I welcome myself back

Hey everyone...
Finally I recovered my dear old blog again. So updating with some pics

Love love love
Shaima

ALL I NEEDED WAS A HUG

All I needed was a hug

When I failed in that moment

of life where I was victorious.

When the jigsaw just didn't seem to fit in

All I needed was a hug.

When I had cried with pain all night

but you never seemed to care

because my tears had dried

and my face was left bare.

All I needed was a hug.

When I was stressed out for all the petty things

that life unknowingly puts on me

Yes I agree I made a mountain out of it

but why did you suddenly turn blind.

All I needed was a hug.

Was it that I was asking for more

Your wealth, your time or your friends

Couldn't you take a minute from your life because

All I needed was a hug.

When I look around my life

and happy faces surround me

I fake that happiness back

but you know me right that

All I needed was a hug

Now when I'm gone

You see my empty closet

A dress swaying there

You wonder why it remains there

All it still needs is a hug.

BREAKING NEWS>>> A NEW COUNTRY IS FORMED>> AL-ARAB-SALAH

BREAKING NEWS>>> A  NEW  COUNTRY  IS  FORMED>>

AL-ARAB-SALAH

Yes, you heard it right! There is a brand new country on this globe with quite a fancy name: “Al-Arab-Salah”

The ‘Father of the Nation’ of this baby country is the most handsome, most lovable, most adorable --

Shri  P.D. Ays Mohammed Faris

 (P.D. Ays is an honourable salutation in Al-Arab-Salah, I don’t yet know it’s meaning, but, I shall get back to you with more info in this regard!)

Shri P.D Ays Mohammed Faris is the leader of the victorious “Milton Party”.

He got independence for his country through great sacrifice. To bring fair rule to his country he even had to sacrifice his own brother, “Mohammed Ali”.

[[ Republic Day of Al-Arab-Salah- On 2nd April, 2014 Al-Arab-Salah got freedom from the rules going on Al-Arab-Salah on this day Shri P.D. Ays Muhammed Faris told to North russians you can shoot my brother Mohammed Ali then after shooting we will make our own rules of AAS then North russians shooted Shri Mohd Ali. After shooting they go back to Al Arab North russia. And then both countries lived happily. Muhammed Ali was asking for Deth the God gave him Deth.]]

Al-Arab-Salah has a majority Muslim population  but is ‘secular’ for all practical purposes. India already has a Muslim majority secular country as a neighbor, we can only hope that Al-Arab-Salah is not India’s neighbor! Yes, you got it right, Shri P.D. Ays Muhammed Faris has not yet disclosed the location of his country! And that is strange coz’ he is addicted to maps! I’m sure he will soon draw many maps showing the location of Al-Arab-Salah and release it to the world. I’ll pass it on to you, don’t worry!

Meanwhile, Shri P.D. Ays Muhammed Faris has a constitution ready for his countrymen and women. He also has a cricket team ready! The currency of Al-Arab-Salah is the “Sinner”…. And it also has a symbol “@”. 

Imagine! India took decades to come up with a symbol for its rupya and here we have a new country with a new currency and they already have a symbol for it!

The national anthem of Al-Arab-Salah is “Zoomba Doomba”. It is really long and confusing, but, I’m sure I’ll be able to get the hang of it soon.

This country is also rich in food- cooked in pure ghee and maida!! Surely, Al-Arab-Salah- THE PLACE TO BE!!! :)

EXPERIMENTS IN THE KITCHEN cont.....

vanilla cupcake

This was one of the best cakes to be baked by me. It had simple vanilla cake with choclate chips.
Tasted awesome and looked great too.

Rava cake

 "Curiosity killed the cat" is all I could say from this recipe of mine. I really like rava and love everything made from it, be it chilla ,dosa, idly or upma. When I read cake I was so thrilled that I immediately baked it. Later did I realize that it was nothing but sooji halwa which was baked. Anyway, it tasted okay but I will be careful next time and will not get carried away by my favourite ingredient names.

choclate cake

 This was a simple chocolate cake . What are those black beads? Those are white chocolate chips which I decided to put during the halfway of baking only to get it charred . Sometimes I really do get intelligent ideas. Isn't it?


