Tragedy On 8th Avenue

He took a rapid drag off his cigarette. In the cold depths of a Seattle evening, he didn’t seem like a lone rebel stirring the nicotine pot. People around him were exhaling smoke through their mouths, one unlikely to hurt a secondary smoker. He tugged at his overcoat till it fit him snugly. The cashmere apparel was well complimented by a muffler a fan once sent him. “Thank you, for enriching my life”, the note had said. He couldn’t remember why he retained this. Other offerings were promptly dispatched through his man Friday for encashing, sometimes, even without opening them. “Enriched indeed”, he thought, allowing himself a smirk. Another drag from the cigarette followed as his imposing frame grew taller, waiting to exhale. It was impossible to escape his presence. Certain people are born with a striking personality, and those that enhance it by way of mystique and intellect earn the epithet magnetic. He was nothing but a strong magnet drawing people by the droves.

At that moment, he was drawing someone else altogether. A destitute man walked up to him, hunched with the burden of hardships, extended hands exposed in places where his gloves had torn off. “A quarter Sir, for some warm soup”, a raspy voice emanated from the depths of that slim frame. A man’s pride has a tipping point after which there is a gut-wrenching free fall. The penniless man teetered on the edge as he waited for a response from someone who seemed perfectly capable of giving. “Get lost, you old fool”, was the response he got, in tones, both irritating and insulting. The scales tipped over, and a shaking teary man wracked by penury and ravaged by hunger took the free fall.

A moment of panic ensued, as someone was dispatched to go out the backroom to find the speaker while the announcer took to the stage. “… my honor to introduce the famed author of ‘The compassionate soul’ …”. The murmuring anticipation gave way to a rapturous applause. It all but drowned a blood-curdling scream from the back. Wide open eyes stared back at the source of the scream, face morphed in surprise, hands limp on the side while a muffler unwrapped itself from its death grip. Dispatches to newspapers screamed its telegraphic headline: “Street crime claims friend of the poor”.

Autumn

Shapeless blisters on textured lawns,
Those bright colored leaves.
Scatterings of rainbow on the ground,
Those bright colored leaves.
Abandoned children of barren trees,
Those bright colored leaves.
Infrequent whispers of a moody sky,
Those bright colored leaves.

Quiet Indignation

Dust
Forms an even coat
On a silently suffering car

On the rear door,
A little kid fingers
Its cry for help
“Clean Me!!”

P.S.> No, this isn’t autobiographical :-)

The beginning of the end

So, it has begun. The first of the modern day greats of Indian cricket has begun the exit march. Saurav Ganguly’s saga has never been a predictable one and the end only validates the theme. I think he made the smart move. He was always going to be the one that would be the first to go because he is the least indispensible of the lot. I wasn’t surprised when he was not picked for the Irani trophy match. Saddened, but not surprised. But when he was ultimately selected for the series, he did the smart thing by latching onto a chance for a graceful exit. Chances are the clamor for young India would have only increased as the series would have wound to a close.

In some sense, this is an exit forced by the new India that disheartens me. We have become a country of snap judgments, of sensational headlines, an impatient nature and opinions expressed in SMS polls. Public memory has never been shorter. The coverage on the 24 hour news channels is depressingly dramatic and aggressive. Yes, we lost the series in Sri Lanka, and yes, every player has his shelf life, but it seems to me like every failure is amplified to gargantuan proportions nowadays. We lost to Sri Lanka due to a collective batting failure but what gives that can’t possibly be enough to sack an entire middle order. Earlier that year, we gave Australia a run for their money and while not in prime form against South Africa, we didn’t lose the series. In the middle of all this was a series of inconsequential one day games which for the most part, no one can remember. What has changed dramatically? Perhaps it’s the romantic in me that wants to see proper respect given to the people of the caliber of Sachin and Dravid and I feel that the nation today is incapable of providing it. Dhoni’s ‘Youngistan’ may go on to do well in the future but I can’t see them being the same role models of professionalism and perseverance as the current middle order. Dhoni’s decision to skip the test series in Sri Lanka has dropped him a notch in the way I perceive him. Test cricket is sacrosanct to me, and preferring to play in T20 over that shows where his priorities lay.

