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[tom's blog]disappointed idealist Indian jokes - Kanjibhai and Rupaben StoryA little preview of the long-awaited and hopefully soon ready post about "love in real life".
Here you are, a famous joke that sometimes I like to tell to my friends, in a quite similar version:
Indian jokes - Kanjibhai and Rupaben Story
Long long time ago before he got married, Kanjibhai was traveling from Ahmedabad to Bombay by train. Rupaben (a beautiful female) was also traveling in the same compartment except that they both didn’t know each other in the beginning. Once they started talking, they realized they both had a lot in common.
Both were Single.
Both were Gujaratis.
Both were going to Bombay.
Both were School teachers.
Both were starting a new job at the Mithibai College.
They seemed to hit it off well and decided to be roommates in Bombay and made a pact that they would do everything together. So they lived in the same house, traveled to the college together on Kanjibhai’s scooter, had lunch in the staff room together, returned home together, they were watching the TV together, eating dinner together and were also sharing the same bedroom and EVEN sharing the same bed.
The only problem was Rupaben was placing a pillow between them at bedtime, much to the frustration of Kanjibhai, who ended up spending many sleepless nights with this most desirable beauty besides him, separated by the pillow. Kanjibhai’s frustration had built up to such an extent that he could take it no more, and ended up deciding to drink.
So one day he took off from the college leaving Rupaben on her own. She was quite upset, but made it home by auto rikshaw. The pact had been broken so she decided not to open the door for Kanjibhai when he got home drunk at about 2am.
Kanjibhai knocked on the door for about 20 minutes and pleaded with his roommate to let him in. After listening to his crap for 20 minutes, Rupaben said, ” Where the hell did you disappear today? We decided to do everything together! Now you sleep outside”.
Kanjibhai said: “I will jump over the wall and come in if you don’t open the door right now!”
Rupaben said: "Forget it, you don't bluff me...... You cant even cross over over a pillow, now you are talking about jumping over a wall! hahaha!" What is LOVE....(love famous sculpture by Rober Indiana)
What is LOVE?
What a common question, huh?
For my actual knowledge LOVE is a name that we give to a whole set of human feelings.
Love of someone for his job, love for art, love for certain music, love for music, love of someone for his mother, love of a father for his son, love of someone for his romantic partner.
Yes. this is the kind of love we are talking today.
Romantic love. Love in a couple. Love among two human beings who mutually chose the each other.
Well, back in 1999 I wrote down a list of which are bad reasons to be in a couple:
- to have social status
- for economical benefits
- for regular sex
- to feel "in a couple" whoever the partner is
- not to feel a loser/unlucky person if single
- to have someone to make babies with
- to have someone to make a family with
- to be happier
- not to feel lonely
- to isolate from society and build a comfortable egotism
....
I mean, all these are consequences. Positive consequences people may say.
But we don't have to live LOVE as a means to get to those benefits.
LOVE should be natural, spontaneous, inescapable.
And these are even not good reasons to keep into a relationship that's already broken.
For so many people LOVE and COUPLE are crutches for life.
That's not bad, better than being isolated from human beings, but it's not the best.
From now on, I will talk of what I consider the highest kind of LOVE:
the mutual respect-admiration-attraction among two complete persons.
For who knows a bit of Ayn Rand's books and philosophy it might seem very similar.
Yes, you are right. She is my mentor about this topic.
And Judy is the unforgettable dear person who pointed me to her.
Read further at:
And don't forget to google and look on wikipedia about her and her masterpieces "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged".
Also you can read Nathaniel Branden (http://www.nathanielbranden.com) about this topic.
Who is Nathaniel Branden? He was Ayn Rand lover for many years.
He read her book "The Fountainhead" when he was 14, he became her fan, then he met her, they became friends and lately lovers, even if both were married at that time. He separated from his wife, her not.
Some quotes from him:
Love is our response to what represents our highest values.
Love is a response to distinctive characteristics possessed by some beings but not by all.
Romantic love is a passionate spiritual-emotional-sexual attachment that reflects a high regard for the value of each other’s person.
The defining characteristic of romantic love is the integration of three elements: a sense of spiritual affinity (soul mates), admiration, and sexual attraction.
