Food blog

In our last English lesson we had to look for an interesting food blog on the internet. After having found one, it was our task to write a blog about it. So, here we go.

I came across a mouth-watering recipe for Indian curry chicken. As I have Indian background, it was obvious for me to choose a blog that dealt with Indian food. It is my favourite cuisine and especially the non-vegetarian dishes are simply outstanding! This is the first reason why I chose “Monica's Spice Diary-Indian Food Blog”.

The second one is that I really liked the way how the author, Monica, starts her recipes. She adds a personal thought that makes you really understand what she is trying to say. This probably sounds a bit strange, I know, but maybe I can explain it. In the introduction of the Curry Chicken recipe, for instance, Monica describes her childhood in India and what she relates with this specific dish. It made me think of all the holidays my family and I spent in India, what dishes I enjoyed most eating there and how much I actually miss that time. 

But enough of all that sentimental stuff now! I founded that the recipe itself did not sound that much difficult and I decided to try it out with three friends of mine. My mum had often cooked this dish at home so I knew theoretically, how it was to be prepared. The only problem was that I had watched my mum cooking it but never tried it out on my own.

Before starting to cook Curry Chicken with my friends, I called my mum to ask her about two ingredients that I remember she had never added to this dish. After having talked to her, I decided to stick to my mum’s recipe.

All in all, we enjoyed preparing the dish a lot. The only (small) problem we had to struggle with was that one my friends did not like eating spicy food at all but the rest of us did. After quite a long time of consideration we finally decided that we had to use two pans and cook the Curry Chicken twice: once with and once without hotness. Fortunately, both dishes were delicious in the end.

Rape case, New Delhi

Hey guys,

I know that by now, most people have already frogotten this incident which happened several weeks ago in New Delhi, India. However, it brought some changes to the country and that's why I'm sharing this blog with you.

The 23 years old Indian girl and medical student  was raped in a bus in Delhi on December 16 in the evening. Her boyfriend was accompanying her when this cruel incident happened. She wasn't "only" gang-raped by all in all six men but badly wounded too. Her boyfriend also suffered from severe injuries but he survived. After the occurance, she had been brought to a special hospital in Singapur but she nevertheless died on December 29th. 

The girl's family received 1.5 million rupees from the government. What I asked myself is that how it must feel in such a situation when you get money in exchange for somebody you loved and who isn't there anymore. Somehow I can empathise with the victim's family about wanting death penalty for the committers. The six men are seriously threatened by that desicion at the moment.

Even if this incident made the whole country feel ashamed and extremely sad, there were also some positive things that happened in consequence to it: Massive protests and an introduction of a 24-hours-hotline for woman in need, but the most important consequence is probably that sexual abuse of woman in India has been brought to light.

Hopefully there wiill be more upcoming postive consequences of this terrible rape!

"Fancy" Culture evening ;-)

So, our last progress check isn't far away anymore. Everybody gets stressed more and more as the days pass by. We, the students, now have to study the CLIs of the other groups and in order to break that down a little bit for us, our professors invited us to a culture evening.

I think that it was a really good idea. They tried to explain the culture topics but not like in too strict lessons. It was actually quite great fun listening to them and laughing with them. 

When I went to the culture evening I didn't expect it to last so long. Still, I liked it and as Fiona told us that this had been the first culture evening she and the other professors had organised, I would strongly recommend to do so again in the following years too.

What impressed me the most was probably the Appalachian guest who told us a little bit about the region where he comes from. Not only did he talk about that, he gave other interesting information (like for example about the Bible Belt in the Us) too. 

Apart from that I think that everybody was quite impressed by the "fancy" presentation ;-)

Amritsar

The most impressive place I have ever been to is Amritsar, a city located in the north-western part of India. The first time I visited this city I was totally overwhelmed. Every single area of this city was completely overcrowded. The main reason why Amritsar grabs the visitors’ attention is the “Harmandir Sahib”, informally referred to as the “Golden Temple”. It is the most important shrine of the Sikhs. What impresses me most about it is the access for everybody regardless of which religion and the breath-taking part of the temple, which is completely covered with gold. The second sight of this city that attracts the visitors’ attention is the “Jallianwala Bagh”, a public garden where the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in 1919. A memorial was built at this site. I actually did not found it really exciting until reaching a wall where the bullet holes of the shooting are still visible today. Apart from venturing out Amritsar and seeing various sights, you get a special and unique feeling as if you were experiencing a colourful Bollywood film yourself. 

Special concert in Linz

I was thinking about a topic for a new blog and I came across the idea to share with you my impressions of a concert that I visited last Thursday.