                                                     
     
    I made this with a lot of hope that it will be loved by my kids but
it failed to impress them . This contains chocolate chip cookies, nutella, cocoa powder, sugar and it did taste good but only to me.                                                                                                                                                      

nutella truffles

FIZA SAYS FARIS SAYS

My blog says "Bringing up Fiza & Faris" but off late I am putting in here everything apart from them. My whole day revolves and rotates around them ( well I dont have an option ) and I get to witness such amusing and interesting talks and actions from them that I really start thanking Allah that my decision to be with them was correct. This post is dedicated to all the small talks or conversations they have. I wish our Internet connection was fast enough so as to upload their small videos too.  Again I will keep it as an ongoing post and will continue to add whatever I find funny and amusing ( Again........whatever (I FOUND FUNNY OR AMUSING)

I was teaching them English Grammar and while explaining the tenses to Fiza , I explained her first the meanings of the word past, present and future ( I always go a little overboard while teaching ). I dont know whether she understood or not but when after all the long stories, I asked her if we call today as "Present tense" then what would be yesterday called ( I waited proudly for the answer) and she said " ABSENT TENSE"

My son did his first naughty search  in our good old Google. He searched for "Potty Pics" . I came to know about this because Fiza told me and second when I opened google in my ipad , the page was opened with "Potty Pics" and the images were like awwwww, it had so many pics of kids sitting in the potty with their bums for the world to see. It was the cutest things I could have seen. But on the dangerous side , he can type any nonsense things so I have to be very careful now.
                                                               
      "Which is the largest oil producing country in the world?" We all know it , right. Faris also knows it from his GK textbook and he always starts his little research on things which intrigues him. This time he got a bit confused with the term oil and asked me "wahan pe oil se banne wala saara khane ka cheez zyada milega na?" May be he even dreamt of puris and pakodas that day.
           We are planning our holidays and he asked us whether we can go to another planet like Mars and when I told him no, he really became sad and truly wishes one day it will be possible for all of us to go for vacation in different planets. If that is possible I would like to goto Saturn. Thats a beautiful planet.

That day I had tried methi ka parantha for the first time and after giving their exams Faris had three. I was happy and just to make him know that I had put so much pain in making them, I told him that I had kneaded the dough with dal. He replied " Isliye isse itna smell aa raha hai". I was shocked and asked him why he had three when it smelled so bad, to which he replied " bahut bhookh laga tha isliye kha liya nahin to ek bhi nahin khata" . I was stunned. Anyways his favourite nowadays is methi ka parantha and he very weirdly combines it with an egg poach. I am still unable to come in terms with this combination.
                                                                                                 
                                                

EXPERIMENTS IN THE KITCHEN

At the time when I got married I knew how to boil water .... I mean exactly how to boil water. Other than that , I had a long way to go. Had it not been the support from my jethani i would have been sent back to ..well back to momma to learn something other than boiling water. I somehow hated all the cooking business. " Why do people waste their sooooo precious time in COOKING" was exactly my thought . The time which used to get spent in cooking can be utilized in so many productive ways ( cooking was definitely not a productive chore). It was always we both ( jethani and I) getting up at approx 5:30 am and entering the kitchen to begin our long extensive menu preparation for the day ( breakfast , lunch and dinner). We prepared all the three meals together at one go because we both were working at that time ( I quit recently) and none of us would be back by 5:30 pm. Only fresh rotis were prepared at 7:00 pm or the timing had to be adjusted in such a way that the first roti came off the tawa ( the griddle) at 7:30 pm dot. I did learn few things from my jethani but that was out of sheer pressure and not out of interest. These were my initial days , later I had joined Axis Bank and things became much worse. I detested coming to kitchen because I came back home at around 8:00 pm and the "ME" time was getting reduced tremendously. After that I became the fortunate mother of twins in the year 2007 and i had to manage the twenty four hours properly into a demanding job, a joint family, my two beautiful babies, my husband ( i always fall short of adjectives when it is time to describe him) and ME. For the next six years what followed was a mayhem of unkempt home, dissatisfied in-laws, neglected kids, all the more neglected husband and a DEAD ME. " How can women write recipes asking one another and to top it , go home and actually cook what they have scribbled " . I despised cooking to the core. In between I did get a sudden spike of interest in baking and so my husband ( lovable, adorable, dutiful, peace loving) got me an OTG. I did bake two cakes and a batch of cookies. Then suddenly it became too tedious and boring for me. By this time I had automatically learn t to cook biryani. This dish did come automatically because i had accompanied my jethani in cooking this awesome dish umpteen times . It just got registered in the memory. I think even if I get Alzheimer, i will certainly remember how to cook a biryani.  So all said and done I quit my job due to many reasons in the year 2013 and now I am a full time homemaker or better still housemother. Not in my wildest dreams I would have thought that I , Shaima Shamim would become crazy about cooking new dishes and trying out all possible understandable recipes from the Internet. My OTG is in full use . Not only I bake cakes, muffins and cookies in them, I also bake paneer, cauliflower, potatoes. I am a big fan of everything which requires baking. I never knew this side of mine. I still sometimes smile by myself that I am actually liking this whole cooking business. Gone are the days when I used to cook just because I had to feed people in my home ..Today I cook because I want people to relish what I prepared. I cook from my heart and soul. 