We all want to be seen, understood, appreciated. I call this the need for the experience of psychological visibility. I strive to make my wife feel visible to me.
I am always aware of our mortality. I know that if I love someone, the time to express it is today. If I value something, the time to honor it is today.
Read the article at
if you want to know how to keep romantic love alive across a lifetime. Well... this post is deliberately a suggestion for further research.
Not everybody will get to the same conclusion.
Take your time to think about this topic.
Do some research if you like.
Read "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged".
I read just the second and it was really inspiring and enjoyable.
Soon they will make a movie out of it, starring Angelina Jolie.
And, if you like self-analisys, look back to your previous love relatiohips and to the motives of them.
Was it mutual respect-admiration-attraction? Do you believe in God?Many many times I was questioned if I believe in God, and which.
Generally I define myself agnostic, but most of the people confond it with atheistic. Actually I have a clear idea in my mind since I was 15yo but it's always hard to explain it in clear words to other people.Well, it was, until I read "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown, where there is a page that explains in a professional novelist's words my main belief.
Funny story, that book was around me (litterally around, in my room!) for years but I read just third-hand, passed to me by two dear friends.
Anyway, here is the interesting page, I hope you like it.
Vittoria was watching him. "Do you believe in God, Mr. Langdon?" The question startled him. The earnestness in Vittoria's voice was even more disarming than the inquiry. Do I believe in God? He had hoped for a lighter topic of conversation to pass the trip. A spiritual conundrum, Langdon thought. That's what my friends call me. Although he studied religion for years, Langdon was not a religious man. He respected the power of faith, the benevolence of churches, the strength religion gave so many people... and yet, for him, the intellectual suspension of disbelief that was imperative if one were truly going to "believe" had always prove too big an obstacle for his academic mind. "I want to believe," he heard himself say. Vittoria's reply carried no judgement or challenge. "So why don't you?" He chuckled. "Well, it's not that easy. Having faith requires leaps of faith, cerebral acceptance of miracles, maculate conceptions and divine interventions. And then there are the codes of conduct. The Bible, the Koran, Buddhist scripture... they all carry similar requirements nd similar penalties. They claim that if I don't live by a specific code I will go to hell. I can't imagine a God who would rule that way." "I hope you don't let your students dodge questions that shamelessly." The comment caught him off guard. "What?" "Mr. Langdon, I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believed in God. There is a difference. Holy scripture is stories... legends and history of man's quest to understand his own need for meaning. I am not asking you to pass judgment on literature. I am asking you if you believe in God. When you lie out under the stars, do you sense the divine? Do you feel in your gut that you are staring up at the work of God's hand?" Langdon took a long moment to consider it. "I'm prying," Vittoria apologized. "No, I just...." "Certainly you must debate issues of faith with your classes." "Endlessly." "And you play devil's advocate, I imagine. Always fuelling the debate." Langdon smiled. "You must be a teacher too." "No, but I learned from a master. My father could argue two sides of a Mobius Strip." Langdon laughed, picturing the artful crafting of a Mobius Strip----a twisted ring of paper, which technically possessed only one side. Langdon had first seen the single-sided shape in the artwork of M. C. Escher. "May I ask you a question, Ms. Vetra?" "Call me Vittoria. Ms. Vetra makes me feel old." He sighed inwardly, suddenly sensing his own age. "Vittoria, I'm Robert." "You had a question." "Yes. As a scientist and the daughter of a Catholic priest, who do you think of religion?" Vittoria paused, brushing a lock of hair from her eyes. "Religion is like language or dress. We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised. In the end, though, we are all proclaiming the same thing. That life has meaning. That we are grateful for the power that created us." Langdon was intrigued. "So you're saying that whether you are a Christian or a Muslim simply depends on where you were born?" "Isn't it obvious? Look at the different of religion around the globe." "Hardly. Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca, some of us study subatomic particles. In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves." Langdon wished his students could express themselves so clearly. Hell, he wished he could express himself so clearly. "And God?" he asked. "do you believe in God?" Vittoria was silent for a long time. "Science tells me God must exist. My mind tells me I will never understand God. And my heart tells me I am not meant to." How's that for concise, he thought. "So you believe God is fact, but we will never understand Him." "Her," she said with a smile. "Your Native American had it right." Langdon chuckled. "Mother Earth." "Gaea. The planet is an organism. All of us are cells with different purposes. And yet we are intertwined. Serving each other. Serving the whole." Rubbish emergency in Naples, in the meantime in Venice...Take a look. it's impressive. NAPLES: http://images.google.it/images?hl=it&q=rifiuti+napoli&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi http://images.google.it/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=it&q=monnezza+napoli http://stage7.presstoday.com/_Standard/Articles/1883156 VENICE: http://www.ecoprogettovenezia.it/visitaCDR.htm http://rassegna.governo.it/testo.asp?d=27913835 http://www.margheradigitale.it/coses/%5Cdocumenti%5Cschede_aziende%5Cvesta.pdf http://www.ambiente.venezia.it/strumenti_gestione_ambientale/Rapporto%20Conclusivo.pdf Incredible America - Strip search prankHave you ever heard of David R. Stewart?
