Do Some Serious Relaxing This Weekend [Weekendhacker]

Do Some Serious Relaxing This Weekend [Weekendhacker]:
You've had a long week at work and three full days to relax your stress away. Here are some ways to get the most out of your relaxation this weekend.

Consider Going Off the Grid

Whether you can't pull yourself away from work or you're just starting to feel phantom vibrations from your phone, it may be time to take a little break from technology. As much as it can make our lives easier, it can also cause a lot of stress, so if you really want to get the most of your relaxation this weekend, consider putting the phone away for awhile—or at least turning off your notifications.
On the flipside, there are a lot of cool ways that technology can help you relax, and we'll be mentioning some of them in this post. It's up to you whether you want to go off the grid or not—everyone's different, and if technology isn't the root of your stress, you might be fine keeping it on and making use of some of these tools.

Get the Best Sleep of Your Life

Napping is, of course, one of our favorite ways to relax. We've shown you how to make the most of your naps, master the power nap, or even reboot your brain with a caffeine nap. Looking for the perfect time to squeeze in a few Zs? Calculate the best time with this interactive map wheel.
If you're having trouble sleeping, this is a great weekend to reboot your sleep cycle and start getting the rest you deserve. You can do this on your own, but we've also found certain tech gadgets to be pretty useful, not to mention a few smartphone apps, too.

Exercise Your Way to Tranquility

Exercise is obviously a great way to relieve stress, but if you're looking to do something a bit more physical without an intense workout, we've got solutions for that too. Try relaxing with our guide to meditation for the rest of us, or finding a good yoga style that fits your needs. Throw some tech into the mix with apps like Breathing Zone and Buddhify if you feel like you need a bit of extra help, but again, they're far from necessary to get the full benefits of these exercises.

Take On a Relaxing Weekend Project

Of course, some of us just can't stand doing nothing—we want to do the stuff we love! We've got all the guides you could possibly need for kicking back with a few video games or some light reading, but if you want to get a bit more involved you can learn a new skill, finally ditch cable TV, or even hack your gadgets and void some warranties. Take a look back at our Weekendhacker archives for any weekend-long projects you may have missed, and take this long weekend to do a little catch up. Just make sure you're ready to hit the ground running when you get back to work! Photo by Chris Isherwood.
Got any other great relaxation techniques you're going to put into practice this weekend? Share them with us in the comments.
Title photo remixed from Michael Condouris.

Diamond Necklace : A clean , fresh malayalam movie from Lal Jose

I booked this place on the net just to rant. Rant about what I hate, what I would like changed. But lately I have just been reposting from other blogs. So here goes….

 

If you have not figured it already, I am a  mallu. Yup, Im a keralite/malayalee, from God’s own country. Yesterday I got some rare time to myself. I went out to watch a good malayalam movie: Diamond Necklace. Here are my thoughts on this.

It’s one of those rare nice, clean fresh movies which usually comes out as an experiment.  It has it all: good script, humour, thrill, a little suspense, a positive message, beautiful picturization. And good acting. Yup, real make believe characters who speak real world dialogues. The kind a normal person would speak in the real world in similar situations. And the part I liked best: there are no superstars and no comic side kick. No Jagathy/Jagadeesh/Suraj Venjaaramoodu/Salim Kumar. I would watch any movie without them.

 

 

Dr Arun played fantastically by Fahad, lives a high flying life, enjoying all luxuries money can buy. He lives in high rises, drives swanky cars, enjoys night life and has  a gang of like minded friends.  His philosophy of life is “ I have no regrets about the past, I have no worries about the future. I live in the present”.  Nice . Except that his flamboyant lifestyle in Dubai, which is the 20th most expensive city to live in,  is raking up a high credit debt.  His fellow doctor colleagues and specially his mentor Akka, (Rohini) advice him to change his lifestyle, but he manages to continue living on plastic, even gets an extension on his outstanding credit and flies home after getting them to lift his travel ban. Before this, he falls for Lekshmi, the new tamil nurse who has joined (Gautami) , and dreams of a new life with her.

Once home in Kerala, an opportunity to get rid of his debts presents itself. A marriage into a an affluent and rich family, with promises of a rich dowry, and new influential relatives.He falls for it, and marries Rajshree (Anushree), a village belle who lives in a small world of her own. But the day after marriage, he realizes that he has been taken for a ride. He realizes that the new extended family is actually in poor financial state, and he gets way little than what he had expected. Now he is expected to bring his new bride back with him to Dubai.

In Dubai, he loses his luxurious apartment, car and most of his friends. He has to adjust with some malayalee labour personnel in a labour camp, and each of his credit withdrawal attempts is rejected, leaving him with little money. He sees and opportunity and befriends and moves in with one of his tumor patients, Maya (Samvrutha), to temporarily alleviate the rent problem. And it is here that he sees her “Diamond Necklace”, the one which is referenced in the movie title. Both Lekshmi and Maya find out about his marriage, and he feels his has cheated them both.Now he is at crossroads with his conscience. 

Maya is diagnosed with life threatening cancer, she is going to die anyway, and has no living relatives, except Akka. She would have no use with a diamond necklace. On the other had, his wife’s rich relatives and their expectations poses new problems. And of course, there is the bank who wants their money back. Arun decides to  temporarily borrow (steal) the necklace, and to replace it with a duplicate replacement, pawn the real necklace, and thus buy in some more time for this debt problem.  He steals from Maya at the hospital after giving he on extra dose of morphine.His conscience torments him every step of the way, because he knows he is a doctor stealing from his doomed cancer patient.

More problems. His naive wife discovers the necklace. And thinks this is his gift to her on her birthday. Even boasts to her relatives. Now everyone knows about the necklace. He cannot just pawn it.

