Spice Route

Aan was finally done with her "CAT!". She wants to go and freak out and forget that CAT ever happened to her and maybe not interested to know if it will eclipse, rise, revolve, rotate... whatever, she needs a day out. Now! Nifty is a sure invitee and she too required the break. The word BREAK during the CAT means everyday and most of the time every 2 hours. I am always ready for anything that revolves around food and anything that will make me look very artistic and intellectual.

Three of us set out to FORT KOCHI with a strong pursuit to be 100% tourists from some other country ( now stop guessing which country that would be.... its INDIA.. K?). Knowing that the old saying " Kochi kandavanu Achi venda" was definitely not going to work with us, we made plans and finally met up at the Ernakulam Boat Jetty and board a ferry and left the shores of the mainland. We made it to the island where Nifty became all enlightened and wanted to buy a "BIBLE", huh? Such odd timings these girls have. Ever!!!

KASHI (artistic and definitely intellectual) where lousy food is served at exorbitant rates (muasambi juice-Rs45/- and Aan came to see the spice paradise with 200 bloody bucks, yeah she had the plastic money) was our first destination. The good thing about the place is the ambiance and the art exhibition which makes us feel that anyone can be an artist. One can get a fillip to get back to art if or if not you have artistic roots. We kept bitching (what generally we girls do) about all the white skinned beggars wearing hardly any clothes (it shows-poverty) and talked about Palestine, Jordan, the spices, the merchants and blah! blah! blah!. Don't forget we are the wannabe tourist...... and talking about all these are just about no pain but watching some TLC for the gyaan. 

We din waste much of our valuable little time (hazards of being a gal) and set out to MATTANCHERRY where the famous JEW STREET was. Now a little history, facts and no figures about the place. 

" the JEW STREET in 700 B.C. was at Crangnore now Kodungallor, but due to a conflict regarding the pepper trade with the Muslims of Calicut now Kozhikode, they had to move out and settle themselves at Kochi. Here under the Hindu Raja, the Jews did their spice business with the rest of the world. Jews have a history of spice trade dating back to the age of King Solomon and today they trade cinnamon, pepper, cardamom, cloves and so on....." - its there in their blood....

Here we first visited the Hindu Raja's Dutch palace and bought our Incredible India entry pass worth Ps.500 and moved in to be highly sarcastic about their old photographs (heights of joblessness and ignorance) and moved out. On our foot we moved to the street where the Jew life, their culture and traditions, artifacts existed without much of a metamorphism. Spices, perfumes, curios, antiques gave us all the feeling of being foreigners. It is truly a different world. I was enthralled and tried looking a foreigner by adorning my scarf and shades, but failed pathetically. Ha! Ha! Ha!. Though the spirit was there we were late in being there on time to see the 'Pardesi Synagogue' (it closes between 1-3 at noon), but the Jewish experience was profound. I can even write a poetry.... 'Romanticizing the Jew Street'.... hmmmm..... "The aromatic breeze brushes your skin through your hair....", the rest you write when u visit the Jew Street.


 It was my time, time for food....

Now that we are in Mattancherry and eating the famous Kayees Biriyani was by default in the plan and as always 'BIRIYANI SOLDOUT' (we were just getting luckier--- probably God punished us for being sarcastic about the palace). Now that there was no food we went back to Fort Kochi and got into some shack and ordered some fried rice, FRIED RICE? how original and authentic could we be? Sea Food is all expensive and the rates are for the real tourist and not the wannabes.. A mariner who was on the next table also offered us some fish.... pity on us.... anyways..

We were done with it and made plans to get back to MAINLAND ERNAKULAM. Nifty still wanted to buy a BIBLE and Aan had some small shopping which she is doing all the time we go out and i wanted a hands free. Reaching Menaka it was coffee time and we gave away all our necessities for our desires to have some refreshing beverage from our very old COFFEE BEANZ. My aunt supplies the Passion Fruit Fizz there so i ordered it, Nifty made the best choice of a Cinnamon Coffee and Aan ate something like Chocolate. We quickly had it and made a hurry in getting back home.... family was out watching Pranchiettan..... got my handsfree and din let others make their shopping and let them return empty hand but definitely promised them that next time we will do their shopping. 

Sorry Guys! I know... I am mean.  

Its just a day out... but definitely you guys too went to Fort Kochi.... How was your experience? What did u like there? Tell us too........

