“What is disappointing in offline or online conversations at any point of one’s life though is figuring a completely contradictory trait after a long interaction.”

True … I had a ‘phriend’ once who regularly raved about Carnatic classical music etc. (in my presence at least). It turned out that he had a lone Carnatic classical cassette out of his collection of over 100 (I am talking of an era before WWW/iPod etc, when your music was measured in cassettes, especially as an NRI with no access to desi music on radio either). Had he not mentioned Carnatic music at all, this fact would have been no biggie (though it would have been very contradictory had he grown up in, say, Chennai or Madurai – he had not). Needless to say, my guard was immediately up.

“Your experience of losing a friend should warn your readers against building multiple identities.”

It is not good to build multiple identities, but saying that my experience should warn against them is unfair, because I did not make up multiple personalities in this example. I gave my complete correct name as spelled (granted, I did not put ‘Mr.’ in front of it, because I did not see a need to).

As far as revealing is concerned, when you get acquainted with someone, you don’t immediately reveal everything about yourself the first time you meet them; I mean, how could anybody do that? It is gradually that you can build up trust (a two-way street), and I guess when you are married, that is when you have to have maximum trust in your spouse. Here’s what Rads has to say about trust.

Your experience of losing a friend should warn your readers against building multiple identities. It’s better to say and reveal little than say a lot and reveal little…

I read the article by Vir, and I have a comment specifically on the following:

“What’s more, it is now one of the most internationally renowned Indian snacks … All this should make Middle Easterners very angry.”

I don’t understand why folks from the Middle East should be mad about India being acknowledged as the origin of samosas. I have hardly seen Middle Eastern cuisine with samosas – not that I have seen much of the Middle Eastern cuisine anyway (being vegetarian, I try to stick to known cuisine), though I know baklava for sure .

For desi foodie blog posts, check out Vijay’s and Anita’s – though a glance at her site, after along time, reveals a lot of adventure and much less food now – blogs.

Now that you reminded me, I do remember having eaten those Haldiram’s hygenic samosas, hermetically sealed in those packs. Uggghh! I bought them once, never ever again. The insides were blacker than I wanted, potatoes were missing and yes, raisins, cardamom and god knows what else was in those samosas!! I don’t mind sweetness in my food, but I do understand what you mean – and yes, not in samosas for me either (I would draw the line at groundnuts and/or cashewnuts).

For what it is worth, I am yet to experiment with anything outside of good old Microsoft. So I have not experienced the differences you describe.

We have not used WiFi at home yet, so did not use the iPodTouch in that manner; however, I did get to use it at the local airport, where I loved it. But at least Mrs. Porcupyn has discovered the art of uploading videos to the device, so she is happy. Baab and Katya are playing Jezzball; Baab will likely move up to Chess, Sudoku, Minesweeper etc shortly. I highly recommend Jezzball, though because the free version has only three levels, you will likely be bored very soon. You should get the “advanced/original version” for the computer – also free – online. Mrs. P and I were majorly addicted with this game in the late 1990s and then got sidetracked.

Here is a site that tracks/tracked what the record scores were!

Now I have two comments to respond to, so I had better start on this one at least.

Looks like your taste in samosas complements mine (well, maybe not, because my taste in samosas is probably a superset of yours). Anyway, I love peas and groundnuts/peanuts in samosas too, if they are added. Haven’t had a chance to eat haldi/raisins to the best of my memory.

But really, the ones at the stations – as long as they are hot – are pretty good, though sometimes they have a bit too much salt and/or spiciness. The ones I had on this trip were perfect but for the fact that they had a bit more oil than they should have; they also did not have all the addendums that you don’t like.

You are right, of course, in your assessment that the quicker the food disappears, the fresher it is. But that is difficult to gauge for a non-resident.

I will read the history of samosas now.

You may enjoy a read of this piece by one of the most favourite food reviewers in India on the history of samosas: http://www.virsanghvi.com/vir-world-ArticleDetail.aspx?ID=356

cheers, Jyoti