I am rooting for the oldies of the team. I am rooting for these champions to do well because that will at least shut up the doubters for a while. India start this series as the favorites, but the media is already pulling them down by putting this extra pressure on the seniors. Ricky Ponting is a shrewd guy and has already read the situation perfectly. He said in his interview that with a single failure, the media in India will only add to the pressure on the seniors and that will play right into the hands of the Australians. With a new look side that doesn’t have the same class as the previous visiting Australians, Ponting will be hoping for the Indian media and public to help him with the job.

Objectively speaking, I expect India to win the series 2-1 or 2-0. I am most worried about Bangalore because of our track record here and the fact that Australian fast bowlers will do reasonably well. I hope that we press the home advantage and prepare spinning tracks. No shame in that. I don’t expect Ponting to fall to Harbhajan like he has in the past so we better be prepared for the likes of him and Clarke scoring well.

I’ll be eagerly looking forward to catching this test series the best I can (it will start late night for me, so one session at best before I need to sleep). Moreover, I’ll be waiting to catch some gorgeous off drives from the Prince of Calcutta, the most successful captain India has ever had. After this series, on the off side, only one God will prevail.

Theft

My pen plagiarizes
From my mind

My day steals
Some winks from my sleep

My past pilfers
The carelessness of my present

My words pinch
Impartiality of any thought

I protest mutely
And abet silently
For I bribe myself with
The spoils of life

Postcards from Chicago

Here are some photographs salvaged from one half of the trip. The best views were on the architecture cruise, but getting those online is a subsequent project.

The Tribune Tower

View of the Magnificent Mile from the Hancock Tower

View of Lake Michigan

Never had coffee served like this

Hancock Tower

 

The Crown Fountain in Millennium Park

Chicago Skyline visible through the Cloud Gate

 

Another view from the side

 

Vortex of images from underneath the bean

Lesson in politeness on the corner of a sidewalk

Windless in Chicago

Winding down after winding up a weekend in the Windy City! I made my first trip to Chicago this weekend with the missus. Aided by fabulous weather and absolutely no wind (thus the title), I spent a couple of days in the downtown area on what was a low-key relaxing tourist sojourn. We stayed at the Westin River North which was very close to the Magnificent Mile area and it turned out to be a very good thing. Being so close to the riverwalk and other spots in the downtown made our job easier.

Art Dekho

We ruled out the museums in the interests of time (I know they are a big highlight), but without doubt, walking around the city gave me more than my fill of art that I needed to see. Sprawled around the river, the buildings in the downtown, constructed after the great fire are a testament to great architecture. Numerous instances of buildings styled in art deco as well as postmodernism abound. To the untrained eye (mine) too, the subtleties aren't obvious to grasp. What helped though was an architecture cruise that we took that snaked through the river highlighting in great detail, excessive at times, the history behind the different buildings and the varied styles in which they were constructed. Walking around the downtown in the evenings was also a rewarding experience, especially along the RiverWalk. The buildings however weren’t the only art highlights. The Millennium Park was a treat as well. From the “Cloud Gate” to the “Jay Pritzker Pavilion”, it was great to see a public space with such emphasis on art and architecture.

Khana Khazana

While in Chicago, eat the deep dish pizza. At least that is what I had been told. So we headed off to Giordano’s, known for its world famous stuffed pizzas. We ordered a small, which claimed to fill in 1-2 people. I am not sure what appetites they had in mind while prescribing that. Between the two of us, we made it around 80% of the supposedly small pizza. That a human being can single-handedly eat that delicious offering beats me. While on the food, I also liked some of the offerings at India House.

Touristas

Besides the tour and the Millennium Park, I did due diligence to my duties as a tourist and made a trip to Hancock Tower. The only difference is that instead of going all the way to the observatory, I hopped over to the Lounge on the 95th floor per a friend’s recommendation and enjoyed the view sipping an impossibly expensive cup of coffee (alcohol might have been cheaper). The view of the shoreline was amazing. Walking along the Magnificent Mile was fun; what with the expensive shops all along and us skipping by for want of time. Navy Pier was another hop along the way and having been to the Santa Monica Pier in California, this one definitely came across as a place with more substance. Finally, we also caught the play Wicked at the Oriental Theater in The Loop.