ANNA

It’s a Wonderful Life

Well let me start from where I stopped in my comment on this blog where I said… “l... talking of zero gravity... sometimes when it just feels too heavy... I think these two words would be an inspiration to just let go... let go whatever... which sometime gets very difficult...” ‘Zero Gravity’ would sometimes mean to me sliding into ‘being light in life’. ‘Light’, now that would be another interesting thing to go on…

“Being Light in life” one of those phrases that a lot among us desire to experience. One would definitely have felt or experienced it in installments, but here I was in search of a lifetime package. Being light in life forever…  ‘Impossible’… ‘Possible’… I never knew… neither did I dig into ‘would it be’ or ‘not be’… I was adamant ignoring all the difficulties. But the question was “where could I find it?”

My answer came quiet easy. To feel light, was first to reduce my body weight. Yes I mean physical reduction of body weight. Now that does not mean I weigh a quintal or so. But the aim was to feel Light. So where did I go heavy?

All this started from my love for food. I’ll be very frank here. I’m definitely qualified for the tally of a ‘Hogger’… Oh I really am… For those who like it a little decent ‘a Foodie’. To make it more grave, I’m slothful sometimes and it drags for a very long time. I guess there would be hardly anyone who would be able to reach the magnitude of laziness I get into. And hence, I was facing a grave and a deadly combination ‘Hogging + Laziness’. Believe me this led me into heaviness… everywhere… on my body… on my mind… at my work and the list goes on… In total… ‘What a screwed up Life!!!’

But the sun finally did rise… the bulb did glow… and bright enough. My thought of good old days of great physical fitness, being light and a flat stomach inspired me (those were my training days)… To ‘Run’… and I started running. Oh… no… I didn’t do a ‘Tom Hanks-in Forrest Gump’. It was just a daily routine affair. But I did run to reach a little lesser than a state of collapse every day. And it continued… Now for a week. Oh I missed something very important in between. A healthy sugar free diet for that week and definitely ahead. Initially it was difficult. So to make it simpler I attached myself with a partner who was also in search of being light. For him it was just weight reduction. Hence, now if one of the mind or body gets lazy the other one is there to pull up the socks. One week. Running in winters of Delhi, which has just started to spread its wings was and is and will be an amazing experience.

Today, after a week I looked at myself in the mirror. I fell in love with myself and I was not able to get away from the mirror. My body has shaped up so well with a sparkling shine on my face. My tummy though not that flat has reduced drastically, and when I walk none of my flabs rhythm with my feet. The list of add ons goes on… ‘fresh and energetic at work’…’patient with my girlfriend’… ‘more eyes staring at me’… etc… etc.. and a lot of ‘positivity’. This is going to go way ahead with “a healthy mind in a healthy body”. This for me is ‘being light in life’ and why not after all “It’s a wonderful life”.

-ASHISH 

THE WINGMAN

Being a typical Libran, I cannot do anything alone. I always want companionship for me to feel "YES! THIS IS HAPPENING". I am glad that the blog received a great start the very first day hitting a cent visits. That definitely shows the companionship i am going to share with the readers.

Zero Gravity is not my blog, it is our space where there is no gravitational pull of the traditions and cultures and no frictional wear out due to the relationships. Round Table is where the readers can join to be members for the working of our blog. The readers can also mail to zerogravity4all@gmail.com, anything you want to upload in the blog under the guest column (for ppl who wants to write once in a while but do not have the patience to maintain a blog).

Now the news is, here at ZERO GRAVITY we have someone who has shown great interest in writing in it. He is my wingman, very close to heart and a great friend. He will post under the column " THE WINGMAN" twice a month. He is Lt. Ashish Ravindran, who from a very young age has written encapsulating poetries and somehow left all his interest in writing behind his busy schedule during his training period.

Zero Gavity gave him a fillip to write again and definitely with his posts our blog is going to attract more readers. Lt. Ashish Ravindran, it is an honour to have you on board and we look forward to your write up.

The Wingman starts on with its first post on 21st Nov, 2010. Round Table look out.

Inspiration... to start all over......

Thanks to Neeraj... though I know hardly anything about him, all what i know of him started by reading his blog "The Wastepaper Bin". The blog thing have been on my mind since i dunno. I had even started a blog along with my friend while in college and named it "Our Plinth" which referred to the extra flabs and were too excited that it died in a matter of weeks. i generally write and i myself know its really raw and crude. I do not use refined words of poetic stuff but i claim i write them. I write them so i can call it whatever i want.

So coming back to what i was talking is blogging all over again. Zero gravity is not a planned venture but an outburst of nothingness, hahahah. i myself do not understand what that phrase means. Anyways i hope to have a bunch of readers and post weird and ridiculous and insulting comments over my posts. everything is just welcome and i believe thats when i ll strike the reality.

Tchao.