I thought why not put all the experiments be it good or bad in an ongoing post. So I am going to start uploading pics of what I make in the kitchen . Nope, there will be no recipes...the Internet is full of them . This is just to keep in memories what I love just as we keep pics of our kids and pets.....

NUTELLA FILLED COOKIE

This one I recently prepared and My kids just loved it. It really came out well but as the name in the recipe says, cookie. This turned out to be more like a cake. Have it with a bit of actual Nutella by the side and you will be in heaven.

MATHRI

This is the famous mathri which my family loves. It has cumin seeds and pepper powder and the healthy wheat too in half proportion. But do not make the mistake of considering this as healthy just because it is baked, it has half cup oil..........boo hooo half cup of oil. I also had put a little more salt in it so it was not so liked by all.

CHOCOLATE CAKE

The specialty of this cake is that it has no eggs and no butter......HEALTHY????? NOOOOOO
It has 1/4th cup oil....yippeeeee. If you think about your waistline, don't eat cakes....I have sprinkled some icing sugar on top for that glamour. 

RED VELVET CAKE

  See this cake, this is supposed to be "Red Velvet cake with Vanilla frosting" . The cake was uhmmm salty , i dont know how, i dont have the slightest clue. For the first time Faris told me "Yeh cake bilkul nahin kha sakte". Yes for the first time, I had to throw the cake in the dustbin, my heart, my love. Though the icing was fantastic , I could have licked the entire preparation. This cake was my BIGGEST DISASTER. The pic on the right looks good though.

KULCHAS

The very same day I made the above monster , I also made this delicacy , the Kulcha. It turned out to be very soft and tasty. Actually I wanted to make Naan but then after reading the recipe, I felt it would be a bit tedious and lengthy so switched on to this easier version. Now I personally feel it is very similar to Normal maida ka paratha of course but a little variation here and there. My both the kids enjoyed it and I was a happy mother at the end . 

Guilty as Charged

How about certain moments of our life which makes itself very memorable due to certain of our lies, misdeeds ….yes I am talking about the darker side of an individual, the so called ‘grey shades’ of a person. It may or may not be as serious as to be called a “crime” which ends somebody in jail but it may or may not be as casual also as not be called a “crime” because after all it was intentional.

My sister was born when I was exactly eight years and seven months. So my reign ended, not that I was a victim of “sibling rivalry” but sometimes I just felt plain happiness in scaring her. When she was around four or five, I used to take her to our beloved Gymkhana ground; this is our desi “Eden Garden”. Those days it was covered with tall grasses and for a four year old it used to reach till her chest. I basically used to take her for a small play so that she can run around and get some open fresh air. Of course I used to play with her but in between I used to leave her in the middle of the grass and hide myself far away. After three to four minutes she used to get really scared standing alone and the moment her face got distorted into a big cry, I used to emerge and I played this several times in one outing and simply loved her scared expressions. Ive told her this; I mean after she grew up but haven’t told my mother yet. 

