How i turn my good mornings into Gold Mornings

If you ask me what part of the day I like the most, my instant reply to it would be morning. Mornings are special for a lot of reasons. They are the start of something new. A gentle push by the universe to achieve something you’ve always wanted. And I love that about mornings.

For me a good morning is all about having a good night’s sleep and waking up fresh. But if you ask me how I turn my good morning in a gold one, I’d have to say it begins with cleanliness and eating healthy. So if you’d like to know how I transform my good mornings into Gold Mornings, read on below:

#1: Good Personal Hygiene:

The first thing I do when I wake up is brush my teeth. Some people ignore this and drink bed tea or coffee. This is really bad. I mean how can you do that? You just slept for 7 hours straight drooling onto your pillow. How can you eat or drink something when your mouth feels like cardboard when you wake up?

That’s why I begin my day with Colgate360 Charcoal Gold toothbrush and Colgate toothpaste.

The best part about using the Colgate360 Charcoal Gold toothbrush is that it cleans more than just teeth. It cleans my teeth, tongue, cheeks and gums too. Now that’s what I call the gold standard of mouth cleaning. It’s an instant way of turning your good mornings into #Colgate360GoldMornings.

Once I’m done with brushing, I take a shower. Sometimes when I’m tired, I take long baths, other times it’s a super short one. It’s very important to take a shower every day, especially if you’re living in the city. Otherwise it just stresses you out.

#2 Having a Healthy Breakfast

In cities as most people have tons of stuff to do during the day, they tend to skip breakfast. This is not right at all. If you begin your day with a healthy breakfast of corn flakes or muesli with milk, you will feel super energized and will be able to do everything that you’ve set out for. And don’t indulge into watching TV or listening to music as most people do. Just sit with your parents or your loved ones, and have breakfast together and you’ll see how well an early morning conversation will make you feel relaxed.

So there it is. That’s how I turn my good mornings into Gold Mornings. If you too would like to have #Colgate360GoldMornings or just Gold Mornings in general, follow my methods and you’ll be feeling super awesome in no time. 

Love vs. Desire

Finding a job can be an amazing thing. You have this sense of purpose and responsibility that you’ve never had before and as you keep doing it every day, you tend to learn new things, understand the tricks to the trade and generally fall in love with it, if you like what you do. It all feels great till you finally realize one day that the job you’re doing is eating you up from the inside. You won’t recognize the impact of these small changes, but the stress, the arguments with clients, the urge to please everyone can sometimes overwhelm you to such a level that you wouldn’t be able to see beyond your job.

I love my job. There are no two things about it. But as everyone says, love makes people blind. My love towards my work has led me away from some of the other things that have always been close to my heart.

I’ve always felt that there is a hidden travel bug inside of me; one that wants me to explore the scenic mountains of Shimla or the exquisite temples of Khajuraho. But work has always been a priority. So whenever someone asked me to join them on an expedition or an outing, my go-to answer would always be a NO; maybe next time; you know how it is.

Every time I saw pictures of old colleagues on FB riding their bikes to the world’s highest motor-able road - the Khardung Pass; or posting a hundred selfies from the beaches of Goa, I used to think 'I wish I was there’ ‘Why can’t that be me?’ Then suddenly I’d get an email asking me to work on something that was super urgent and I’d forget about it. But the travel bug inside of me wouldn’t sit still.

I would fantasize about buying a car and then just zooming off to some exotic destination. All through the drive I’d play my favorite music and sometimes go intentionally off track just so that I could find something that I’d never thought of finding before. I wouldn’t be worried about getting lost because the GPS would always be there to help me with navigation. And besides that I’ve always felt that asking people for directions is the best way to find your way. So maybe I’d just do that. Who knows? I mean I can dream anything I want, right? But as always it has remained a dream.

My heart is full of wishes and wanderlust. It’s filled with wants to see the sunrise in Kashmir and sunset in Kanyakumari. Maybe someday I’d be able to realize them all. Maybe someday my FB would be filled with hundreds of pictures that’d inspire someone to quench their thirst of wanderlust. Till then I have to wait and keep on dreaming a hundred new dreams every day.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

Image Credits: Pixabay/keenicon

How to make a decision? And exhaustive theory by a restless mind

What is the one thing that defines a person? What is the one thing that makes people talk about you; assume things about you; praise you?

It’s the decision a person makes.

This is how it always happens, isn’t it? When we have to go to a new place and don’t know how to reach there, we almost always take the help of technology. Google Maps or a GPS system inside your car will easily provide navigation, helping you to reach the place without any hiccups. The way how we can easily find our way using this method has always fascinated me. I have always thought about how amazing it would be if we could have a GPS system that would guide us and help us navigate when we have to move through the puzzling maze of making a decision.

Fantasies aside, making a decision is difficult for a reason. We have to stick by them because they define who we are. Choosing a salad over fried chicken tell us we value our health more than the taste.  Choosing to tell the truth over lying speaks about how much we value honesty. The impact of decisions can be so huge that it can prove to be detrimental to our character if we take a wrong one.
So as per the headline, how do you make a decision? How do you decide what to do? There are only 2 ways and these are so simple that you may stop reading this article when you find out about them.

