“You will know when you have your kids” .. I still remember this from the countless scoldings my mother showered on me. For every time I disappointed her, she made it look as if her sorrow is more than my humiliation. i always thought I would never scold my kids like she scolds me. Now the thought itself makes me feel a little guilty but never leaves without a smile. Not that the dialogue has changed ! Only the scoldings ahve turned into a funny arguement at times.

Today when I see a baby fail, the look in his eyes,the will to keep trying,and at times running back to mothers; It all makes me want to sort things for the kid , only to see him smile. But I am not his mother, I remind myself. And yet I feel for him. I am no one’s mother, I realize just like the the barren land below my feet. And I wish flowers would cover this land soon.i feel for the land too. As if its an extension of me. am still single , and yet I want nothing more than a kid. All the years that I spent searching for love , they seem to mean nothing now as I crave for the touch of a baby. In a story I read long time back, the king asks “what makes one a mother – giving birth to the kid or raising the kid?” I say no one or nothing makes you a mother. You are a mother always or never.

Funny how it reminds me of the scene between Kajol and Kareena in “we are family’ ( Not that i love this movie more than the original ) . Every female sure is born with motherly instincts and you can see that all around you. The way I treat my younger brother is no different from how my mom treats him, just for the fact he is 10 years younger than me. Some of my friends too say that I am more of a mother to them than friend at times of crisis. “Maa” was a nickname some friends gave me 3 years back. First i felt little hurt, wondering am I really that old and dominating. but later i realized if my love and care earns me such a prestigious nick, so be it. I atleast have to live upto it. I still love each of my friend the same way. Not that i think of others as innocent kids. But i do realizze we all have a kid hidden in our hearts. The one that needs to be pampered the most all times. Make that kid love you , and you have made the person love you for a lifetime.

This mother’s day I do not want to thank my mom for just raising me well and being my best friend. But I want to tell her that she can be assured her grandchildren would be scolded as much as her kids have been. I might not be as good as her when I have my own kids , but the life lessons she has passed on to me , have helped many a kids around, some as old as me.

Love you Ma.
and love to my friends.

It’s amazing how one word can describe so many things, emotions, feelings, bonding and of course love, itself. One word to describe how we relate to each other, how we get into relationships. We as humans emote so many feelings, but love is the first feeling we develop and perhaps it is the last when we leave this world. In between, however, we only talk about love. How easy life would be if we would “feel” love rather than searching for it, rather than trying hard to express it or trying even harder to win it.

One of my colleagues recently came to me with a request to write a letter to his lady love. And it took me some effort to convince him that it was his love and it would be highly unfair of him to express his feelings through my words. Finally he settled for an expensive ring to express his feelings. And I couldn’t help but wonder. Does love need to be expressed through words or rings or anything for that matter? Love just has to be felt. How ironic then that we have become so materialistic that we have forgotten one of our base instincts….Love.

We celebrate Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and so many other days just to find an excuse to come up with more materialistic pursuits to impress our loved ones? But does love really need a day to be expressed? I wonder. We treat out friends to parties and feel happy when we get gifts on our birthdays and weddings and anniversaries. But do those gifts really express any congratulatory love? Does every expression need materialistic proof?

Does a mother need proof to express her love and concern for her offspring? Does a brother need proof to show love for his sibling? Does a friend always ask for something in return when he comes in handy? And does favour by a fellow human demand a favour in return? Never. But in today’s world we need symbols to express everything. Love needs expression on Facebook. A favour demands a favour back in return and everything has to be weighed and measured.

And finally, the love among us all. It seems to have disappeared. Gone. Poof. On one hand we have to give proof to express our love and on the other we don’t feel the love at all. It’s a weird feeling, this love. Songs have been sung, books have been written and lectures given but we never learn. It is perhaps the easiest thing to do, and the most difficult thing to learn….to love.

