Heritage, high spirits..Unbeatable Delhi

Delhi is a city of heritage. A city that proudly boasts of its rich culture, spirit and tradition. 

Through the rise and fall of times, Delhi has been a poet's muse and king's capital. 

History gives innumerable glimses of this beautiful city's culture and colourful past.

I have been living in the city since the day I was born and its amazing how this city never ceases to amaze me every single day! 

To describe in mere words, all that sands of time and ruins have embossed in the very spirit of Delhi is not possible yet I would make an attempt to unfold what 'drives, designs and connects' the capital city of India and its inhabitants. 

DRIVE

Delhi has always been famous for its broad roads and bump free drive. 

With over 90 flyovers, 7 national highways passing Delhi and around 1,400 cars being added to Delhi roads every single day, things do get chaotic to a certain extent but the capital city makes sure to keep the drive inside and out alive! 

DESIGN

I personally love how Delhi has been designed. At the heart of the city blossoms Lutyens architecture. It includes the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Raisina Hills, the Rajpath, India Gate, Janpath and Connaught place. 

Apart from the well planned and marvellous looking central administrative area, Delhi also has amazing shopping malls be it the Select city walk in Saket or the posh DLF promenade in Vasant Kunj.

The DDA makes sure to design its surroundings in a way that schools, parks, markets, the Delhi metro and community centre are within walking distance. 

CONNECT

Talk about connectivity and Delhi ranks amongst nothing but the best! 

The NCR (National capital region) is extensively connected to start with and makes it extremely easy to travel for people living in and around the city.

Apart from that, with a length of 213km serving 160 stations and 6 different colour coded lines, the Delhi metro is all set to become the seventh largest network in the world! 

Not only this, about 3000+ DTC buses ply on Delhi street each day. The connectivity is excellent and seems to get better each day. 

Talking about inter-state and countries connectivity. Trains ply to almost all small and distant towns of the country each day from the 2 major railway stations of Delhi. 

The world-class Indra Gandhi International airport harbours and runs flights to all major cities of the world almost every single day. 

I cannot deny the fact that Delhi lacks in certain areas but it is simply unbeatable when compared to any other city of India. 

The capital never lets the country down and keeps up the spirits soaring high. 

Delhi's lush green surroundings is a cherry on top of the enthusiastic drive, historic design and impeccable connectivity. 

No city in the whole of India can compare Delhi, judge it on a scale or not. Delhi is our capital and Delhi's diversity beats loud in our hearts!

http://madeofgreat.tatamotors.com/

Not sugary, just sweet!

A sweet dish almost always touches the deepest corners of our heart and soul. Be it a spongy, chocolate oozing cake or the hot gulab jamuns, our meals as well as our lives are incomplete without desserts. 

But somewhere, in this journey of inseparable bond sweets became synonymous with 'sugars' and health issues crept in.

As someone has rightly said that all good relations face the test(s) of time. Our relation with sweet dishes is facing one too. 

With more than 62 million people suffering from Diabetes Mellitus in India alone, sweet lovers are being forced to give up on this special bond with desserts. 

I think, its time now to realise that sugar can never be synonymous with sweet.

So, I decided why not give a sugar free touch to our bond with the ' dearest desserts'? 

Presenting you one of my favourite, extremely easy yet deliciously sweet recipe 

'custard trifle-the sugar free way'

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Refrigeration time: 2-4 hours

What you will need

1) Milk - 1 litre

2) Custard powder(Vanilla) - 

3) sponge cake - 5-6 pieces 

4) Sugar free Natura - according to taste

5) Mixed fruits

6) Whipped cream - 3 tbsp

7) Dry fruits - optional 

8) Colourful jelly - optional

Method

1) Warm about a half cup milk in a microwave or on the stove top. Then add 4 tbsp custard powder to the warm milk. Keep this custard powder paste aside.

2) In another pan, take half litre or more milk.  stir and heat this milk on low to medium flame. Just bring to a gentle heat and stir.

 3) Now add the custard powder paste and stir quickly, so that no lumps are formed.Keep on stirring continuously till the custard thickens.