No? Better for you.
Here is what he was doing.
Parmigiana di melanzane - Eggplants best recipe!Today's post is about one of the most famous recipes of the Italian cusine, actually it comes originally from Sicily but it's widespread all over Italy, with many variations.
That's why here you have a quick, easy, light and still delicious "Parmigiana".
Ingredients:
- good eggplants
- sunflower oil
- salt
- fresh garlic
- tomato sauce
- fresh basil
- good parmesan cheese
Steps:
1) buy the best eggplants you can, they should be preferrably oval ones, not the full round ones, not the long straight ones
2) peel them with a knife, 2-3 mm under the skin (keep the skin, you can use it for many recipes, even just sauce for pasta)
3) slice them in the direction of the lenght in slices of 5 mm approx
4) half-fry them with as less sunflower oil as you can (this is the ost important phase, even if all are really important for a good result.. when I say half fry I mean that the slices should be definitely translucent but not really browner outside, still soft and not crunchy, the best way to achieve the result can be to use little oil in a pan with thin bottom so the heat arrives immediately and also tuning them many times, also some people just fry them all together with oil stirring almost continuously, anyway they should be translucent and wet, cooked but not full fried, the best is sunflower oil, if you wanna use olive oil NEVER use extra virgin to fry!)
5) make them release all the liquid and the oil, using some weight (like pressing them among two dishes...)
6) add some salt
7) in the meantime prepare a THICK and CONCENTRATED tomato sauce with little cubes of fresh garlic, a bit more garlic than in normal sauce
8) put on a container multiple layers, one layer of eggplants and one of tomato sauce and grate over every one a good dose of parmesan cheese
9) it should wait few hours or even one day at room temperature or in fridge before eating
The "Parmigiana" it's also usually eaten cold or room temperature and in small quantities with bread or with other carbohidrates.
The best is to use it as dressing for tapas or as a side course for polenta or meat courses.
I should mention that somebody likes to put inside also layers made of slices of mozzarella or other "pizza" chees, ham (prosciutto cotto), egg, ...
Especially in these cases they use to bake it more in oven or fry in the pan one other time, thing that I don't reccommend at all, as it's already quite a heavy food.
A now the traditional recipe excerpted from "La cucina tradizionale siciliana" by Anna Pomar:
Questo e’ un antico piatto siciliano in cui, erroneamente, in tutti i libri di cucina, si riporta, tra gli ingredienti, il formaggio parmigiano, da cui prende nome il piatto. Niente di piu’ falso. Il nome parmigiana non deriva dal nome del formaggio, bensi’ dall’italianizzazione dalla parola dialettale siciliana parmiciana. La parmiciana e` l’insieme delle liste di legno che compongono una persiana. Esse sono messe una sopra l’altra, come le fette di melenzane nel piatto.