With where we stand today, it seems to be a difficult task to do. But a century of conditioning and materialistic pursuits cannot be washed away in a day. And changes take time to come by. Showing a little bit of pure love should not be a difficult task. All it takes is a smile, a twinkle in the eye and a wholehearted expression of satisfaction to express. Love is right here, amongst us. We just have to look.

In the end, there are just a handful of people who really know you. Your parents, because they shaped you into who you are. Your husband (or wife), because they are the key construct of your belief system. Your very few best mates, who have seen you at the most vulnerable, and never reminded you of it. And maybe your kids, if they really put their heart into it. But there is something about a sibling that just stands apart from the rest – because they have been there for all of the above. Shaping you as you grew up together, weaving into your vision of the world, and holding your hand when things were flaky and the world was crumbling. Confidante, partner-in-crime, worst critic & best friend. In some ways, looking at your kid sister or brother gives you a better idea of who you really are.

The first thing that I think of when I look at my kid sister is – Music. One of my strongest memories is of us sitting in front of our music teacher, practicing classical vocal with solemn faces and wide eyes, two tiny peas in a very musical pod. At the age when all kids in the block were dressing up their Barbie’s, we must have been waiting in a dressing room backstage somewhere, getting ready to compete in yet another music contest. I still remember the smell of the side-wings, just as I remember holding her hands, all elder-sister-in-tow. She was so tiny, they had to adjust the mike all the way down. Once, when she won a first place, the famous artist who was giving away trophies couldn’t spot her walking up the stage, and felt compelled to carry her and the trophy down to my parents. Only after a year of singing, did we realize that she didn’t know what a rhythm really meant – she just replicated what she heard, and didn’t miss a single beat!

The memory of one particular afternoon sticks out amazingly clear. We were both reprimanded by our grandma countless number of times for not having a bath, and finally someone had to drag us into the wash area with a stern warning. It was mid-afternoon, really hot and humid, and we just picked up a water hose and started a water fight out in the open! And all the times we were mid-attack, we were re-inventing a very somber Bollywood song into a parody – shouting on top of our voices, harmonizing, and coming up with even funnier lyrics. Come to think of it, I bet we did it more times than once, because I recall another one just now, when we kept singing an entire song in notation, again and again….till we had to be yanked out of the water mess we had created into dry towels!

In a very Von Trapp Family kind of way, we sang all the time – in the rickshaw on our way to school, during family trips in a car, while getting dressed to go somewhere, or having our evening snack – we grew up loving the same music, we shared the exact same sentiments, and we were always in sync on what we felt the song meant. Years later when I was in a boarding college, and she was back home and we only had the luxury of one call every week, we still shared notes on our latest finds and we still had the same opinion.

Mom tells me, I made my first song when she was a baby wrapped in sheets. Despite all the grown-ups forbidding me to hold her, I looked for an un-surveilled moment and sneaked in, took her in my arms, and started singing a song which was complete gibberish…and I had a huge grin plastered on my face. I guess that was me telling her ‘Hello there, we are in for a great time together, you and me, I promise. Welcome to the world, baby!’

My sister learnt to spell and read, when the rest in her class were mumbling. I am not kidding! We were amazed one time, when she started reading out one of those countless graffiti on the wall educating people on whom to vote for in the next state elections. And yet, she chose not to write, letting tears roll down her eyes every time she had to finish alphabet homework. She would just look so miserable, that mom would have to hold her fingers around the pencil and drag her hand through the process. I just think she was a clever clod – getting work done by an adult was much faster and effective. And it meant more game time! We were not surprised when she started reading books when her best friend closest in age was drawing crayons in color books.

And I now come to my second most pertinent memory of us growing up. Books. My husband still complains that he needs to educate me every time we go for a movie based on a comic book. ‘You guys just lost a fundamental part of your education trying to read Jane Eyre!’ he comments. And to be honest, he is not far from the truth. But at that time, we were lost in a trance of classics, foreign authors, and of course, Famous Five and Nancy Drew! Those were the days when we would look forward to our birthdays, to get books that we had been treasuring on our most-wanted lists…not a new dress or a shoe. And definitely not a stuffed toy! I remember one time when we had a serious conversation about becoming like the Bronte sisters. We even invented our own pen names, and our parents had a huge laugh over how they sounded like names of ships.

