Cooking Aloo Matar !

No guys,this is not a recipe article where i will tell you how to cook some exceptionally delicious
Sabji of Aloo Matar. This is a summary of how i made it ! The people in my house were feeding me with home cooked food from quite a few days now ( 5 to be precise ! ) and i could feel their restlessness in the air that when i would get up and do the honors of preparing some delicious food for them and I could see the questions oozing out of their eyes (Except Jassi as he was always kind to me ! :) ) when i reached home on tuesday. Finally one of flatmates could not hold on the fire in his belly and said "Ankur aaj Aloo Matar bna ke khila yaar " , with a big smile i looked at him to remind him that unfortunately i dont know how to cook, But before he would almost breakdown , i picked up the knife and started to peel off some onions,which one of the senior members of the Flat taught me ( Yes, you are right i dint even know how to peel of Onions as well and they expected me to cook complete Sabji ! ) ,finally after narrow escapes of my fingers from the knife i peeled of some onions,which to me seemed like a won battle as i did it for the first time in my life.Unfortunately it was of no significance to others,and they were waiting like hungry monsters waiting for some thing to munch on,. Then one of the new comers in the flat(We called him Motu,and obviously he dint know it ! ) joined me in the process of cooking ( And mind you he had nearly 3-4 years experience of cooking,however he some how was enjoying the privellege of not cooking anything,and i think this is what irked my flatmates and they vent out their daily cooking frustration on me ! ) . Anyways, then he directed me to put some oil in the Frying Pan which i did very cautiously, then once the oil was hot ,he asked me put all the onions in it ,which i did very carefully .As the first onion that i had put in the oil came flying towards me, and it did shatter my courage but i did not let it deter my determintaion of cooking today and i moved ahead towards my goal of making Aloo matar. In the meanwhile while i was trying my luck at Tarrka ,Motu had kept the potatoes for boiling after peeling them of ,and he overdid it,the potatoes were nearly mashed,to which he smilingly said to himself "Arre aise hi hota hai,dont worry and gave a stupid smile to cover his mistake " . The end sabji was quite pathetic,probably we can say it was Aloo matar curry in which there was no visible Potato ,as all of them were mashed and the end taste was quite pathetic ( Mind you i had only peeled off onions and tomatoes and cooked them in oil, All the salt,spices and Aloo was added by Mr Motu ) . But he dint utter a single word in front of others that it was his cooking's result and other flatmates looked at ME with agony ,that they will have to eat it ! Whereas the Truth was I had done nothing in it apart from getting the scared looks of my friends while preparing it, And all this probably reminded me of the other example of Paying for Someone else's Food , that we all face in our daily lives when we pay for other person's mistake ...which now teaches me, that its better take control of your own life before someone else does and its better to do and apologise than do nothing and still apologise !

First Day To BT Office-Adstral Park !

