नटखट बैंगन NatKhat Baingan

Talking about dinner while sipping evening चाय, my wife and I were gripped with these sudden बैंगन (brinjal) pangs - and reminisced the way our neighbors in Dhanbad would dish out आलू बैंगन की सब्जी with रोटी and पराठा (flat bread). So, while another gloomy Tonga fish something dinner was looming large in the horizon, we decided to give it a go - it was decidedly tangy - so we named it नटखट बैंगन - hope you like the name . It is surprisingly easy and can be made within 15-20 minutes. Here is the recipe ...

1. Cube potatoes and brinjal, dice a little onion and tomatoes
2. Keep a few slit green chillies aside
3. Heat oil in a pan, add पाँच फोरन (paanch phoran) - when it begins to sputter, add the onions and a few chillies - saute until the onion turns translucent.
4. Now add potatoes and saute for a couple of minutes.
5. Add (half a teaspoon of each) cumin powder, dhaniya powder, turmeric powder and red chilli powder and fry for some more time.
6. Now add the brinjal - mix well with all the stuff in the pan, add some salt and cover and cook on low heat for 5-7 minutes.
7. Now bring the heat back up, add diced tomatoes, a little aamchur (well, a lot if you are in an experimenting mood) and - oh well, some beaten curd as well. Add a pinch of kasuri methi for added flavor.
8. Cover and cook again for a minute on low flame.
9. Enjoy with रोटी or नॉन which can be bought at your grocery store. Trader Joe's here in Pasadena stocks some whole wheat tortillas which taste exactly like चपाती.

A few poems by Nida Fazli

1. खट्टी चटनी जैसी माँ

बेसन की सोंधी रोटी पे खट्टी चटनी जैसी माँ

याद आती है चौका बेसन फुकनी जैसी माँ

बान की खुर्री खाट के ऊपर हर आहट पर कान धरे

आधी सोई आधी जागी थकी दोपहरी जैसी माँ

चिडियों कि चहकार गूँजे राधा मोहन अली अली

मुर्गे की आवाज़, घर की कुण्डी जैसी माँ

बीवी बेटी बहन पडोसन थोड़ी सी सब में

दिन भर एक रस्सी के ऊपर चलती नटनी जैसी माँ

बाँट के अपना चेहरा माथा आँखें जाने कहाँ गई

फटे पुराने एक एलबम में चंचल शोख लड़की सी माँ

Himan Mukhopadhyay - Adieu

Himan died a couple of months ago.

She had a website on geocities [http://www.geocities.com/ihar_cheye_hotem_jodi/] where I found a couple of her poems and some information about her. You can read them here in this PDF document.

Himan, rest in peace. You will always be in our heart. You were one of the most amazing persons I have ever met. And yes, I will always cherish fond memories of the 'Vanilla Biri' (Vanilla flavored tobacco).

The pitiable state of industrial development in Bengal

This is an editorial from Ananda Bazar Patrika (1st August, 2008). It laments the state of industrial development in the Indian state of West Bengal and in particular the foolish mentality of the people in the state who are opposed to the idea of industry in the state.

Here is a PDF version of the article. Reproduced from ABP.

Bangla Rhymes - বাংলা ছড়া

Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language possessing a history and tradition of at least a millennium, with a rich tradition of folklore and folk literature. Folk rhymes form an important part of this tradition.

Syed Mohammed Shahed from Dhaka University has written a fine article on this together with a nice collection of rhymes. Here is a collection of Bengali rhymes in PDF and txt format.

Don't forget to send me your own collection of Bangla rhymes - I will add it to the PDF file with proper credits. Also, my Bangla spelling is not what it used to be. If you spot any errors, please feel free to send in your corrections.

First, kill a medium sized dog :)

China, apparently, has banned all 'fragrant' (read DOG) meat in its Olympic restaurants. Strange are ways of Mao-land but that definitely piqued this armchair chef's curiosity. How would you cook a dog - wedding style, no less? Hmm - according to this article, you start by killing a medium sized dog. That did it for me. I can just about handle the thought of clammy testicles staring sadly behind the poor doggie's penis (yum!) - but kill a medium sized dog ? No way. Fuck off.



So much for cultural dogmas.

Don't let me keep you - so here is the recipe ...

1. First, kill a medium sized dog, then burn off the fur over a hot fire. 
2. Carefully remove the skin while still warm and set aside for later (may be used in other recpies) 
3. Cut meat into 1″ cubes. Marinade meat in mixture of vinegar, peppercorn, salt and garlic for 2 hours. 
4. Fry meat in oil using a large wok over an open fire, then add onions and chopped pineapple and suate until tender. 
5. Pour in tomato sauce and boiling water, add green peper, bay leaf and tabasco. 
6. Cover and simmer over warm coals until meat is tender. Blend in liver spread and cook for additional 5-7 minutes.

OOoLateX : Using LaTeX in OpenOffice documents

OOoLatex is a set marcos designed to provide latex support into OpenOffice. Complex equations can be inserted as images, the latex code is saved into the image attribute while simpler equations are expanded into symbol characters to be inserted as text.