It took place in Linz in the "Brucknerhaus" and was performed by the Military Music group of Upper Austria. I went there with one of my best friends who asked me to join her. She is member of the band of our city. Her whole band and she visited the concert and I joined them too. 

The concert was actually a fond-raisor for people in need or a state of disaster. It started at 8 p.m. and lasted until half past 10. 

We listened to eight compositions which varied from classical music to modern one but what touched me the most was the piece of music called "memoriam". It was played for a recently in a car accident deceased member of the Military Music who was only 19 years old.

All in all, the concert was a great experience because it was simply amazing listening to the great music produced by about 50 people working together and doing their best!

Happy diwali! :-)

I'm not sure if anybody of our English course has heard of "Diwali" and for that reason I would like to explain it to you :)

It's a festival celebrated in India by Hindus and Sikhs ( Sikhism is a religion that is, in the first case,believed by people, the Sikhs, living in northern India. That state is called Punjab. )
The date depends on the appearance of the new moon, so it varies every year between the end of october and the beginning of november. This year, it is celebrated today, on november the 13th.

You could compare Diwali with Christmas because it is seen as the biggest festival of Sikhs, also known under "The festival of lights" Historically seen, the Sikhs celebrate the return of one of their Gurus, Guru Har Gobind, who had won against Jahangir, the forth Mughal Emperor. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jahangir for further information :) )

Diwali is celebrated differentely all over the world but I can say that most people of the Punjab tend to set up special,small candles, called Diwa, in the whole house so that it's beautifully enlightened. By doing so, they wish to bring happiness, prosperity and healthiness to their homes. Families usually come together and children get presents or money. "Mithai", which are traditonal Indian sweets, is eaten and the whole house is cleaned up for "receiving" the three wished things mentioned above.

I personally really enjoy spending Diwali with my family but this year I couldn't because I wasn't at home due to my studies in Graz. That saddened me a little bit but still, I'm looking forward to next year to hopefully spend this big festival with my family. :)

Even though I know that there's hardly anybody whom I know who celebrates this festival, I still wish you all a HAPPY DIWALI! :) 

 This picture shows the "Diwas".

 Indian sweets, the so called "Mithai".

This is a photo of the biggest Sikh temple in the city Amritsar which is also the capital of the state Punjab. It is not only famous because it is covered with gold but also for the overwhelming Diwali that is celebrated there by enlightening the whole temple.

Bollywood

I guess everybody has heard atleast once about "bollywood" but there are still many people who have no clue what "bollywood" actually is. So, in this post I'll try to explain and give you an short idea about it.

Bollywood is the name of the colorful and romantic Indian film industry. The name itself is a mixture of the words "hollywood" and Bombay because the first bollywood movies were nothing else than copies of american films. The first part, the "bo-" of the term "bollywood" refers to the Indian city Bombay which could be described as the core of this film industry due to the fact that most of the films were filmed here or atleast used to be.

Even though my parents left India and settled down in Austria, I was still tought the indian culture which is even today, despite of living in Austria with a completely different culture, very important for me. And even if there are many people who think that it's rubbish I have to say that not watching bollywood movies as an Indian is unthinkable^^

In Austria, the films are seen as "kitschig" like my Austrian friends describe it. The austrian audience is simply not used to several songs that are about five minutes long and occur half-hourly. Apart from these features, it usually takes you about three hours to watch one bollywood movie which, I guess, is quite exhausting if you are not used to it. Also, there is mostly the same main plot: the first part is an introduction and you could describe it as "positive" part. The storyline continues until there's a sudden turning point which is usually very dramatic and could be seen as the "negative" part. After that, the plot continues again and in the last part which is again "positive", the problems of the "negative" parts are solved and in most cases there's a happy end. 

I think that bollywood is a kind of film category that is not suitable for everybody as for example the Austrian audiences are used to hollywood which is different to bollywood. Nevertheless, the Indian film industry has become more and more famous in the last few years even in Europe and there's a small but still a number of people who enjoy watching these movies despite of not being Indian.

This is Sharukh Khan, the most famous Indian actor. He has played a role in many Indian blockbusters which have been translated to many languages and have even been on RTL 2.

"In guten wie in schweren Tagen" is probably one of the best and most famous Indian movies starring Sharukh Khan, who falls deeply in love with a girl but his parents are against their marriage. 

Finally, the following video is one song taken from this movie which shows Sharukh Khan dancing and singing surrounded by a colorful and impressive setting. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqXbV_JD_7g

I hope that now you know a little bit more about bollywood and feel free to ask me questions if you are interested about this topic! :)