After sleeping on the floor ( obviously with bedsheets on it ! ), i woke up fresh on the monday morning ,with lot of nervousness and butterflies in my stomach ( No they were not of morning Pressure Guys ! ) , i was thinking about meeting the people in my office and interacting with them my clients,who talk directly to Company CEO or my Corporate Head, no way near to my managers ! And i was nervous to interact with them. With these thoughts i started to get ready for office and tried my best to get ready for office, as quickly as i could, when the reality of having one bathroom and 4 people to get ready came thrashing on me , and i sat outside waiting for my turn and believe the wait was quite painful and started to show on my face through my stomach., but like an optimistic Indian i held on the hope that i will get to access the bathroom soon and Finally my flatmate came out and i rushed to the bathroom and rest is censored guys :) . Anyways let me tell you i am not one of those guys who just go in the bathroom and come out of it drycleaned in 15 minutes,all set to go , i am probably of those slow type ,who enjoy reading newspaper in the washroom and then bath to their heart's content. But somehow realising the impotance of first day i tried my best to restrict my bathroom time and get ready and according to me i did that, but when i came out i saw my room mate Jaspal giving me angry looks as if i just broke some age old house rules by taking a bath or what ! But i soon realised it was because the time in clock was 8.50 and Jaspal likes to reach office by 9-9.15 am Sharp, and since he had to wait for me ,i hadbroken his record of reaching office early and that was quite painful to him. I Quickly went to room and got ready and took my laptop and came rushing down to ground floor only to find Jassi more restless with every passing minute in the clock . However he was nice to me and prepared lunch for me and packed my tiffin , since it was my first day but warned me that it was for the first and the last time he did it for me . Finally we moved out of home and reached the bus stop , mind you we have to run to the bus stop everytime as the bus frequency is 20 minutes and its very frustrating to see the bus passing in front of your eyes and waiting for 20 minutes chilling in the cold was just unjustified and infact unbearable. Finally we got our bus and i asked the driver for a weekly pass and that cost me 16 pounds. Then we reached office and with all my nervousness i reached at the reception for my temporary card .The lady on the reception was quite generous and after enquiring my details with Dave Noxon (My line manager ) she gave me a temporary card for 15 days and Ientered the premises of Adastral park.Though it was a dream, but i could not feel that sizzling effect in body,some shiver down my spine , nothing like that happened , however i was still nervous . Then we reached office , i settled on my seat with my laptop switched on. After 5 minutes a white person nearly 6.1 in height doing complete justice to his wide body strcuture, as if a giant has come to conquer us appeared before me and then Ravish one of my colleagues introduced me to him
" Chris,This is Ankur .." And Chris Said- "Hello Anchor ( yes he pronounces my name like that only ! ) ,I am Chris Hamilton " And like a mannered person i said "Pleasure to meet you Chris" to which he sarcastly replied " Oh I guess you spoke that too soon , you should ask Jaspaul ( Jaspal's english version ) and Sameer how glad they feel when they see me :) " He cleared it to me that working with him was a no joke and no way an easy task.I took his words and started my work. It was a normal day and i realised the pressure of working with client was enormous , though a good experience at the same time , believe me no matter how educated you are but talking with an English person from UK understanding his accent is a big challenge and i took it and did pretty well at it when he asked me if i was staying with Jaspaul or alone , and if was through my jet lag and all. He really indeed is a giant but a very logical and staright forward person who just loves to work and you can feel it with every step he takes,the energy just oozes out of him. Though this may seem normal to some,but the astonishing part is he is 60+ person who stays alone ,not married, as the girl he loved died in an accident and he decided not to marry someone else, with all these in a person's history ,the passion that he exibits in his work is just amazing ! After all the day's work with little time to spare for lunch,hardly 15 minutes, we moved back to home and on my way back i realised this is not the thing want in my Life, coming to Onsite is not my destination,not my purpose of life... I Have some idea as to what it is,but don't yet have the courage to accept it......

Landing at Heathrow---Onsite !

After all the shuffling between the docs and lots of hush up,I finally land at Heathrow with dreams in my eyes,with hope in my heart,with new challenges i look out of the AeroPlane window minutes before it was about to land at Heathrow. On my way to Delhi Airport i met a Colleague named as Aditi .She asked me if i knew how much time will it to take at the airport immigration and medical checks so that she could book a cab accordingly, and prompt came my reply to her "This is my first Trip to UK ", she quitely moved ahead and i also unbothered moved towards my seat.
When the plane finally Landed,I was very nervous ,it was mt first trip to UK and i was alone,no accomplice,no friend,no family,just me and my emotions,my dilemmas my fears.
As i got off the plane ,i felt the chill of the cold weather ,not sure if it was cold or i was shivering abit because of my nervousness. As i moved , little did i know where to go, I blindly followed the herd of people who got off with me from my Aeroplane, believe me everyone followed the other and believed they know where to go. Then after all the walking,looking at the surroundings and comparing differences between Delhi Airport and Heathrow airport ( Yes I really have developed a habit to strike the differences between the two countries ! ) , i reached the queue for Immigration check. My turn came and a White gentle man looked at me and then asked for my documents and then directed me to medical department for my medical check. Wondering where the medical department was , i looked around,but my nervousness blinded me and i could not see the medical room which was right in front of me and puzzled i asked an officer :

