Winter, winter here you come…

So winter has officially begun in Karachi, and what a pleasant weather it is. There has been some rain in the neighbouring cities so Karachi by default gets to experience the after effects of the rain. Winter for some strange reason is my favourite season, not the below zero degree freezing one but when there is slight chilliness with a tinge of light rain. Personally it is also the time when I get taken over by an eating monster, so I eat non-stop whenever I get the chance. I take a full meal and couple of hours pass so again I need to eat. The eastern food and in particular a well-prepared very spicy biryani is worth dying for and also a personal favourite of mine.

I must admit that being a food faddiest, a quality which I am not proud off, becomes a blessing in disguise. Thankfully I don’t like sweet dishes or deserts in any form in fact I can say that I don’t even have the taste buds to try anything sweet. Let alone sweets I cannot eat anything which is made of yogurt, milk or egg. The only thing I can feel about sweets or deserts is that they taste very sweet. Nevertheless, dark chocolates, double fudge chocolate cake and coffee are the only exceptions to my weird rules.

This is who I am, you like me so you would have to endure my habits as well- take it or leave it.

So its time to get all the woollies out of the storage, to taste soups and hot beverages, to buy roasted peanuts and enjoy eating them in the quietude of the night while watching some obnoxious daily soap on the TV.

Speaking of daily soaps I am intrigued by a very strange reality show on an Indian channel named “Big Boss” other than Salman Khan nothing in the show makes any sense. Although I haven’t been a regular of the show but whenever I watch it people are either talking to each other non-stop or fighting. This time they have brought in as guests Pakistani artists Veena Malik and Ali Saleem, the latter has been voted out though. And I must say that being on the show one has to have iron solid nervous system to endure all which goes on in there. Everyone becomes so vulnerable and too open, something which is not the domain of the faint hearted.

So many of the superstars of the silver screen are gracing the TV screen these days from Amitabh Bachchan to Akshay Kumar & so on. They have also started Master Chef India, a franchise of BBC’s Master Chef with Akshay Kumar as one of the judges. I have to admit that Akshay surprises me all the time, I have never been his fan yet the way he has come about both as actor-cum-superstar and recently as host on Fear Factor and Master Chef. It is interesting to see how many qualities this guy has, doing all the insane stunts in Fear Factor and now cooking exquisitely. Twinkle Khanna definitely had the eyes to recognize the right guy because the way Akshay behaved in his early days and the reputation he made for himself did not make him the most eligible bachelor. Nevertheless, the success and respect which he has gained now is worth praising and I pray that he lives a great life both professionally and personally.

I hope that all of us as well obtain the eyes to recognize authenticity even though it is blurred by traditional notions and judgements.

Sonya. (Day 150)