Photographs

Yes, shouldn’t the post actually have some on here? The momentous event on the trip was not getting a great picture atop the architecture cruise. The momentous event was getting none, especially with my digital camera. My Canon s-50 finally died. After 5 ½ years of diligent service through thick and thin, it finally coughed its way to a tragic end. The shutter was stuck halfway, like Trishanku; unable to go in or fully come out. While I have photos from some part of my trip, I am going to have make arrangements to offload them, so this will have to wait. For the architecture cruise, I had to go low-tech and buy a disposable camera. I have no idea if and how those pictures will turn out. I guess I should look for a new camera now. With technology having developed so much since the time I last bought a camera, lots of research and a better product await me.

That’s about it. Enjoyable trip and I’d definitely recommended it. If some good pictures are salvaged, I shall share them with you. Final tip: Do stay in the downtown. That’s where all the action is.The train service from the O’Hare airport is well set for anyone to just get off and get there.

Jo Dikhta Hai Woh Bikta Hai?

I’d like to start off with thanking those who wrote in asking me to post a post soon. To my great satisfaction, this was one absence from the blog that wasn’t caused because I ran out of ideas. It wasn’t the case of a Writer’s Block … simply a Blocked Writer. I was reading an article online where they commented on how a good blog is one that is updated daily. Which makes mine occasionally good I suppose. I see some logic in that argument. Blogging is good practice for an aspiring writer. Blogging daily would require rigor and discipline and a commitment that is hard to estimate upfront. My blog is the longest writing exercise I have certainly indulged in. If I keep at this, some day there would be enough material to cram into a book (notice how I avoid mentioning that the book actually needs to sell). Not a radical idea though. Others have done it. I saw a debate on NDTV; a program called ‘We the people’ where Barkha Dutt moderates discussion on a topic which on most occasions involve raucous adults in serious need of being taught manners in letting others talk. The topic of the debate was the state of blogging in India. One of the participants was a young girl who has a personal blog called The Compulsive Confessor. She’s single and writes on topics ranging from drinking to dating to sex and offers what can has been termed as a mild (or heavy, depending on what other blogs you have seen do this) dose of voyeuristic pleasure into the life of an urban Indian woman. There’s more to her blog but there’s a reason nothing else catches the eye. A lot of discussion went on about whether the blog was read because of the nature of the content or the quality of it. In the absence of other blogs in the same genre from the same gender and nationality, her blog definitely is its own USP. I looked up her blog online and thought it was alright. I have read several other blogs that are much higher quality in their choice of topics and execution. But the reason I bring this up here is that recently I read about her in Outlook India. She has her own book coming through. My first reaction is cynical. Would she have gotten the offer were commenting on non-controversial things? I am not so sure. I haven’t read the book obviously and I don’t think I’ll get my hands on it either. I am not shooting for a book contract so I can avoid from pouring out details of my personal life on this blog to entertain and titillate. But if that's a short cut for going onto greener pastures, isn't something amiss somewhere? It makes me wonder if Rakhi Sawant’s famous dictum: “Jo dikhta hai who bikta hai” is true. Is modern India so wrapped up with things that are bright and shallow that quality is a function of visibility? How many girls from ‘Chak De India’ went on to bigger better movies? To my knowledge, only the ones who had the glamour quotient. My commentary might be a tad too caustic and judgmental based on limited examples and I’d love to be proven otherwise. Let me know what you think.

Rukawat Ke Liye Khed Hai

Famous Doordarshan Message Translated: "Sorry for the interruption." Wanted to drop in a line about the ongoing break from blogging. Life happened. Will resume transmission shortly.

Transient

I am but
A simulacrum of self.
Slightly different
From a moment ago.

Like a whisper
Separated by decibels
From the uttered word

Like a shadow displaced
On its owner’s
Whimsical moves

Chakraview: India Quiz 2008

My quiz club, the Microsoft Redmond Quiz club is organizing Chakraview: India Quiz 2008 for AID (Association for India's Development) on August 23rd at 2 pm on Microsoft campus. I have been involved with the club from the start and this is by far our biggest event, hopefully exceeding the 70+ people who showed up on a weekday for the Bollywood Quiz I conducted. I thought I might use this forum to garner support from locals (Sridhar, that's you) and slightly remote (RTD2, that's you) for this event. We are doing a fairly good job at making sure that if you are in Seattle, you are most likely to hear about it, but it can't hurt to spread the word and extol the virtues of an event like this. Most people get intimidated by the concept of quizzing and I submit that good quizzes are where you already know the answer to the question and it isn't a test of trivia. We have strived to do that in our club and this event will be no different. Plus, it is for a good cause.

