Brazil Leaves

My son  recently got back from a longish tour of Brazil and got me bag full of leaves, some of them very rare and indigenous to the Amazons that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Here's a collection of the same, and if someone can give me the names of these leaves then that would be great. As always my son has absolutely no idea what these plants are called.

Typical rain forest leaves, thick, full of moisture

There leaves are all from the Atlantic shores

Lord Ganesha

The Hindu God of good fortune, Lord Ganesha is the child of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati, and sports the head of an elephant. By Hindu custom, we are supposed to worship Lord Ganesha before starting anything new, and only after that should we pray to any other Gods. He is also supposed to be the quickest scribe in the universe and it is he who had  jotted down Mahabharata. So I created these two Lord Ganesha images with peepal tree leaves

Nature Collages

I have been inactive here for a while, mainly as my son has been traveling and he is the one who updates my blog. So while he was away, I created these collages..

Car on a highway through forests

Rail track that no one uses any more

Pathway to a music school

River Story

Botanical Collection

Presenting another set of my botanical album…

Collected from Coorg Jungles, Karnataka, India

The bark or rind of Bhojpatra tree and the leaf of the same tree. In ancient India, epics like Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc were written on Bhojpatra barks. These were collected from Chirbasa, en route to the holy shrine of Gaumukh, Himalaya.

These are from tiny plants that grow right at the edge of Gangotri Glacier, where hard ice meets ground.

This is root of plant Koru. These are found between 9000 – 12000 feet, in the Himalayan Jungles of Kinnaur and have rare medicinal properties. These are widely used by shepherds and local villagers to ward of cold, cough and any stomach ailments. 

Collected from the coffee plantations of Coorg, Karnataka, India

Riddles & Rebuses

Riddles are defined as difficult problems, which are twisted so that you have to think out of the box to find the answers. Rebuses are puzzles where you decode a message consisting of pictures representing syllables and words.

Here I present some of my riddles and rebuses combination. The answers are at the bottom. Enjoy...

1.     What we seek; & when we cross the end, we find an animal

x the end = which animal? 

2.     We disagree and add one letter, now we are scared

           + r =          

3.     Let’s fry some eggs in here and then turn it around for a nice siesta

               

          turn it around 

4.    Time of any event and a tasty fruit

    

5.     Seeking rights with a tiny insect makes you the beneficiary




6.     Utterly delicious on toast takes flight and flutters

        +

7.   With power enough to control nature, when flipped, gets totally beyond control

8.     Rabbits love it but take out the bad part and we can drive around

               minus 

9.     A fruit to die for, when separated is on the run

Answers:

1.   goal = goat

2.   fight + r = fright

3.   pan = nap

4.   dates

5.   claim + ant = claimant 

6.   butter + fly = butterfly

7.   dam = mad

8.   carrot - rot = car

9.   mango = man + go

Bread Pantua (dessert)

Ingredients for 10 people

Bread unsliced – 450 gm         Big cardamom – 10 in no

Milk – 2 litre                           Rose water – few drops

Refined oil – for frying            

For syrup – sugar 500 gm and water 250 ml

Method –

1.     Boil milk and reduce to 750 ml. Remove from fire

2.     Cut 40 thick square pieces from the bread

3.     Remove the skin of big cardamom and separate the seeds

4.     Insert two seeds into each bread piece

5.     Prepare sugar syrup of two thread consistency. Remove from fire, cool and add few drops of rose water to the syrup

6.     Heat refined oil, dip each bread square into the reduced milk and fry till brown

7.     Remove from fire and dip them in sugar syrup. The bread pantuas are ready to eat

Doi Begoon (Eggplant in Curd)

Ingredients for 4 people

Eggplant – 500 gm          Cumin seed – 1 tspn (for tempering)

Onion – 4 in number       Sugar – 2 tspn

Ginger – 1 inch piece       Salt to taste

Garlic – 4 flakes              Turmeric – a pinch

Curd – 400 gm                Red chilli powder – a pinch

Coriander seed – 1tspn    Coriander leaves fresh – 100 gm

Cardamom big – 2           Cooking oil – 40 ml

Method –

1.     Wash and cut eggplant into roundels and rub turmeric and salt; keep aside

2.     Grate onion

3.     Grind together garlic, ginger, coriander seed to fine paste

4.     Beat curd well adding salt and half of the sugar to it, keep aside

5.     Heat oil, add eggplant, fry till light brown and remove from fire

6.     In the remaining oil add cumin seed and crushed big cardamom

7.     Add grated onion and stir. When onion starts to turn light brown in colour add turmeric, red chilli powder and paste of garlic, ginger and coriander. Stir well on medium flame, sprinkling water from time to time

8.     Add remaining sugar and fried eggplant

9.     Add salt and little water. Cover with a lid and bring it to only one boil. Immediately remove from fire.

10.   In a deep serving bowl spread half of the beaten curd and on that layer keep one layer of prepared eggplant. Pour the rest of curd to cover the eggplants

11.   Finely chop the fresh green coriander leaves and spread over the curd. Serve with rice or chapatti.