think it had to do with the fact that I made a paste of onion, ginger, garlic...

At my age, this is a most certainly a curious pronouncement. In this age of manic gymming , turbocharged by social media and the desire to look good, if you never have ventured to the gym you may be mistaken for being either 10 years old or 100 years old. I was neither- and to be honest - I have been to the gym before..maybe 15 times in total. Of these, 80 percent of the time I have spent on a treadmill. And since the event on June 16 2021, I haven’t been to one. To be honest the last time I had been to a gym might well be in Singapore in 2014. There was a miniature gym with 2 treadmills, 2 machines and a few small dumb bells, but more importantly, it lay right outside my groundfloor unit in our condominium. It would be a shame not to visit it atleast once every 2 months given I had to pass by it every time I left home. I have been doing other forms of mild excercise namely walking, jogging and swimming though not exactly regularly,  and while in Iraq between 2015 and 2019 I also p...

This is a rambling account of  the band "Bluegrass"- the resident band at the Hard Rock Cafe at Makati. HRC is a 5 minute stroll from my apartment, making it a rather easy getaway on the weekend for someone single and bored. I tried it on one saturday night soon after arriving in the Philippines, and shortly after recovering from Covid, which was right thereafter. So, all in all, I think this was on week 3 on May 2022.  I walked up to the bar and seated myself at the counter, since I was by myself. There were tables, catering to larger groups. The house band came on at 9 pm- I had been waiting exactly 30 minutes, and had disposed of the bottle of the ubiquitous San Miguel Light- which came free with the 260 Peso cover charge. I ordered another, just as the familiar echo-laden intro started playing on the stage right in front of me. " Another Brick in Wall Part 1", to be precise. How many different settings had I listened to this tune in? The first time had been in 1...

 After a lot of deliberation, I decided to take a road trip to one of the various go-see options around Metro Manila. This was a town called Tagaytay ( pronounced Ta-guy-tie), roughly 65 kms due south of Manila. Home, of course, to the renowned lake Taal- a lake within a volcano, within a lake within a volcano.  Several travel sites compare this to the theme of the movie "inception"- which is stretching things a bit far, if you ask me. However, you were not really expected to know about this lake unless you were some sort of a geography buff. Alternately, you would have had to have read a singular text in secondary school geography class called "Monsoon Asia"- which  I had done, you see. And I vaguely recall coming across this feature at one innocuous 8th grade lecture on some dim and distant rainy tuesday afternoon. Now you could argue that it is really unlikely to remember facts such as these from such a long time ago and I was simply making it up to indulge in a ...