Here's the text of an e-mail I had sent out about the event: feel free to pass it around to anyone you know who might be interested in this.

What links common English words like catamaran, shampoo, bungalow, juggernaut and pajamas?
Which Indian cricketer’s restaurant serves ‘Multan Ke Sultan Ki Tikdi’, a dish priced at Rs. 309?
What Indian organization beats Chinese People's Liberation Army, Britain's National Health Service and Wal-Mart as the world's largest employer?

The answers (English words derived from Indian languages eg. catamaran from the Tamil word kattumaram, Virendra Sehwag and Indian Railways) all relate to our great country, a place Mark Twain called the ‘cradle of the human race’.

Come join us for Chakraview as we embark on a journey of rediscovery of India. From Tendulkar to Tagore, from Panipat to Pushkar, from Amitabh to Ashwathama, come test your India Quotient. This will be a fun event for one and all where you answer questions on Indian history, culture, sports, rulers, entertainment, mythology and much more.

When: 2pm, August 23, 2008
Where: Microsoft Bldg 99 (14280 NE 36th St, Redmond, WA 98052)
Open Registration -- there is no entry fee!


Visit http://seattle.aidindia.org/chakraview to register and try out some fun questions. Write to chakraview2008@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Fourier Transformed

Fourier=Four Year. You get the idea. The very same quality of bad punning maintained, its been four years to the day that I started this blog. Perhaps I should get a long service award if this lasts another year. Thanks all for being a loyal and willing audience; those that do comment regularly and those whose silent presence I feel. Onward march to the next year!

Entropy

Coffee had spilled out of one side of his cup in an orderly file, leaving a stain on the white surface of his favorite mug. He stared at this deliberate disharmony. It felt like a rebel streak against the blandness the cup lived and died by. He envied that for a moment. To rebel is to live with a cause, regardless of any phrases you may have heard to the contrary. It’s a passion discovered and pursued, even if you are a few drops of water squeezed out of beans at a very high temperature.” Passive passive”, a colleague had once described him jokingly, referring to his apparent lack of proactiveness, and surprisingly enough, reactiveness too. It’s as if nothing moved him, nothing challenged him, nothing motivated him. He was flotsam in the massive river of corporate progress. A minion among many. Destined to follow, never to be roused. And thus transfixed he spent days and weeks and months at his desk, filing his reports, doing his chores with nary a hint of zest. Now he stared at the coffee and his own inconsequence. Something within him clicked. Inspiration struck him when he least expected it. What magic a brown lining on a white cup won’t do? Twenty minutes of furious work at the keyboard and he was good to go. A quick walk to the server room, some copying of files and a forceful pressing of the enter key later, a sly grin broke out on his face. He walked out of those doors one last time. The next morning the happy lot walked to their sleeping computers only to find their data corrupted, system brought to its knees, the company wiped out and an image of a dancing clown with the message below: A Taste Of Nikhil’s Nihilism!

Sundance Festival

What do I do with sun's charity?
When it goes over the top
Scorching to bed and searing to rise
My sleep screeches to a full stop

P.S> An ode to two days of scorching summer and the red-eyes the red hot sun has given me. No one thought it to be a good idea to have air-conditioners in Seattle. Local warming anyone?

Yellow Dawn

Absolutes scared him. Finality of any sort was anathema. You could call it a commitment issue. Binding himself to half-truths was his way of life. Every morning he’d touch his tools of trade with a touch of reverence before he started. Keeping his coffee just out of arms reach, he cracked his knuckles, adjusted his glasses and pulled his chair a little further. Thus began another day at work. Sitting in front of a computer, he fired up the neurons in his brain and transported himself to a world of make-believe, a potent concoction of adventure, romance, scandal and intrigue. A world where he was God. He didn’t go there alone. Wrapped in his sub-conscious were chunks of information, names of people, and a deadline to meet. Those pieces entwined with his fertile imagination and then there was light. As if possessed, his fingers obeyed and the monitor complied as God’s words appeared: ‘Aishwarya marries a peepal tree’

P.S> I have been reading Amitabh Bachchan’s blog daily (he is far more prolific than most blogger’s I know). You may or may not agree with his ideas and clarifications, but I admire his effort. This short post was inspired by his civilized rebuttals.