I remember the P.G. Wodehouse phase very clearly. We would be rolling on the floor, tears streaming down our eyes, laughing epileptically, and our mom would be highly unimpressed with our un-lady-like behavior. And we would chant out together, ‘I came back so fast, I almost met myself going out!’ Mom would just ‘Humph’ and leave us both shaking her head in disdain.

An important part of us growing as our father’s daughter was that we had to be very analytical. Let me re-phrase that. We did not get anything because we cried blue murder. We had to prove in logical terms that we needed something. And being daughters of a statistician meant we were supposed to be born mathematical. Hell, my sister’s name means Theory of Numbers! One of the first books we read was Maths with Mummy, and I still remember my sister almost inhaling the book into her system, the moment she set eyes on it. So big was the influence of logic, that once when she was angry at mom, she locked herself up in the room upstairs, did not eat lunch (though trust me, she always had a hidden stash of food up there!), and wrote out a questionnaire which mom needed to fill and sign at the bottom. Only then would she would let herself out. She also had the habit of tearing pages off her dairy and keeping it in the most obvious places (like on top of the ironing board) so the people concerned knew what she really felt! Coupled with her compulsory teaching lessons every evening to all of us members of the family, including my grand mom, it’s no surprise that she has grown up to make a living out of teaching English!

And here’s the funny part. We still do exactly the same things even now, though technology (and of course the ability to indulge in all sorts of gadgets) means we read i-books and crib about the paperback, play pianos, guitars and random instruments on tablets, and share lists on Grooveshark. Despite having a job that needs me to travel quite heavy duty, and despite her staying in a place where she takes care of ten thousand things – all in a language that she had no idea of a year back (and I have heard that she can make cab drivers blush!), we still cope fairly well when it comes to the basics…going into a reverie once in a while with discussions around a good book and it’s interpretation, or an amazing piece of music we heard sitting in a café, that we HAD to SoundHound! Does it mean we have not changed? Trust me on that. We definitely are not the same people we were. I would have loved to go into details of how, but that’s not the point really. The point is, when the things around me look suddenly alien – and don’t they do so more now than when we were younger – I know that there is one part of who I am, that I will always identify with. All I have to do is seek her out. She would know intrinsically how to take care of it.

Continued from Part I and Part II. You can read them here

Where was Toots? – And the knowledge would dawn on him in the way they can only in dreams- The crutch had swallowed the girl. No, the girl had turned into the crutch. Then what had happened to her crutch- he would go berserk trying to figure out.

It took two days to get over these weird day dreams and psychedelic night- puzzles (they were not frightening enough to be called nightmares, only mildly distressing). He was turning into a mad-man (through in other circumstances he would be all condemnation about the above usage – it wasn’t a politically correct term)

… SK had somehow expected Toots to go tweet tweet tweet but the voice in the other end was deep and husky- soothingly so. It unfailingly had the placating effect warm water must have on joints that were aching or a wound that had cauterized.

‘Santosh’ Toots addressed with a familiarity that seemed decade old at least. She didn’t ask what had kept him busy for the last two days.

“We have known each other for 4 months, Toots. I want to meet you” SK simply said. At Cherry’s at 5.30 pm”,came the reply. The Candy pink Maruti modified to suit her requirements was visible. He stepped in. Toots was sitting, staring into space. SK stood in front of her, panting. ‘You’ve come’ she said politely albeit absently. Her mind was still hers.

He wondered about her. Over a period of time, SK discovered that Toots was more articulate online or over the phone and a little tongue-tied or in brown study face to face. Maybe that was what thy called artistic temperament. He wouldn’t know.

She effusively perused his photographs. Begged him for one of red poinsettias. Within days she had metamorphosed them into a breath-taking painting.