"Excuse me...Do you know where's the Medical Room ? " , Prompt came the reply from him
" Oh ! Guess where it is !!! " ,that was a sarcastic remark by him and he pointed towards the room. Medical check was a formality and they quickly checked my reports and gave me and Ok stamp on the paper. Then the final check was another immigration officer( A white lady,she was pretty but a bit heavy) , while i was waiting for my turn ,i saw her questioning a boy, who was barely able to understand what she was saying and asking him, frustrated the officer asked "what have you come here for ? " and the boy replied "a a a MBA..." , officer said " when you cannot understand what i am saying ,how will you understand what the professor is saying in the class ? " The boy dint reply anything to her ,i wonder if he even understood what the question was or if he was too nervous to say anything. My turn came and with Inter company Transfers its hardly a formality to check you,since UK Government is not responsible and your company is responsible for you.
After this i came out and moved towards the luggage area ,picked my bags up and moved towards the exit, There i saw an English Men holding a board with name "ANKUR GOEL" on it, that was my cab driver which my colleague has booked for me. The drivers name was Glenn and he was a good person, a nice man with medium built and some who talked a lot, but that was good, he took my luggage trolley and greeted me welcome to UK and we went towards the car.
While driving out of the parking area,he told me how everything gets blocked in parking area in days of high traffic . He timidly asked me the temparature in New Delhi and told me it was much colder here . We came out of the parking area and started our Jouney to Ipswich,he told me it would be nearly 2.30 hours of jouney. Though i was a bit tired but my excitement my curiosity to see my journey to Ipswich and off course Glenn's continuos speaking dint let me sleep and i saw beautiful roads,clean surroundings ,speed checks and Glenn explained me everything about speed checks and how they would calculate the speed using the cameras that were installed on roads at ifferent points , to the average speed of a vehicle. At first i listened with curiosity, but as we continued i dozzed off ,and when i woke up ,nearly 2 hours of jouney was over and we were about to reach 376,sping road,ipswich ! As i woke up Glenn was kind enough to again start explaining me about Tesco's and Sainsbury's and the Bibb Way BT office and this and that :) .
And then we finally reached home, I was excited to see 376, and a bit nervousness though i knedw the people inside were familiar and my colleagues. I paid Glenn the taxi fare and he helped me take out my luggage from the car. I knocked at the door as the door bell seemed to be not working and no one turned up for first few minutes, The situation was a bit odd as my cellphone had Idea Sim which wont work here and i will not be able to call or inform someone that i have reached, but as these thoughts were creeping in my mind and trying to make their hold, i saw someone pee through the window, it was my colleague and he rushed up the room to bring the keys to the door and opened it . In i went ,and saw a drawing room with sofa ,though not very clean, but some how accepted the fact that this is where i will live for atleast next 4 months ,even though it had something i dint like at all " the Yello Bulbs " I Hate them, i like tubelights,they are brighter and livelier. Jaspal cooked me some pranthas realising i was bit tired and since it was my first day he would do the honours for me . I Ate the pranthas ,we call them pranthas biut they are not even near the pranthas, they were some stuffed chapattis which can be heated in the pan and can be eaten with Sauce ! ( Yes you Readit right ) and also use yoghurt though it dint seemed good with these stuffed So called pranthas.
Since Amit was already in the room where i had to stay with Jaspal , i had two options :
1.After flight from India, i could sleep on the sofa ? OR
2.I can lie down on the floor with a bedhsheet on it , in the room with one blanket.

I prefferd the second option and had a good sleep, though the butterflies were still very much alive in my stomach. And by the way i reached on Saturday night so had a full day to recover from my JET LAG the next day ...