Weekly Roundup

I had a visitor and had a great time partying. This came just after my outing with the dirty dozen-marketing area colleagues.

April fools' day passed by without my looking any more foolish than I do on other days year-round, so it was not a bad one. This reminded me of Hyderabad where the local paper, Deccan Chronicle, used to pull a fast one each year on this Day. Enjoyable stuff, and good-humoured.

Teaching for the academic year has come to a close, and we had also finished with the Convocation, so more time for rumination- and grading, of course. Look forward to eating more of mangoes that will soon be in season, and see if that beats the heat.

Golf is currently not happening, but that does not mean I can't post Golf pics, right? Here is one from the Air Force Golf Club at Nagpur, where I am preparing to take a drive. Prof. Gadgil is with me.

Cheffing It

Cheffing is fun, if it's not a chore. Also, if you have domestic help to clean up afterwards. This luxury one did not have when cheffing first happened in my US stay, so we did the dish-washing too. A US stay is good for the ego-to bring it down. The blessing in India is we still have maids around who do some valuable work-either the cooking, or at least the washing up- Maid in India, zindabad!.

Anyway, I tried my hand at some cooking (home-style chicken curry) after quite some time, and am happy that the result turned out pretty edible-yeah, I could eat it, and so did my family members. Some other regular summer treats like Ice Apple (palm fruit/Taadgola in Marathi) and mangoes from the coastal region of Maharashtra (Ratnagiri, Devgad) also add to the charm of being in Pune during the hot, hot days-this year has been just a bit hotter, with little rain. Solkadhi is now available in packaged form, and I am a big fan of the kokum+coconut drink-good for the soul!!

Also started on The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee, which describes the process of how genes were discovered and DNA was photographed and identified.