Sumana meanwhile was down with peptic ulcers. Unheeding of the doctor’s advice, she had gone ahead and indulged on some over spiced cutlets. This was most uncharacteristic of her. She suffered for it and how. Santosh visualized her going overboard over the cutlets, then ending up like this for a simple indulgence. He felt a dash of pity mingled with affection. ‘ Poor Su’ she wasn’t born with the sturdiest of stomachs. As she recovered , he helped her catch up on college work she’d missed. They then took a walk in the moon- lit night.

She wasn’t wearing her glasses. With her porcelain smooth skin and chiseled features, Sumana was what most people would consider a conventionally good looking specimen of the female species. The moon beam compliments her features further. ‘You are beautiful, Su’ SK murmured touched by the marmoreal quality of her loveliness. ‘I know’ she said and smiled with her lips tightly shut. Some thing about the remark or the smug smile irked SK. The tenderness he’d felt for her earlier in the day faded a little.

Toots was at her studio painting azure squares on a large canvas: but mere squares they wouldn’t be; SK knew there was something called abstract art even if he didn’t understand it. He wasn’t even a dilettante but Prof MM was and he had once told Santosh that abstract art (like poetry) would be full of symbolic representations and imagery that made perfect meaning to the creator of it. It completed the artist in a way the rest of the world wouldn’t understand. SK felt a pang of envy for a moment. Toots –her rich secret mental processes. Other secrets..?

How many friends do you have online? Are you on any social networking site?’ he asked with feigned nonchalance.

‘ No, I just chat once in a while’ she answered in between bolds and open strokes ‘ I am not on FB or anything. I am bit of a dud at technology if you want to know the truth’ she tittered.

Lies?

‘Tell me about your chat friends’ he repeated. He forgot to be casual and all that this time. ‘There’s you and three others’ she said openly, meeting his eye. Has he imagined all the secrecy? ‘A richy rich business man- supposed to be from the US of A’ she chuckled ‘A real braggart. Besides his spellings suck’ SK laughed too. ‘A girl techie from Hyderabad’ Toots counted on her ring finger ‘ She’s nice- a real movie buff’ ‘ And the third? Oh there Knox –dad at 23. Lives with his 2 year old daughter Katie. Simply dotes on her. Apparently his partner left him for some one else’. ‘From which part of the world is he?’ ‘Some small town in America, I guess’ Toots shrugged. He’s nice. His spellings also suck, though’ she added as an afterthought.

‘Not all guys are as linguistically skilled as I, Toots’, SK ruffled his collar.

Toots didn’t seem to have heard. ‘Imagine Santosh, dad of a 2 year old at 23. And I still single at 26’, Toots said glumly.

‘Toots’ SK patted her back. ‘Pep up! 26 is real young! (look at me I am 28 and at this advanced age, still a bachelor). We have our whole lives ahead of us’

‘We do?’

‘Of course, sweets. But you seem intent on crooning ‘Goodbye to love’ a la Karen Carpenter already, my fledgling.’

‘Do you have an eating disorder by any chance?’

‘No, I don’t!’ The earnestness with which he posed the question sent her into hysterics.

Santosh grinned sheepishly. ‘Sorry. I handle Abnormal Psychology. I have anorexia , bigorexia, bulimia and their kin flitting my mind all the time’

 ‘Um-hum?’ ‘I need a walk. You wanna come?’ She stood up, stretched luxuriously and took her crutch.

‘Sure’

Toots seemed to like the outdoors very much. She walked nearly as fast as he did but took frequent breaks .SK didn’t really mind. These pauses were richly replete with conversation . This girl did talk.

Toots sauntered off to a cherry blossom tree (next to Cherry’s Cafe) and hugged it. She closed her eyes. ‘To be one with nature, what a blessing’ ‘she said with feeling. She didn’t speak for a while. Some mysterious emotions seem to be brimming inside her.