Here are the instructions to install and uninstall this package on Ubuntu 8.04 with minimal hassle. Thanks a million to Toufik on the Ubuntu forum who posted these instructions originally. If you are on the Ubuntu forum and find these instructions useful, now is the time to thank Toufik for such a useful post. It is godsend for scientists who love OpenOffice to prepare slides that have loads of equations. And LaTeX rules in equation land.

Step 1. Install the dependencies

sudo apt-get install texlive imagemagick epstool

Step 2. Install the fonts.

mkdir OOoLatexFonts
cd OOoLatexFonts
wget http://mesh.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ooolatex/OOoLatexFonts.zip
unzip OOoLatexFonts.zip
cd ..
sudo mv OOoLatexFonts /usr/share/fonts/truetype/.
sudo fc-cache -f /usr/share/fonts/truetype

Step 3. Install the binaries for EMF
This involves installing the latex2emf program.The easiest way to install it is to grab the binaries directly from the OOoLatex website: http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...roup_id=150801

• Ubuntu i386 or 64bits choose latex2emf_Linux_i386_binary.tar.gz

• Ubuntu PPC choose latex2emf_Linux_PPC_binary.tar.gz

• Others, you'll need to compile from source (grab OOoLatexEmf_noarch_src.tar.gz)

Once downloaded, go to the directory where you've downloaded:

tar -xzvf latex2emf_Linux_i386_binary.tar.gz
cd latex2emf_Linux_i386_binary/
sudo ./install.sh

The installer installs the binary latex2emf into /usr/bin/ and the library libEMF.so.1 into /usr/lib


Step 4. Install the oxt file
And finally, you can now install the extension! But first download the extension here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...roup_id=150801
At the time of writing this post, the latest one was OOoLatex-4.0.0-beta-2-linux.oxt
There are two types of installation. The administrator mode is useful when installing for a lot of users but each user is not allowed to modify the configuration (most notably the shortcuts), only root can do that. Therefore I recommend, for normal user, to install in the single-user mode.

• In a terminal :
  Single-user Mode
  

  /usr/lib/openoffice/program/unopkg.bin add OOoLatex-4.0.0-beta-2-linux.oxt

  Administrator Mode
  

  sudo /usr/lib/openoffice/program/unopkg.bin add --shared OOoLatex-4.0.0-beta-2-linux.oxt

Note that you'll have to accept the license.

Usage
After installation, try +M and +K (the default shortcuts). You can also add the OOoLatex Toolbar: View > Toolbars > OOoLatex

The module Equation transform a LaTeX code into an image. Two formats are proposed: .png and .emf. You probably know PNG, this is a kind of "normal" image. If you rescale it, you'll see pixel. A way to circumvent this problem is to increase the resolution (dpi) but you'll get larger files! Or to use the EMF format which is a scalable image: the equation is vectorised and don't loose resolution when you rescale it! This is probably the better choice but you need then some binaries (see above). Selecting an equation and opening the equation dialog box allows editing of the equation.

The module Expand was called Inline in the first versions of OOoLatex. Basically, it transforms (expands) the LaTeX special characters into ones that are usable by OpenOffice. This is done (partly) via the STIX general fonts. The interests of Expand is to include LaTeX characters directly in a sentence without requiring the insertion of an image (as in Equation). Apparently not all LaTeX code can be expanded, that's why a list is offered in the dialog box.

To Remove
Remove the extension:
Single User mode:

/usr/lib/openoffice/program/unopkg.bin remove net.sourceforge.ooolatex

Admin mode:

sudo /usr/lib/openoffice/program/unopkg.bin remove --shared net.sourceforge.ooolatex

Enjoy ! And remember to thank Toufik !

Ghalib: Two couplets

1. तेरे वादे पर जीयें हम - तो यह जान झूठ जाना
के ख़ुशी से मर न जाते - गर ऐतबार होता

वादे : promises
जान : love, endearing word for beloved
झूठ : falsehood
ऐतबार : belief




2. आते हैं घैब से - यह मज़ामी ख़याल में
ग़्हालिब सरीर - ए - खामा नवा - ए - सरोश है

The mysterious subjects that I address are coming from up above
O Ghalib, the noise coming out of your pen is the echo of the angels ...

घैब : heavens
मज़ामी : subjects
ख़याल : thoughts
सरीर - ऐ - खामा : screeching noise made by oldtime pens (kalams) while writing
नवा - ऐ - सरोश : voice of the angels

कैसे जुदा हो गये

To all my loved ones ...

तुम ये कैसे जुदा हो गये
हर तरफ़ हर जगह हो गये

How far we have drifted apart -
I see you everywhere
in all directions ...

Fantastic VIM color schemes

I am a born again vim user - back from emacs bloat land and much chastised I would like to think. I found a really nice post about using vim colors (both for the terminal and gvim) - and it made my day. My favorite is candycode - but why should *you* agree.

Here is the page : New Color Scheme for VIM

And another - ColorSchemeMenuMaker script

How to install: Just copy the colors/ and plugin/ directory under $HOME/.vim/

If you have problems with the plugin, get rid of it (on older versions of vim) - simply copy the colors/ directory under $HOME/.vim/ and you should be able to see and use them in the gvim menu - Edit/Color Scheme

Have fun !