Love On The Line Of Control, a Story by Col Dharam Pal

Fuzair:

Definitly a Rioja. But the Chianti is a new suggestion at least with Desi food, I`ll try it.

Y`know, I can empathize with the heart-break felt over adding seven-up to a wine. I was doing an internship in Florida, and a lot of Americans would order a glass of wine, and add ice to it. I`d feel like slapping them across the face.

Last night I openbed a bottle of Saint Emillion, a fine claret from Bordeaux. Goes well with steak, though I had to make do with cheese and crackers for accompaniment. Good to see a food and wine enthusiast on Chowk

fuzair #106, ``Scoutie, if you`ll pardon the familiarity, have you ever tried a Riesling or

Blue Nun or Liebfraumilch? Most desi women who don`t like wine, I`ve found, really do like sweet dessert wines.``

I don`t drink alcohol. Try mixing some orange sorbet and vanilla ice cream in gingerale, that`s pretty damn good.

Re: the great wine debate

Stuka:

I agree that most good wines are absolutely wasted on desi food but a Chianti or a Rioja or a really robust red, I`ve found, can hold up pretty well as long as the food is not incendiary. I like Sangre de Toro, not one of the good Spanish reds, with most of my desi food, but this is a personal idiosyncracy of mine. I acquired a taste for it freshman year and I haven`t been able to shake it. Sweeter whites I prefer to leave for dessert, with a really good blue cheese, or a sharp cheddar, and pears. Of course, this must be followed by the obligatory brandy and cigars. Alas, I have to admit, I never did acquire a taste for port, no matter how much of it I forced myself to drink.

Of course, I agree fully that I would never waste a Chateauneuf de Pape on desi food. Whenever, we`re in the mood for some good wines, we visit a Singaporean friend of ours--who puts the lie to the view that E. Asians wouldn`t know a good wine if it walked up and slapped them in the face--who has a truly excellent cellar and beg him to open a bottle or three. Of course, he is actually Eurasian, so that probably explains his vinophilia. On the other hand, he does tell this hearbreaking story about the time he was at dinner with some friends of his from HK who worked for Solomon Brothers and they ordered several $500 bottles of wine (don`t remember the name now), had a sip, didn`t like it and put 7-UP in it to `cut` the taste and drank it down. Ugh, barbarians.

Regards.

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Scoutie, if you`ll pardon the familiarity, have you ever tried a Riesling or Blue Nun or Liebfraumilch? Most desi women who don`t like wine, I`ve found, really do like sweet dessert wines.

Best wishes.

Regards.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1572000/1572929.stm

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=599044076


Militants storm J&K Assembly, 26 killed

SRINAGAR: In an audacious attack, a suicide squad of three pro-Pakistan militants on Monday stormed the heavily fortified Jammu and Kashmir assembly building leaving 26 people dead before two of them were killed in a prolonged gun battle.

Sixty-three people were injured in the attack and the subsequent exchange of fire with the security personnel.

The militants, masquerading as police personnel, hijacked an official vehicle, put a huge quantity of explosives in it and drove it to the assembly complex where they rammed the Tata Sumo into the main gate setting off a huge explosion.

One militant, who drove the vehicle, was blown up even as his two accomplices stormed the building taking some employees as hostage.

Director general of police A K Suri said 26 people including security personnel and legislative council staff were killed while the two holed up militants set on fire a portion of the council building in their bid to escape. However, they were shot dead.

An official spokesman said among those killed were 11 security personnel, 12 civilians, a traffic constable and two college girls.

Three council staff, including Abdul Qayoom and Mohammad Shafi, assistant secretary and under secretary, were among the killed.

Pakistan-based militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred at 2 pm soon after ministers, MLAs and most of the employees had left the complex.

Two BSF jawans were shot dead by the holed up militants on Monday evening when they tried to storm the building where the ultras had taken 12 employees of the council as hostage, the spokesman said.

He said about 100 people including deputy speaker of the assembly, Ghulam Hyder, were rescued by the BSF troops from the besieged complex.

Barring Sadiq Ali, a ruling national conference member of the assembly who was injured, all ministers, MLAs and senior officials were safe as they had left the complex just before the devastating attack took place.

The speaker of the assembly, Abdul Ahad Vakil, who was believed to be in the complex at the time of the attack had also left the complex before the deadliest attack, the spokesman said.

Nineteen of those killed have been identifed. They included Mohammed Shafi Bhat, Mohammed Shafi Wani, Rouf Ahmed Khan, Khurshid Ahmed, Mohammed Akbar Wani, Bashir Ahmed, Guljar Ahmed, Ashok Kumar, Abdul Gani Waghe, Humera Masood, Lal Mohan Paswan, Rohit Sadu, H K Handoo, A B Rehman Sheikh, Shafaq Ahmed, Chowdhary Hasan Mir and Rajkumar.

Stuka #101, ``Are you related to Syed Kirmani by any chance, the best Indian wicket keeper of all time?``

Not that I know of, but that`s incredibly weird.