‘I think he lives on a ranch or farm or something…. close to the soil’

You know that foremost question he asked was “So Toots, what do you for fun?” “Nothing- hoping you’d have suggestions” I had typed.

“Drive trucks and tractors and hang out with your kid’ had been his response.

Toots spoke as through from a distance. You’re taking about that chat acquaintance of yours, if I’ve understood right’

‘Yes, I meant Knox’, she said softly and closed her eyes once more.

‘Have his spellings improved?’ SK asked carelessly.

‘Just as bad as before

Fried Eye notes- This poem is special to us. Why? Because it was made to order, on our specifications. And because the poet is a young talented boy who is just out of school- sorry , just given his tenth standard board exams. It becomes more special because the theme that we had given to him was a situation with two characters-a would be killer and his victim, where he was asked to project the psyche of the characters as well as the scene. Tough we know, but he did it. What do you say? Agree?

In ignorance to graves of rivalry
A poor soul; Marco was born to die,
At every corner stood in a woeful plight
knocking was his end, that he beheld
With arms wide, harassing menace;
A narrow barrel of a drunken steward
Money and gold, he had less to please
to bribe upon the blackish rains,
While a lurking shadow loathing by,
Strong and unending cruelty,
Searched his house for thirst to quench;
As justice and law went lame
For life and death dragged themselves,
And Marco took to hiding-
with pious prayers murmuring
Writhing in fear behind a broken cupboard
Old steward; one-eyed
soaring in skies of scorn,
Having no mercy on him, unjust; unfair
Stormed frustrated with torn shoes,
with an obvious fear of facing failure;
and an array of sarcastic laughter.

Marco had his breath slower;
as the sun-dazzled leaves curled to freeze
and muscles began to crave into
While he prayed to a god he never knew;
“O master, is that fair to assert
How they take your golden arrows
piercing innocent homes,
You’re a lamp with bright light
Embrace me today with your breath of life!”

Suddenly the mumblings stopped,
And cobwebs consigned to their tremors
Felt by how eerie of a noise,
the door opened with,
And another prayer rand through the room,
Yet fainter, with foreign tunes,
“My hands are tied to my breathing,
and fingers,that vibrate for my share
You’ve given me that others snatched away
To burn him to ashes,
Is only about i glare;
I’ll give you my soul without a cry
Lord, for mercy I beg;
I surrender but my fear!”

And the meek victim had tears
Of the cause not to endure much,
Reminiscences of moments many;
of joy and countless despair,
And thought of every word he failed to
Bring upon his lips,
And everything, that was left undone,
every rendezvous, when he had to mourn,
And only a wish remained alive,
To hold the breath before it abandons
while a gory steward had worries different;
His empty barns fueled desolation
For his vengeance to a fatal touch;
When hatred by then turned unlocked
Justice and conscience were already broken.

And suddenly, light shone brighter,
their fastest heartbeats stopped for a while,
For the steward chuckled and screamed;
” I fear I don’t remember tonight,
But on my wrath I strive,
Believe me, the only thing I hear and see
it should only be you!”
Cold and starved, he stepped forward,
into his shadow and blood.

  I’m posting an inland letter sent to my Dad from Jorhat when he was in Ziro. The letter was sent to him on 26/4/1970 and it reached him on 28/5/1970. It took 1 month since Ziro was a remote place and it needed 10 days from Jorhat to Ziro including 7 days of walking.

‘O Didi! Chithi!!’, Kong called

I saw the blue inland letter in her hand

Love from home, I thought with a smile

The other day I was in Post Office, I wondered if they still have those blue inland letters. It has been a long time since I came across one. I know that Post Cards still exist as I have come across it and received a few with non important messages. I remember while I was still a kid, Deuta used to write letters to Aita (his Ma) and got replies in Inland Letters. At that time, Inland Letters were considered classy and only poor men and misers used to write letters in Post Cards. I was not allowed to write letters in Inland letters as I would waste most of the space. It was a standard thing that I don’t have much to say, and therefore my letters would be short and hence I should use Post Cards. We can come back to that later on in some other post. Envelopes were considered expensive as they cost double the price to convey the same message. Envelopes were used only when you have to say things more than an inland letter could say and it generally meant that the issue is serious and a matter of grave concern.