For trifles you will need a slightly thick consistency. But remember that as the custard cools, it will thicken more. Allow the custard to cool at room temperature.

4) When you can taken the custard mixture off flame, let it cool slightly and then add Sugar free nature according to taste. 

5) In another bowl, take 1/2 cup chilled cream. I used amul cream here and whip it till smoothened. 

6) Now cut the fruits. You can use apples, bananas, strawberry or just about any seasonal fruits except the citrus ones. 

7) Next, slice out the sponge cake into small cubes or you can simple crumble them and spread generously. 

8) Now comes my favourite part. 

Take a glass dish or if you want to make separate portions in dessert glasses you can do that too.

9) first spread a layer of sponge cake and then moisten it with a layer of custard mixture.

10) Next add a dash a mixed fruits and then again the custard. 

11) Then a layer of dry fruits and whipped cream. 

12) You can keep on layering and repeating it till the top. 

13) Lastly,  make the top cream layer even with a spatula and start to decorate it. You can use fruits, berries, jelly or even chocolate shavings to decorate the top layer.

14) Cover with a foil or lid and keep the trifle pudding in the fridge to set for 2-4 hours or overnight.

Serve chilled. 

To know more and sweeten this relation with desserts visit http://sugarfree-india.com/

Matched in heaven, monetised on earth!

Marriage is an evergreen and one of the most profitable business in India. Be it the tasteless catering or tacky decorations, horny honeymoons or hoopla over photo shoots, money and booze simply keeps overflowing through the entire season of endless rituals.

Talk about arranged marriages and 'chachi ki friend ka beta USA mei engineer hai, baat chalaun?' is no more a way to get it fixed.

Even marriage bureaus and print media are a thing of past. Who after all has a time to read newspapers or maintain offline relations?!  

Unfortunately Facebook and twitter haven't taken up the job of serious match making seriously.They are still a platform for casual flings, leaching and after-retirement testosterone reactivity!

With over lakhs of profiles in all shades of compact powder, lipsticks and bows-ties, matrimonial sites are mushrooming on the world web as the newest and most trusted match making database today.

Dig a little deeper, you shall see thousands of fully covered yet curvy pics. An inch of cleavage with pouted lips garners a huge number of clicks. 

In case of wanting to be grooms, accidentally added number of zeros in the salary makes you a hero. And don't forget to mention on-call duties as on-site ones. 

Edited till they fit in the parent's dream of being the most eligible (read desperate) match in town, profiles are created with high hopes and honeymoon fantasies only to find that 

money is honey, my little sonny, a rich man's profiles is always visible for matrimony! 

In other words, the higher you pay a matrimonial site, higher goes your chances of getting hitched. So it is sensible to keep some bucks in your pocket rather than mentioning them all in your resume.

The cost of getting registered on any regular site ranges from 5,000 to 50,000 (Elite club) for 3 months. No wonder these sites are expected to earn a revenue of around 900 crore by the end of the year which would mean about a 33% increase in profits from last year. No prizes for guessing that the next year profit can be anywhere between 40 to even a whopping 50%!

The story doesn't end here, these matrimonial sites have given birth to a new  business. Some housewives and retirees realised that Majority of Indians are still technically challenged and with a radicular shift towards smaller nuclear families its virtually impossible for them to know the nuances of creating profiles and accounts on the net.

So they grabbed this opportunity and have thrown themselves as cement to bridge in the gap. These people technically-aid interested parents to look through the potential profiles, contact them and do the needful. This too comes at a price of course, ranging anywhere between 1,500 to 10,000 for 3 months.

To sum it up, all those involved in this business of alliance and selling marriages always have a win-win situation. If you can manage to hitch them up, your clientele notches up. If not, well, the search never ends.

Its quite interesting to see how intimately marriage and money are related. Perhaps, until and unless you club these soulmates its impossible to find your own!

A deeper look into our 'shadi' business makes me conclude that marriages are made in heaven but caste-sized, dramatised, hugely monetised before finally getting finalised in India!