P.P.S> The title is a play on Red Dawn and Yellow Journalism

Daily Dose

We live in the age of information overload. Knowledge is power but there is a fine line that you tread in terms of the time you can invest to get the data you need. What does one consume? How much does one consume? How much is relevant? How much is accurate? What do you need to retain? What can you discard? In the democratized world of the internet, knowledge is democratized too and spread far and wide. There isn't a single source of good relevant information and one needs to hunt. I wrote to a friend of mine today morning asking him suggestions on sites he visits and blogs he reads in order to stay abreast of the latest in technology news. Its a necessary skill to have. If you need to be sufficiently aware, then you need to troll in an adroit fashion as well.

My mind went back to a post I had written in August of 2004. This listed my daily quota of browsing: sites that I would unerringly spend time on each morning to gather my daily dose of data. I am reproducing the list verbatim here:
-- TimesOfIndia (Yes, yes, it is a tabloid, but I have read their newspaper since I could read one)
-- Google News
-- New York Times
-- Mid-day (I need my dose of Mumbai-specific happenings)
-- Rediff (for news, movies, cricket)
-- Indiafm (my daily dose of Bollywood happenings)
-- Dilbert (daily dose of humor)
-- Slashdot (a brief glance into the geek world)
-- Cricinfo (there is always some cricket happening all around the world)

Here's the big surprise: four years hence, I still revisit the entire list still without any new additions (the only deletion is TimesOfIndia. It has sunk beyond redemption). Clearly this net I cast has withstood the test of time. The two sectors I think the above list doesn't cover too well are business and technology. I read the Economist, Newsweek, OutlookIndia off and on, and also have the Time magazine delivered to my place each week, but that is clearly not sufficient. The radio serves me well too, as I follow the NPR on a regular basis. The list of sites has served me well thus far and my obsessive need for knowing things is largely satisfied (it also stands me in good stead in my quiz club :-))However, I'd be interested in knowing how the rest of the world copes. Drop in a line. Tell me about your morning quota of browsing. Suggestions to add to my list are also welcome.

The Silver Screen

Light slashes
A cover of darkness
From far above.

Giants walk,
Fairies sing,
Miracles happen.

An alternate reality
Mesmerizes the devout
Four times a day

Chaanta Laga

The “obnoxious weed” (courtesy Matthew Hayden) is at it again. A couple of weeks into the Indian Professional League, Harbhajan has usurped the most entertaining factor in the league: the cheerleaders. Somewhere down the line after the mind-numbing display of batting over the first two weeks, the matches are beginning to be regularly lop-sided. I get it though. IPL is not about the cricket. It’s about entertainment. It’s about Shah Rukh Khan jumping in the aisles and Preity Zinta rushing to the ground to give “her” team a good old hug for finally winning a match. It is about the razzmatazz and the ability to satisfy the short attention spans of the viewing public. The format of the game is biased towards the batsmen and it takes an extraordinary bowler by McGrath to dictate terms. We’ll get to that later. The debate on the merits of this form of the game can be endless. To get back to the top selling points of IPL, the cheerleaders were heralded as the great “innovation”. Vijay Mallya brought to India the pom-pom wielding Amazons from the Washington Redskins. Their presence was warranted so much that Dravid and co. were banned from the ground while they perfected their routines. They hogged the limelight, they hogged TV time by jumping to action anytime a four or a six or a wicket came about (and there were plenty of those to come by) and the hogged the radars of the moralists who are worried about the length of their skirts upsetting the rather delicate minds of the Indians who apparently can’t keep their eye on the ball.

They had the center stage, until Harbhajan arrived. He captained his side, the Mumbai Indians, to a third successive loss in the IPL. Perhaps his patience gave way. Perhaps the culprit, the man who can single handedly bring down India’s cricketing reputation down, Shantakumar Sreesanth, needled him a wee bit too much. But it happened nonetheless. Harbhajan’s hand rose above his head where you couldn’t fault him for not bending his elbow enough, and it came down with the grip of a doosra, one that an inexperienced Sreesanth couldn’t be faulted for not anticipating. It landed on Sreesanth’s face just in the right area sending his head into a spin that he couldn’t handle. On being thus dismissed, he let his disappointment known. Tears rolled down his face uncontrollably and the rest is televised history.