I don’t know how many people in my generation will remember the blue inland letter. The blue inland letter – large enough to write a month’s information and cheap enough for the common man to afford it. For a long time, it used to cost 75 p. I remember the monthly exchange of inland letters between Deuta and Aita which would make us feel that we meet regularly.

I remember one of my uncles who used to use every inch of the letter. The one we used to call a ‘Paisa Vasool Chitthi’ (Value for Money Letter). Ma used to say that people of his (my uncle’s) age write letters like that and it was a school of thought that said we should not waste any amount of resource.

I remember the Kong (Elder Sister in Khasi), who used to come every day with loads of those inland letters and now I hardly see the postman with an inland letter in his hand. Nowadays, most of the letters that are posted in the red letter box are envelopes; most of the others are either couriered or sent through registered or speed post. Inland letters are lost somewhere, amidst the memory of time, when there was no internet.

P.S. – If I wrote this in an inland letter, I would have used hardly 2 pages. 1 page would have been completely wasted. A big crime, a guilt that will always stay in my mind forever.

Addendum-

 Inland letter- as the author says is a relic of the past in a way. In those times when people had no cyberspace to scribble their notes, they had instead sent those lovely blue notes to be their voice to distant places. And so it had build many relationships, strengthened bonds, or in a tragic twist had maybe bore sad tidings of an end. E mails, social network have made life easier, but the joy of a letter after many days of waiting, from your beloved will always remain priceless.

A little bit of statistics for you -

2 Annas inland air letter was the first postal stationery of Independent India. It was issued in 15^th September 1948 from a few selected post offices

Its dimensions range between a maximum of 30 by 21 cm and a minimum of 28.2 by 18.2 cm with flaps on three side of breadth not exceeding 1.5 cm

You can use the private inland letters provided it satisfies the specifications.

Inland letter is priced at Rs 2.50 now and is still available.

A sentence that is commonly uttered by bosses is “think out of box’ . We are coverng almost every aspect of any kind of relationship in our current edition, so we in FE decided, why not something about a Boss- Subordinate relationship? And as you know the key to a successful Boss- and under-boss relationship is by impressing the boss..

Though hard work is supposed to be the universal and politically correct means of impressing your boss, I am sure not even a single employee is going to agree with that while all the Bosses will unanimously agree with it, so what if in actuality it isn’t so always.

But this isn’t being politically correct.This is about ‘thinking out of box” and hence even the popular answers of praising him, laughing at his stale jokes, carrying out his errand, complimenting etc etc will also be exempted from our list of ‘how to’s .

Without much ado we present before you the list of Fried Eye’s ‘How to impress your boss’?

-The best way to impress your boss is by making him look good and impressive. Even bosses have their superbosses to whom they are answerable or they have wife, media or the general public. If you can make him look good in front of them or help him in enhancing his image, 25 % of your battle is won. The downside is that you have to initially let go of the credit, which he will hog by himself, but can true brilliance be overshadowed by a mere dark spot called Boss? So wait !your day will come too.

-The boss isn’t always right- Yes you don’t have to say ‘The Boss is aways right’ at all. If you feel – if you are confident that Boss is not right just that you don’t point it out to him. Let sleeping egos lie . You do not need to tickle it awake. So what do you do if you come to know your boss is wrong? One -you can silently correct his errors without making it known to him, if at all you are very concerned about the fate of your product.

Second- you can let him be and wait and watch. If nothing happens then fine. If he is proved wrong then he will need a scapegoat. And scapegoats mind you,are impressive. But our advice would be to go for the first option. That way , you protect your product, maintain a silent dignity instead of a mud slinging match and make your boss look good which brings us to point one.

