Tag: kitchen

Trendy India defies the rest of the world – huh!

Click on each link to pull up the Google Trends report.

  1. In India, Movies have always been more popular than TV. The trend is almost always the reverse in all the other countries where both searches are popular.
  2. Rang De Basanti was a lot more popular than Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.
  3. Blogs are more popular than newspapers with the online community in India. Only a few other countries exhibit this trend. Update: The trend report for the search term ‘blog’ versus ‘newspaper’ refutes this conclusion, look at the comments for more on using Google Trends reliably.
  4. BSNL and AirTel are the most searched of telecom providers in India. Hutch is a close third and is very popular in West Bengal, while AirTel rules the North.
  5. Searches for Naukri edge out searches for Monster by a close margin. Both trend lines reveal a lot more Indians are going online to look for jobs.
  6. Shah Rukh Khan is more searched than Aamir Khan by online users. Interestingly, more searches for Shah Rukh Khan originated from Rabat, Morocco, than Delhi, India. Amitabh Bachchan does not make much of a dent here. Update: Prateek also suggests that one take into account different ways of spelling – e.g. ‘Shah Rukh’ also becomes ‘Shahrukh’.
  7. Sachin Tendulkar beats Rahul Dravid as far as online trends go… Dhoni makes a surprise climb up the ranks.
  8. The online community can’t decide between Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. On the day of Singh’s appointment to the PM’ship of India, the trend was very different. Pervez Musharraf is eclipsed by the turbaned Indian Prime Minister.
  9. Only for a little while – Football was more popular than Cricket. You guessed it right, the timing coincided with the FIFA world cup, 2006.
  10. Searches for the keyword Matrimony outnumbered searches for Shaadi. Update: Prateek also suggests having a look at the report for ‘marriage ‘ and ‘wedding’ which are much higher than the other two terms.
  11. Mutual Funds are more popular than Shares. The search volumes are the highest in India. Update: The report on ‘stocks’ reveals one more story. In contrast to the rest of the world, the online populace from India still prefer Mutual Funds.
  12. Karan Johar will be happy to hear that he has finally overtaken Mithun as far as online searches go!
  13. IIM’s are catching up to the IIT’s in popularity.
  14. While global interest in GPRS is declining, GPRS interest in India remains just about the same for the last 3 years. Meanwhile, interest in AirTel keeps going climbing. Is India going to be over GPRS even before it can catch on?
  15. Tandoor is just as popular as Chaat or Halwa. Of course, Chaat Cafe (San Jose) has both Chaat and Tandoor, something you won’t see often in India! Update: Prateek points out that a report comparing ‘tandoori’, ‘tandoor’, ‘chaat’, ‘halwa’ would be more on target with tandoori coming out on top.
  16. Goa is much more popular than Himachal, search volumes predict a lot of tourists from the UK in Goa this year.
  17. Google searchers search for India more than its rival China. The pleasures of democracy 🙂 or is this the Baidu effect?

Inspired by: Micro Persuasion: 25 things I learned from Google Trends.

Disclaimer: Google Trends is only a tool. Any conclusions you can draw from the trend reports is at your own risk.

Indian Food

My sincere advise to those who find themselves handicapped in the Kitchen 🙂 stay away from communities like “Indian Food” and “Pakistani Food”. If you do disregard my advice, you will suffer the ignominy of hundreds of people dropping names of delicous indian dishes 🙂 and causing your tastebuds to overload :).

Nothing like desi food :), moghlai, southie, sindhi, punjabi, love it all.

Masala Chai

Credits: Ryan Mikulovsky on Orkut.com
2/7/2004 2:35 PM
8 cloves, 8 cardomom pods (the seeds inside, silly), a dash of black pepper, two cinnamon sticks, and a tiny slice of fresh ginger. assam loose leaf black tea (naturally), sugar to taste. Naturally water (1 1/2 cup iirc) and 2/3 cup of soy milk. Makes two small cups or will fill a pintglass rather nicely. I strain using a Bodum, but I just recently broke the glass container ;(

My next mission in life is to 1) obtain rose water and 2) make a great Lassi

Yellow Dal

Everytime I try to make Yellow Dal, it turns out to be very different from the last time. Considering I’ve been cooking for a year now, I have not learnt much :(. Anyhow, I’ve seen a v.large number of movies in the last three months :). The most memorable ones:

June 2003 – September 2003
1. When Harry Met Sally
2. Das Boot
3. Analyze This
4. Analyze That
5. The Windtalkers
6. About Scmidt
7. Pirates of the Carribean
8. Finding Nemo
9. Wall Street
10. Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
11. The Usual Suspects
12. The Ring
13. Sex and Lucia
14. Desperado
15. Oceans Eleven
16. The Piano Teacher
17. Bandits
18. Dil Chahta Hai
19. The Drunken Master – Jackie Chan
20. Bowling for Columbine
21. Leaving Las Vegas
22. Black Hawk Down

Saturday Night Live

This is one of the best Saturday nights I am having in a long long time 🙂 We
just cooked Butter Chicken and its turned out really lovely. Went shopping in
the afternoon and had a haircut in the morning. All this while my schoolwork
remains :S Oh I wish I had a solution to all the problems.

Another Personal Triumph

Santosh Dawara has done it again, having taken time off from the other
mundane activities of the world and fished out recipes for Egg Biryani and
Masoor Dal, he successfully executed “Operation Fill Tummy”. The egg
biryani was wonderful and the masoor dal could do with a bit of improvement.

Now with a satisfied and smug smile he can head off and take an afternoon
nap. 🙂

Tomato Rice

Tomato rice is easy to make and goes well with Yoghurt. This is
how I managed to make it. Chop up an Onion, need not do
it fine. Also leep two tablespoons of Tomato Puree handy and
a cup of rice. Heat up 2 tablespoons oil in a frying pan. When
the oils just about hot enough (this is the part that I find tough to
judge) add the Onions. Stir the onions around in the oil till you
get a consistent Golden Brown. Onions are fried mostly in high
heat.

Then add the Puree after reducing the heat to the pan. Once
again stir it around, let it cook for another 2 minutes. Then add
the rice, mix it up to get good consistency and cook for another
two minutes.

Now you can either boil the rice in 2.5 cups of water till its done
or pressure cook it with much less water.

Less than 2 cups of water and 3 – 4 whistles in a small cooker
works for me, I am considering adding in salt before I pressure
cook to simply experiment. Since I made this the first time, I
prepped just a little. If I could just get it right now 🙂