Ingredienti: 8 melenzane, 1 kg. di pomodoro maturo, 2 cipolle, 100 gr. di pecorino o cacio cavallo (o se volete di parmigiano, va bene lo stesso), un mazzetto di basilico, olio e sale. Tagliate le melenzane a fette (mezzo cm. circa), mettetele a riposare in acqua salata per qualche ora, scolatele e friggetele in padella con olio di oliva abbondante e ben caldo. Preparare una salsa di pomodoro con la cipolla, i pomodori ed il basilico. Sul fondo di una pirofila versate qualche cucchiaio di salsa ed alternate strati di melenzane (a la parmiciana) coperte di salsa, pecorino grattugiato e foglie di basilico. Coprite l’ultimo strato con salsa e pecorino e passate al forno per circa 20 minuti. Servite tiepida. And one useful link: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmigiana_di_melanzane
the best kind of eggplants the result and the good portion for one person
The way you sleep...Test your relationship!
Check my friends' blog: http://coin-locker.com/the-way-you-sleep
Btw, spooning is just amazing! The best ever ever! Do you know Earthlings?Many people asked me why I am vegan. Well... did you ever heard of Earthlings? Take a look... if you dare and if can stand watching it till the end. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1282796533661048967&q=earthlings If you are still doubtful have a look at http://www.peta.org Looking for a fair, clean, sustainable, happy world for all of us... Tom Misleading of charity/aid - Used clothes and gipsy kidsI am strongly against any kind of organized aid, too many times I saw it misleaded. Yesterday on the street I saw one scene that I would NEVER like to see again. I describe it factually. You see the yellow container in the photos. It's used, at least in the mainland of Venice and in the other cities of Veneto region, to collect on the street used clothes. People is reccommended to put there used clothes, accessories, shoes, ... when they don't want to use anymore. Periodically a truck comes and some volunteers (or maybe even payed workers) collect the clothes and bring to some distrbution centers. Margreet told me that in Uganda used western clothes, arriving there as aid, somehow get bought/owned and sold back in markets, this is absolutely not meant to be but also this kills the local economy of clothing. Btw, let's go back to what I saw yesterday. As you can see the yellow street container has strong protections and big locks. There is a kind of protected slope, so you can put things in but you shouldn't be able to get things out. Sure! And what about gipsies? I often saw them with hooks picking things out of the container. But what I saw yesterday was too much. Really. There were two gipsy kids, girls actually, one was keeping the handle half opened and the other was half IN the container itself, there were out just legs and the butt! It could result also in serious injuries or even death. Who is responsible for it? The gipsy parents, that it well-known don't care so much of the kids, but just as collectors of money? The society itself, that let this happening? The police that, even if definitely saw it (as their office is one block apart), pretended not to see? All the people passing by and ignoring it? Do we really want a society where two kids can kill themself in the street and nobody cares? Where somebody is on the floor dying and nobody helps? Where before letting your kids play on the street you should think twice? This activity was held generally by every church, now it's somehow industrialized. Maybe too many used clothes? Maybe the priests are too busy to do it manually and they prefer to automatize the process? :((( Also I should mention that the only safety threat in Venice now are the young gipsies who go around pickpocketing people. I was almost pickpocketed twice and I found already some wallet thrown away after being emptied of the money, as I gave back to the owner. Once they already opened my bag and the friend I was walking with noticed them putting the hand into it, to extract the wallet. They always walk in two, ready to throw the wallet in the air like rugby! I saw this scene for a whole afternoon in Rome near the Coliseum. A bunch of gipsy kids hitting with a folded newspaper people who were walking with wallet in the backpocket of their trousers, stealing the wallet in the moment of confusion, bouncing it among them and hiding in their trousers, like a game, when the guy was pointing someone and telling him "gimme my wallet, you have it" they were lifting the t-shirt, showing their naked chest, guys or girls, nevertheless. The problems is that they are under 14, so they cannot even be held in jail. Sorry, but in their society and in their family even worse things happen. They hit them, they send them to risk their life for climbing fences etc for robbery. We are all victims of something, I dunno what. Nevertheless, every job has it's own risks. Next time they try to pickpocket me, I will get the kid and throw him in the canal. At least we can laugh together. :)) Pagheresti 70mila euro per NON fare un figurone con gli amici? Noooo! :))da http://www.tgcom.mediaset.it/cronaca/articoli/articolo378916.shtml Bari,ricatto a luci rosse: 3 arresti |
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