My great-grandfather was a Syed Kirmani too. Some of his brothers and their children stayed behind in India after the partition. My mother`s immediate family lost touch with that part of the family after the partition, so I know nothing of my remaining maternal Indian relatives. I always wanted to go see the ancestral home and village. Never got around to it. All I know is that they lived or live in a place called Alijaan Manzil somewhere in UP.

TAhmed, AaMIR:

That was hilarious...LOL LOL

Scout:

. They used to use Kirmani as a surname until my grandfather decided to drop it (being in India for two generations).

Are you related to Syed Kirmani by any chance, the best Indian wicket keeper of all time?

AAmir #97 So when urstruly says ``Oay Hinduo`` this is a sign of love and respect, not by the urge to insult.

I see. Thanks for clarifying, Oay AAmir. :-) I stand duly corrected and humbled by your logic.

Re: hamidm

``....... judging from rsaxena`s and stuka`s preference for haute cuisine, i hope they can stay employed with their firms and the clients keep on paying expenses.......after years of foie gras, fresh truffles on your salad, and tenderloin it is hard going back to bhaji and beer ......``

Hell no. None of that foie gras nonsense on my table -- only desi food and Bombay Sapphire.

temporal #189: ``in replies you have not learned to be concise``

Mine is not too long. Other people`s are just much too short.

This reply worked quite well with girlfriends in California (when they saw the size of my replies on Chowk, of course). I hope it works well with you, as well :-)

shankar #191: It`s good to see you back to your normal ways, after fluctuating at the extremes, for a few days.

the ``Feudalism is good,`` argument is too easy to defeat and expose. It is even easier to win than the, ``Kashmiris want to be with India,`` argument.

All progressive countries try to completely eliminate feudalism. Just like they completely try to remove drugs, crime, sexual harrasment, etc. This was the first thing India did. Indians ex-feudals must be looking at the Pakistani feudals with envy. Had the Indian feudals joined Pakistan, they would still be lords of their own lands, like the Pakistani feudal.

What bothers me about the feudals, even more than their hold on politics, is their hypocricy. The most backward women, men, boys and girls live on their feudal lands. Yet they try to portray themselves as champions of human rights, and progress. It is similar to keeping birds in a cage, and then becoming an animal rights activist.

The one thing I have noticed about all educated feudals is that they are very polite, very nice, etc. But the moment someone talks about liberating the peasants future, so that the little girl peasant on their land can also get a piece of the pie, they completely forget about human rights and women`s rights.

That is why they dominate the assemblies. To ensure no one can bring progress to the rural areas of Pakistan. They want to make sure, they are the only ones who decide how much progress should be made on, ``their`` lands and to, ``their`` people. They know that the first thing any non-feudal dominated Assembly will do is introduce true land reforms and true agricultural tax. At that point, they will have to work 9-5 like the rest of us. And not work, if and when, they want to work, while living happily off the revenues generated from their lands, where poor men and women and kids toil away under the hot sun. At least a poor laborer working in a factory, can leave and join another factory, or join a union, or appeal to his local MNA against the factory owner. What rights do the villagers under a feudal have?

Why else would the feudals go into politics, in such huge numbers. Khosas, Legharis, Bhuttos, Khars, Khattaks, Bugtis, Jatois, Junejos, etc. The list is long, but extremely oppressive. It is about as close as anything that exists in the 21st century to slavery.

People in and outside Pakistan seem to think religious extremism is the biggest problem in Pakistan. Far from it. Even religious moderate parties, what to talk of extremists, don`t occupy more than 2% of the seats in Pakistan`s National Assembly. They have never had any power. It is the feudal, who regularly occupies more than 60% of the seats, and keep a strong hold of Pakistan`s future, who is not allowing 2/3rd of Pakistan to progress.

``In democracy its your vote that counts. In feudalism its your count that votes.``

Mogens Jallberg

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...a consultant`s diet

....... judging from rsaxena`s and stuka`s preference for haute cuisine, i hope they can stay employed with their firms and the clients keep on paying expenses.......after years of foie gras, fresh truffles on your salad, and tenderloin it is hard going back to bhaji and beer ......

....... but enjoy it while you can - bon appetit!

Dost Mittar:

You are probably already familiar with the basic rule of thumb of red wine with red meat and white with white etc. This is applicable to continental cuisine.

With Indian, Chinese, Thai food, the taste buds are overwhelmed with flavors of the spices and the condiments. These flavors kill the taste of the wine. Therefore, I recommend beer with those sort of foods. However, if you do have a strong preference for wine, I would recommend strong wines of Alsace or even German wines. Certain preferable grape varieties are:

Riesling, Gewurztramminer , both red, and Pinot Grigio is ofcourse a nice white which is palatable with a lot of foods. Sparkling wines also go well with Thai food. Hope that helps..

tahmed to urstruly re: ``Oyay Hinduo``

``No one raised in a half-way decent household would use such language. You dont insult anyone other than yourself. And pollute the atmosphere for the rest of us.``

You can say that again, tahmed.

urstruly #79 ``Oyay Hinduo``

That`s kind of endearing, kinda like ``Oyay Musalmaano``