-Ttry to be independent but do take his approval. Do not bring your ego here. It is an official procedure and ensures your protection too. Be sure to get your project endorsed by him, sharing credit with him. You might feel bad sharing the credit for your hard work, but be assured that in any kind of mishap you have your boss to share the blame with you too. No doubt he is impressed because he gets a part of fame, but you don’t need to crib either as you get your insurance .

-Cultivate a talent like singing or the salsa steps or the table tennis shots. When your time comes to shine through in a get together or an office meet, just let go of yourself and become the talk of the office for those moves. The next time your boss will surely remember your name.

-A pretty girlfriend or wife or a handsome famous boyfriend / husband is also a good way to impress your boss. It is the psychology you see. If you are good enough for such a hot successful personality, then obviously you are hot enough for him/her.

There is actually a thin line between impressing your boss and making him jealous and you need to toe the line delicately. It is in fact a tight rope walk where you have to maintain a delicate balance between them. If you manage to do that, then congratulations! You have mastered the art of managing your boss successfully.

With Shangreiwon Multhou

Shangreiwon Multhou, a professional chef, began her career with ITC in Delhi and the Taj in Mumbai after graduating from IHM in Guwahati. She set forth to California but as we say home is where hearth is, she returned to India to work with Guwahati Airline Catering. She has recently started her own school in culinary, ‘Exotic School of Cooking’ at Dimapur. Her art of decoration with local raw vegetables have been cherished and is a treasured captures in weddings and menus.

Shangreiwon Multhou

Q: How did you start your career after coming back home?

Wedding is a lavish practice here, where decoration of food and cuisines are important and integral part. Initially I ventured into arrangements and decorations of food items in wedding and then there was the demand to learn cooking from those I came in contact. Cooking makes me learn more.

Q: What is close to your heart while displaying your culinary skills?

I love to make something out of raw ingredients.

Q: You could have started the same business in California too taking the ethnic cooking abroad. What makes you start your business back home?

I always wanted to come home and share my knowledge, promote cuisines and connect with the grassroots here with my people and traditions.

Q: How do you familiarize the ethnic taste for those who are not familiar with cuisines from North-east India?

I improvise on the cuisines and try keeping the traditional flavour intact.

Q: How do you see yourself five years from now?

More people should appreciate the ethnic exotic cuisines of Nagaland.

Q: How do you take chef as a career?

Well, nothing is impossible if we put our heart and work hard to live to our dreams.

It is good, I get to travel different places, get to familiarize different flavours, different cultures. It opens up avenues. Cooking is a lifestyle and people are adopting it.

Q: What is your message to our readers?

Chef as career can make you survive in any part of the world. It is a need and lifestyle!

With boom in hospitality industry, a lot of good opportunities are available for trained and experienced chefs. Once a person is trained in kitchen, they can work in Hotel, Airline Catering, and Cruise Liner or start their own business.

CARVING IN RADISH

CARVING IN WATERMELON

CARVING IN GOURD

Thankyou Shang!

In continuation with our monthly feature of Global and foreign dishes, we bring before you this photograph of an exotic piece of art of presentation along with food

We have as our guest Ms. Eju Baruah , an Aeronautical Engineer and an aspiring pilot , who is an example of achieving her dreams by sheer determination and hard work. What makes her so special is that she is from Guwahati , who has carved her place in far off Germany and hence we felt would be just the right person to throw some light on the overseas job and career scenario as well as draw some inspiration from her experience.

FE- You are an engineer at one of the world’s most prestigious aviation company. So coming from Guwahati to Germany, how did this happen?
EB-It was a dream, and belief and hard work, no luck or chance!
As a kid, I enjoyed playing with my only toy jeep, that I could open it up and fix it back innumerable times until I could fix it no more. I was fascinated with machines and how they work, and most of all with airplanes. It was then that I had wished for myself that one day I would be flying and working on these flying machines. And this dream led me to the way, one step at a time, in first forming myself with an academic degree in Aeronautical Engineering and later with an advanced degree in Computational Engineering, and acquiring the skills and hands-on experience while working first two years at an Automobile Industry, finally leading me to the doorstep of the Aerospace Industry, where by the grace of god, I can live this fascination today!