Perhaps Harbhajan took his loyalty to his team too seriously. Aren’t these players a bit like hired mercernaries? Would a Pollock really care Mumbai wins or Bangalore does? What’s his loyalty to the city? As per the franchise system he might get transferred somewhere else. These matches are a bit like matches I played in our building while growing up. Two strong players would be captains and the rest be picked turn by turn. Everyone just played to get their chance to do their bit with the bat and ball. Winning would be a bonus. No teams would be the same over two days and it really was entertainment. Perhaps this simplistic view of the IPL is necessary for me. Cricket after all is my passion and I’ll love IPL, even if I end up treating it with the partiality of a step-child. While IPL doesn’t give me the satisfaction of watching cricket, the least I can derive of it is the entertainment. For that, I need to thank Harbhajan and congratulate him for topping my charts. It’s a slap in the face of the all-domineering cheerleaders.

The Interview

He treads intrepidly
Through the claustrophobic
Passages of memory.
Failure closes in
Garbed as questions;
Attempted yet Unanswered,
Much like life’s mysteries.
A circular linked list,
A binary search,
Oh, and your toughest challenge please.
He swats them aside; these thoughts
Straightens his tie
And walks right in
“Good morning”, indeed.

Dough aur Dough Paanch

The aroma of mouth-watering, spine-tingling, soul-uplifting food spreads outward from the kitchen. About fifteen feet away, I am going through my justifying a day of leisure by gorging on EPSN’s collection of twenty-five greatest cricketers. The smell makes me stop at a eulogy to Viv Richards’s legendary World Cup final performance. Even the King can’t arrest my attention any longer. There is Ambrosia in the house, and as is the norm, it hasn’t been cooked by me. I have been spoilt by riches to which I have direct access: great chefs. From my grandmother to my mother to my wife, I have had access to some terrific cooks. I can’t leave out my roommate back in Texas A&M who was the Indian Association’s chef-in-charge for our entry into the International Food Day contest. Luck by chance, I have nothing to do with it. I was blessed into a family of great cooks, and I don’t remember asking my wife how she cooked when we dated. It is in these circumstances that my inability to cook is highlighted to the extreme. Am I driven by the abject desire to cook badly so I don’t have to cook at all? Does my devious mind deliberately misunderstand the emotional reactions insufficient salt can’t bring about? No, no, absolutely not. It is said that when one of the senses if impaired, it heightens the others. Perhaps my lack of ability to judge when a vegetable has crossed over from being cooked to being burnt has helped me memorize directions better. Who knows?

I learnt to cook a few days before I left India for the US. My abilities till date had been limited to boiling milk in the kitchen that I dutifully did. With generous doses of training from my other and recipes written in my own hand-writing to avoid any contention, I headed to braver shores to try my skills. Alas, as Avinash and my other roommates would agree, the results were far from desirable. It is as if I couldn’t get it at all. The recipes might just as well have been a regional language movie I am watching. I could grasp the story but not the intricacies. The chick peas swam in a sea of excess water, the pulao often turned brown as it stuck to the bottom. The jury was out, and I was limited to cooking once a week for everyone’s benefit. Marriage didn’t change matters much, with my wife’s fabulous cooking and the wondrous division of labor that all married couples duly agree to in order to function as good roommates.

Years have passed and I have exercised my right to cook once in a while. Yet, the tag has stuck. That I am an ordinary cook has been written into my hand (metaphorically) like Vijay in Deewar. The self-deprecatory jokes (and this article) don’t help either. As is my wont, I generally go onto the internet to look for recipes for things as simple as Alu Sabzi. As an engineer, I have an analytical mind that can follow detailed instructions. I have attempted to apply these skills to cooking. But how does one contend with improper specifications: what does a ‘handful’ mean? What size of the spoon were they referring to? What is Nigella called in Gujarati? I grapple with these question and my soul searches for answers as my daal rightly falls short of salt. I may be an ordinary cook but I aspire for greatness too. Perhaps my heart will once find the right balance of spices to make Alu Gobi, or ambition will take me into making a concoction involving paneer. Till then, I struggle in the shadows and let the experts do their work. I reassure my guests at every dinner party that I had nothing to do with the food. They breathe easy. But it will change one day. A dish would be present in the mix that no one identifies as tasteless or off or difficult to eat. It will be cooked by me and no one will know the difference. That would be the ultimate compliment. Redemption will come.