Ready? Ok. Here they are:

1. Think a lot
2. Don’t think at all

So there it is. It’s that simple. But here’s the thing, you can’t follow only one of them throughout your life. You have to keep switching between the two depending upon the situation and some times, no matter which path you take, you still end up feeling like you’ve made the wrong choice. It’s very easy at these times to blame yourself. And when you blame yourself, you tend to feel the massive weight of what you went ahead with and lose focus on what should be done.

So the bottom line is that decisions are a part of one’s life. There is no getting out of making them; there’s no running away from them and there’s certainly no navigation system that will carefully help you navigate through the tough turns that pop up in life. Instead what you can do is own your decision. If you took the wrong one, own up to your mistake and take the flak. If you feel like you’ve made the right one then stand up for it. That’s how you make a decision, by sticking to it.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

How to make Fantastico Curd Sambhar?

Have you ever loved a dish so much that you go to inexplicable lengths to learn the recipe and make it for yourself and taste it? Have you ever craved for something for many days and one fine day prepared it and treated yourself to the mouth-watering aromas and taste of that heavenly dish? The Curds Sambhar does that to me. It puts me in a food coma and might be the only thing which I am ready to eat every day. I learnt this from a friend and added a little twist to it which in my opinion makes it a lot better. Or you can say makes it a fantastico Curd Sambhar.

The recipe I’m suggesting will be enough for two people. I prepare it for two people and finish it off all by myself. That's how tasty it is. I sometimes lick the tawa so clean that I can just put it back on the shelf. I’m joking (Or not :P). Prepare this for yourself and let me know how you find it.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon oil.

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/2 tablespoon ginger garlic paste. (Secret ingredient #1)

1 big onion or 2 small onions finely chopped.

2 Chillies split lengthwise. (More if you like it spicy)

1/2 teaspoon of MDH Kitchen King Masala (Secret ingredient #2)

1/4 litre curd

1/4 cup Water

Salt to taste

Preparation:

1) Add the oil to the tawa.

2) Add the mustard seeds and chillies and fry it for a bit so that all the spiciness of the chillies is released to the oil.

3) Add the onions, salt and ginger garlic paste and fry till the raw smell of ginger and garlic goes away.

(Onions frying has one of the best smells, it makes my mouth water just thinking about it)

4) Add the Kitchen King Masala and fry it with the onions for a while.

5) Let this cool for a few minutes and add a little bit of water. You can slowly mix in the curds.
It’s important to remember not to mix the curds while the tawa is on the stove or while the onion tadka is too hot. If curd is added to the hot mixture it splits and turns into something very inedible looking. Let everything cool down for a while and then mix in the curds. I usually prefer curds which have gone a bit sour as this gives a very tangy taste to the whole thing.

This sambhar tastes best with rice or you can mix in a little bit of more water and drink it like chaas. It tastes awesome both ways. If you like to make it spicier, add more chillies and increase the quantity of Kitchen King masala.

Now I am off to make some Fantatstico Curd Sambhar and have it with some rice. I am drooling already.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

My fantastico love for food

It is irritating how much people underestimate my love for food.

I am a person who plans out his breakfast before I go to sleep. Yes, breakfast. I decide what to order based on the dinner I have just had. It is a great responsibility to choose the right breakfast as it is the most important meal of the day or so I say to myself repeatedly as I make a note of what variety of Masala Dosa to order again for breakfast the next day.

Lunch is a whole different story altogether. There are so many options out there these days that planning lunch takes up to 30 minutes after I’ve had the last piece of Masala Dosa for breakfast. I keep switching between Roti Curry, Chapati or just some rice item like Pulav, Biryani, Ghee Rice or Bisebele Bhath. The options are endless. Should I just choose a rice item? Can I only have a Vada? Maybe I can have Chapati and a Vada. You see how confusing it is?

I sometimes wish I had a bhukkad friend like myself.  Then I could order a rice item and Chapati and split it between the both of us. You feel me? Maybe I can have a full meal. There is usually some Chapati and rice with them. I decide on having a full meal and order the same old Roti Curry again. Plain rice? Pfft. No way am I eating that.

I get some work done after this. I get paid to work and not to think about food all the time. I then continue working while munching on some biscuits and chips.

Dinner is one majestic affair where my wife and I decide on the item to be cooked. We spend some time looking up recipes and then grow immediately tired of all the searching and jotting down. We then finally end up ordering food from outside or on a lucky day we cook together and make a delicious dish which we’ll have for at least 2 days that week. We are still getting used to cooking for two. We usually end up cooking it for 4 people.

Weekends, oh how I wait for weekends. Read and eat and sleep. That’s my dream cycle; maybe play some video games too along with watching a few sitcoms and movies. Mainly I look forward to going out for dinner. Should we go out for Thai cuisine or maybe try out the new Punjabi Dhaba style restaurant that opened just around the corner. Speaking of corners, maybe I should take my wife to that peppy new ice cream place, which just opened near our house. Ummm! I cannot wait to savor the deliciousness on offer there.

As you can see, there are so many difficult choices to make. I am happy today though as I am trying out a new place where there is Biryani in the meal along with plain rice. Yesss!! I hope my fantastico love of food never dies. 

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

Image Credits: Wikipedia/Wikimedia