FE-As a person who has done her education from both India and Overseas , what do you feel about the Indian Education System in comparison with Overseas?
EB-I am not sure if I am the right person to answer this question. However, having done my education in Europe, I personally feel that the Overseas, in this case the European Education System, teaches you to learn, understand and question the very philosophy behind the subject, it mostly molds the mind to innovate. The Indian Education System teaches you to learn, understand and absorb the knowledge, it mostly molds the mind to apply and implement. But this is just my very personal feeling.

FE- There has been many opinion and discussions about the brain drain from India. What according to you are the reasons? Do you feel it is justified if a individual opts for an overseas education and job?
EB-Again, I am not sure if I am the right person to answer on this issue. Personally to me, the world is more a global-local village, and I feel that it is justified for an individual to opt for an overseas career and life. Having said that however, if the person receives an education sponsored by a scholarship or likewise in India, I feel that he/she has a moral obligation to serve a few years in his home country.

FE-There are many companies who offer overseas education and jobs , some of whom may not be genuine. How do we tell the genuine from the fraud?
EB-Well, I do not know of companies who offer overseas education. Concerning jobs, normally you would apply for a position the conventional way, which is going though advertisements in the newspaper or the company website and applying as an online or a paper application as preferred by the Company. So far, I have never come across anything fraud.

FE- You aspire to be a pilot and are officially undergoing training for it? Why this switch from an engineer to a pilot?
EB-This is not a switch, it is just the fulfilling of my dream to be able to fly and maneuver an airplane in the sky, and enjoy the freedom and the beauty of the endless horizons!

FE- Which do you feel is harder? Being a Pilot or an Engineer?
EB-Whether you want to be an Airplane Engineer or an Airplane Pilot, you need a lot of hard work, dedication and devotion, coupled with patience and discipline. And most of all, whether you want to work with airplanes or fly them, you have to be passionate about it! Only with passion and devotion to the skill, either or both is possible!

FE-On a rating from 1 to 7, how will you rate the following for a career or job of choice – Luck, Talent, Finance, Hard work, family support, determination, exam performance
EB-With 1 as the highest and 7 as the lowest, I would rate these as — Hard work, Determination, Talent, Exam performance, Family support, Finance, Luck.

FE- If not an aeronautical Engineer , what would you have been?
EB-An Aeronautical Engineer
I tend not to have a Plan B in life, it distracts me from putting all my energy into Plan A.

FE-As an Indian residing as well working in a foreign country, did you ever face discrimination of any sorts out there?

EB-Never

FE-Some words of wisdom, to students who will be facing there boards exam on career choices and for those who think that life ceases to exist beyond a great percentage in exams.
EB–For those who would be facing exams or career choices, my advice to you is that there is no shortcut to success! Put all your energy, dedication and devotion to your skill, and believe that you will achieve what you have set out to achieve!
For those who think that life ceases to exist beyond a great percentage in exams, my advice to you is that life is all about the choices we make! You can choose to decide that life ceases to exist after your failure, or you can choose to accept this failure, get up and give another go. Life, as someone said, is not about how hard we hit, it is about how hard we can get hit and still be able to gear up and go on!

FE- Future plans of yours?
EB-To live the dreams I have realized so far, and to work on the fulfillment of the dreams I have set forth further in life!

Ms Baruah’s brief profile:
- born and brought up in Guwahati, India
- attended schooling in Holy Child School, Guwahati, India
- graduated with a first degree of B.Eng. in Aeronautical Engineering
- further graduated with a second degree of M.Sc. in Computational Engineering
- recently completed a part-time M.Sc. in Composites
- worked 2 years as an Engineer at Daimler Chrysler AG
- working as a Senior Engineer at AIRBUS in Hamburg, Germany
- loves flying, photography, reading, music, horse-riding, gardening,…