Hedonism

At the beginning of this year, I had told myself that I'd do something small/big everyday that would make me extremely happy for the entire day. Though I was not able to keep this up on all days, I have managed to stick on to it whenever possible. When I look back, not surprisingly, it all seems to be connected with food. Most of my Facebook statuses are about food, which conclusively proves that food comes very high on my priority list.

It usually starts at the fruit counters where I would try out a different fruit everyday or I would make a  different salad with different dressing for lunch . Since the beginning of the year, I have waited for a good amount of time for the fruit counter person to start cutting a fresh papaya or a fresh water melon so that I get to eat it as soon as it is cut. Somehow eating it this fresh makes me feel so victorious. If it happens during breakfast, it is always a sure sign that my day would go very well.

As fresh as it can get

Salad counter

This has also expanded my explorations in the kitchen during weekends where I have pigged over Pricha Kozhabu, Puliyitta keerai, Parapusili and the other Tirunelvelish food. I have been updating my cooking blog quite often these days.

We have a coffee shop in the first floor of our office. It is set up like Starbucks and it belongs to one the most popular coffee shops in Hyderabad. I have started working from this coffee shop for hours together mainly because the aroma of the freshly ground coffee and the general bustle gives me the focus I usually aspire to achieve. My team-mates get quite curious why I keep hanging around in the coffee shop when I have an equally good couch near my place to work from. This couch is legendary as it  is a result of an experiment I did in 15 minutes  to try and see if they would give me a couch if I ask for it. Since then, like Sheldon Cooper would say, the couch is  "a single point of consistency in an ever changing world and if my life is expressed as a function in a four-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, this spot, would be "0,0,0,0"

The famous couch (0,0,0,0)

Also these people celebrate most of the festivals with aplomb. Brilliant decorations ensue with even more brilliant food. Take a look

Some other festival

They do this every month

Valentine's day

Today has been especially good for simple pleasures. Having woken up way early, I made my own breakfast, something that I had not done ever since I joined Google. I made white soft dosas and smeared them generously with my grandmother's molaga podi. Somehow this put me in a good mood despite it being a Monday.

After coming to office, I realized that we had Bisi Bele Bath for lunch. I kind of like to break surfaces when they serve such food. It gives me immense happiness to ladle the surface covered with Boondi on to my plate, add a dollop of ghee to the sizzling hot mixture. Today, they had hand made Vazhakka (green plantain) chips, a delicacy that only my maternal grandmother makes. Egged on by this, I decided to throw my calorie count to the wind and downed a couple of Rasagollas.

Inspired by the food, I spent post-lunch lounging on the La-Z boy, finishing all the work I had been postponing in a couple of hours. Having just turned 23, I can confidently say that I have never been hedonistic as I am these days.

P.S. Post was written after a mind-blowingly  good cup of cappuccino and one can attribute the general gaiety in the post to caffeine induced optimism :-). Also, I might not post it if I have to edit it sometime later so please excuse any grammatical errors.