I loved the 'Shobhaa chi Phodni' reference in the Comments space. I love tadkas - and can give you countless tadka recipes. But today has been a particularly mellow sunday. I have barely moved off the bed ( bliss!!) and have just finished watching an old favourite - Francois Truffaut's 'Jules et Jim' - that classic and complex Jeanne Moreau movie about a beautiful but doomed menage a trois. My husband has been reading aloud passages from Amartya Sen's new book on Justice, and generally raving over the economist-philosopher - it also helps that the brilliant professor is Bong!
Between all these cerebral activities, I have neglected food. Though after an inspired dinner at Indigo last night, I should go on a starvation dinner for a month or two. Arundhati , who landed in New York obviously didn't waste a single moment and went straight to Bagatelle last night. She and her gal pals threw in the Pink Elephant as well while they were at it. She reports that she didn't have a problem getting through U.S. Immigration, unlike our Bollywood Badshah ( I'll post my take on that episode tomorrow).

Swine 'Flu? Does anybody remember Bird 'Flu? Mad Cow Disease? Saars? Our politicians are the real swines. This over reaction to the 'epidemic' is to distract our attention from other more serious issues. Ditto for the drought alarm bells. These are nothing but diversionary tactics. More people die of TB in India than Swine 'Flu. Does anybody bother? Add Malaria and Cholera, Dysentry and Malnutrtion to the long list and you get the grim picture. Prices of sugar and other essentials are spiralling out of control. Blame it on the 'bad monsoon'. Famine, as Dr. Amartya Sen famously pointed out in his earlier book, is man made. It is never about not having sufficient food in stock, it is more about not reaching available food to the people who most need it, due to poor infrastructure and the lack of a political will.

About that picture - I shot it in Prague at a gigantic cafe on the ground floor of the historic Municipal House. The chandelier is pure Art Nouveau, and I fell in love with it. There was a 3 piece Jazz ensemble playing Brubeck, and I was transported to another, far more romantic era.Aaah.... for another chilled out sunday like this one. No 'phodni'.... but delicious nevertheless.