This incident happened in Shanta mam’s class when I was in fourth standard. I was really quite a dumb girl in my primary classes. I was a below average student and not into sports or any extracurricular activities and also very silent. Once when we were reading through our lesson “The Tajmahal”, our teacher suddenly asked us “Who all have seen The Tajmahal?” I knew Tajmahal was somewhere in Delhi and it was one of the wonders of the world and that was it. Till today I don’t understand what had gotten into me that I stood up with seven others of my class. I lied that I had seen “Tajmahal” and the whole universe were a witness to it. I was so affected by this lie of mine that whenever any conversation between any friends had “Tajmahal” in it, I used to go numb fearing that someone would point out just now “Hey Shaima, you had been to it, how many front doors are there” or “how many minars are there” . This lie of mine actually became a nightmare for me and I was living with this until finally one day my would be husband to impress her would be wife asked “Where do you want to go for honeymoon?” No guesses for the correct answer. As I stood in front of the Tajmahal along with my husband, I was all smiles as I was finally getting relieved from this lie. 

I hated bathing when I was young. I lie again; okay I still hate to take bathe so I skip the Sundays. During those lazy childhood days whenever I felt like not having bath, I used to throw mugs of water inside the bathroom pretending as if I am taking bath to my mother who used to be in the next door kitchen. I just used to wash my face and hands and come out. I very recently told her this and she gave me very dirty look. Well I deserved it. 

Our favorite pastime during my childhood days was going to “Marina Park”, this park has been the sole companion of all the children here in Andamans especially kids born in the 70s and 80s (until of course “Gandhi Park” came into picture). Those days Marina Park was like a huge gorgeous garden with flowers of beautiful colors and varieties adorning the entire place. It was such a splendid sight entering into the park and taking in the beauty. And not forgetting to mention the ’maalis’ who might have really done such a task of decorating and maintaining the entire place. And yes “nobody was allowed to pluck any flowers”. Okay, so once I had gone like the normal evening-outs with my friend Hema and Devamma( she was my mom’s helper) to the park and were playing in the swing. Later as we were roaming in the garden, I very carefully plucked a beautiful huge (yes it was...) hibiscus flower and put it in my jeans pocket. Then after much playing as we proceeded back to home, a maali blocked our way and asked us “u guys are plucking flowers, isn’t it?” I was shocked but tried to keep the expression away from my face and boldly answered back to him(You see, among Hema who was three years younger to me and Devamma, I was the smartest) “ what are u saying, we were just playing”. Within a snap he came forward and pulled out the hibiscus flower from my jeans pocket which I was hiding securely (well I was a kid) and asked “What is this, then?” I was dumbstruck, in fact we all were. Saying this he scolded us and left. I was embarrassed to the core and we all ran from there. Needless to say, I did not visit Marina Park for so many months after that. Very unfortunately Tsunami destroyed the entire park and they had it rebuilt but nothing close to what we had experienced in terms of the garden.

I think this happened in class seven, this incident doesn’t exactly fall into this category but come on, it is my blog, I can write whatever I want, wherever I want, isn’t it? As I said, I was a dumb girl in my childhood days (I stress this every time coz I became a real bookworm in my Senior Secondary and very very vocal during my college days). Quite obvious, I was not the first ten choices for any girl’s friend options. I had limited friends and I was happy among them. There was a girl “Devarchana” and she used to be the hot favorite among all and I don’t remember exactly but we had some serious conflicts those days. She was hosting a big party and those days having a party only for the friends was not even luxury, it was considered to be a phenomenon. Everybody was busy talking about the party venue, dress what one is going to wear and I again had a silly fight with her. In front of my entire friend circle, she shouted at me and asked me “You don’t like me, isn’t it?” It was a moment of decision, the party, food, fun, friends were dancing in front of me and I blurted out at the top of my voice ” I hate u, I hate u” ( Yes, you got it right, I said that twice). I think only seven of us including both the sections did not make to her precious party list. Rest as we all say, Que sera sera.

This incident occurred in Axis Bank. One of my so called friend’s (wait when you read what I did) birthday was there and I was very much aware of it. Now the custom of Axis Bank was this that we all celebrated every employee’s birthday (some definitely got missed due to it falling on holidays or some new entrants whom we never bothered and some rare forgotten cases). I was so pissed from her behavior in the bank that I did not wish her and did not remind others also so that nobody wishes her on her big day. That day somehow passed and quite obviously, she was so depressed. Things took a turn when early next morning my boss called me and told me that we had skipped her birthday and we need to makeup that mistake so I was give the charge of celebrating it. I couldn’t believe it but still I did not lose hope. I went to the market to get a gift and selected the worst possible necklace for her (tacky and cheapo type). The look on her face when she opened her gift…..PRICELESS.

I could think only of these as of now but I would definitely add the wicked side of me more.