Mango Badam Smoothie

After I had a bout of stomach problem which didn't seem to subside even after the course of antibiotic I took, Shyam declared the next day to be a fruit diet day. We can only eat fruits and vegetables. I was a little apprehensive as I am used to eating 3-4 meals a day, stomach upset or not, and have never done any kind of dieting in which I have to skip meals. The next day after we finished eating the coconut dosa, he remembered about our fruit diet and the rest of the day was further declared as a fruit diet day. So when I got tired of eating papaya and mango, I decided to do something more than just eating cut fruits. I dint have my D90 charged, so I decided to take pictures with my mobile phone instead. I later realised how bad that idea was, you will realise too when see the pictures.  

I inaugurated my recently bought wine glasses by serving the smoothie in those. That was not a bad idea indeed.

Those cardamoms are from my garden, can you believe it :)

Recipe

Mango           - 1 medium sized (400gms), peeled and cut into pieces
(I used a Banganapalli)
Low fat milk   - 1 Cup, chilled
Sugar            - 1 tbsp
Cardamom     - 3
Almonds        - 15 small, blanched
Saffron          - a few strands (optional)

Grind the cardamoms together with the sugar. Add the almonds and make a paste by adding a tablespoonful of milk. Add the mangoes and a make a smooth paste by adding the milk half cup at a time. Pour or spoon them into goblets and sprinkle the saffron on top, if using.

The smoothie was licked out of the glasses. May be next time I will make it thinner and call it mango badam milkshake, that way there is no danger of broken wine glass in anybody's mouth.

The class syndrome

Yohan's Xmas tree in the making

I usually sit there reading my book, how much ever long the flight is. It is not my cup of tea to chat with my co passenger, I am too introverted. But when I sat there and read a 7th grade text book in a flight and my co passenger made his curiosity obvious, I would not be the one to say no to a short chat either. So I explained to him what Teach For India is and what I was doing. I was just returning from my summer vacation and I was reading the text books I needed to teach the next academic year, so that I could prepare my long term plans for the year.

My co passenger found it all very interesting and was more curious to know what kind of kids I taught. So I gave him the profile of my kids. When he asked me why don't we provide them with vocational training rather than teaching them Math and English, I explained to him that there is nothing wrong with these kids' IQ or capabilities and given the right education they will come into the mainstream. That's when he shocked me by asking why do you want to bring them into the mainstream. Then he went on to explain that there is already a lack of opportunity, scarcity of jobs in the market. By bringing more people into the mainstream we are only making it more difficult to everyone. Now there will be more people fighting for the same jobs. If these kids learn Math and English they will not be interested in doing what their parents were doing and those jobs also need getting done.

I was fuming by then and still tried to reason with him telling that what we are doing is trying to create a level playing field, where no one is having an undue advantage just because he or she was born into an affluent family. If the people who are forced to do menial jobs disappear, then technology will have to take some part of their work. For the rest the dignity of labour and the wages will improve, so no one will feel bad about of doing them any more. 

He just wouldn't rest his case even when we were walking out of the flight. At the end of it he looked almost angry at me. I don't get angry with anyone very fast. But he had managed to tick me off. I asked him about his kids and he told me he has 2, one is 8 years old and the other 4. I told him that I am very sorry that his kids will have a tough time getting a job, as we are so damn bend up on making the kids of the rickshaw drivers and vegetable vendors also capable of being Engineers, Doctors and much more. I walked away wondering whether it was that same thought which made him feel so angry about what I was doing.