It is at this juncture that he turns to Venu (Sreenivasan) for help and advice. Venu intervenes, and gets the bank to write off 40% of Arun’s, debt in the name of global recession. And also an 18 month extension on the balance debt. Exactly how this is possible is not explained. But that is not important. What’s important is that Arun no longer requires the necklace. He can replace the original back, and remove that terrible weight on this conscience.

While he was away, Maya had suffered the effects of morphine overdose, and the in-duty nurse at that time, Lekshmi, is fired. Also Maya, who has now learned the meaning of life, understands that she had no right in expecting a new life from Arun. She decides to leave, leaving her valubles, along with the necklace, to Arun and asks him to give it to his wife.

Arun now legally gets the necklace (which is actually the duplicate he had got made), along with the original. He gives the duplicate to his wife, and decides to help Lekshmi, who had big dreams of starting a hospital in her village in Tamil Nadu. He gives her the necklace, and asks her to sell it for the money she requires.

Maya is shown happy, and contended in life. She now lives in the present, and is shown travelling in India.  In the final scene, Rajshree is shown oggling and fondling her necklace (she does not know it’s a fake). Arun asks her if she has ever loved him, more that the necklace. To prove her  unconditional love to him, she casts the necklace into the sea.

 

There is some really nice and smart story telling here. Aruns dreams living in a house-of-cards comes down in an instant, and he has nowhere to run , as all of his friends ignore his request for help, or are in similar situations. He is genuinely a nice guy, spreads happiness and joy around. Stealing does not come easily to him. On the other had, Rajshree’s relatives take him for  a ride and push him further into crisis.   But he is not able to think straight and come up with a simple solution. Fahad plays this character convincingly.

Lekshmi, Maya and Rajshree are all different women with whom Arun has a relationship. Though he does not want to, he ends up hurting all of them at various points. I specially loved Samvrutha playing the terminally ill patient Maya. Her pain and suffering seemed convincing. And she looks gorgeous !

And Sreenivasan excels in another of his toned down characterization of a typical malayalee labor employee, who has been struggling in Dubai for 19 years. He represents knowledge, wisdom and trust in the movie. Maniyan Pillai Raju as the bank manager is another character I liked.

The song NIlamalare, nilamalare has been playing on my computer for 2 days now. Its melody and classical beats is a fresh departure from the usual malayalam soundtracks of these days.

The movies shows the dangers of not having a strong financial plan in life. It also shows how people make the wrong decisions in life when they are faced with  problems and can’t think straight. Living in the present is not a good idea. You need to really plan out a future. Specially if there are others in your life who depend or look up to you. This is a message I feel the youngsters of this and coming generation need to imbibe. A movie with a similar message which came out last year was Ranjith’s Indian Rupee 

It’s  a must watch movie for all generations of cine goers. Don’t miss it. Its not everyday that you get to see a beautiful story told  in a fresh manner  on screen.

General Errors

General Errors:

I think the greatest electronic achievement that  mankind will ever have, will be to create computer error messages that actually make sense to the average person.
Most times, the message you get on screen is just a baffling as the reason why it is there in the first place.

Oh sure, I could go online and look up a list of common computer errors, but that still won’t help usually.
What we really need is an easy to read, detailed message that we can pass onto out tech support people. A message that truly outlines what may be going wrong and how long it might take to fix.
If this occurs, people just might start to understand their computers better and get more comfortable with them.

Of course, that can never happen, lest our tech support “geeks” lose their mystique and perceived value. We need to continue thinking that errors are all dangerous warnings that must be heeded unless we want our laptops to delete their own hard drives.

We must never know that in most cases a simple “turn it off then back on” procedure is what is needed to fix the problem.
No. We must never know.

Rude food: God’s own dish

• by VIR SANGHVI
 
•  MAY 18, 2012

Whenever people ask me if I have a favourite cuisine or a favourite dish, I always say that I don’t because, frankly, there is so much good food out there that it is hard to choose. I’m reluctant also to say if I have a favourite among the many regional cuisines of India. But if you hold a gun to my head, then I will probably concede that – at least in my opinion – the greatest Indian cuisine is the food of Kerala.

Why Kerala? Well, partly because it is a personal preference. I just love the food. But there are also good rational reasons for my choice.

First of all, Malayali food is one of the few Indian cuisines that covers everything. There is terrific fish as you would expect from a coastal state. But the meat and poultry dishes are great too. How many other states can boast a good recipe for duck along with a brilliant one for crab? And then, there’s the outstanding vegetarian food. (Though frankly, Malayalis  tend to get a little carried away with their drumsticks… And you have to be one of God’s own people to love tapioca as much as they do).

Secondly, Kerala is a synthesis of three of the greatest religions in the subcontinent – Hinduism, Christianity and Islam –  and the cuisine reflects that. The Moplah cuisine of the Malabar Muslims has an Arab flavour, borrowed from the traders who regularly visited the region. The Syrian Christians are among the world’s oldest Christians (legend has it that they were converted by St Thomas, the apostle who was the Doubting Thomas of the Bible). So there were Christians in Kerala when many people in Europe were still living on trees. Syrian Christian cuisine is rich and varied and uses pork, beef and other ingredients you don’t always find in other Indian cuisines.

And the Hindu Malayali food is delicious, full of great vegetarian dishes that are distinguished by their lightness and subtlety.
Thirdly, it is the spices. Indian food is not only about the quality of the ingredients (as Western cuisine is); it is about combining the flavours of the spices. And Kerala is the spice garden of India. It has the most wonderful, fragrant spices and the food of all three communities – Muslim, Hindu and Christian – is distinguished by the skill with which spices are used.

When I first got into Malayali food in the 1980s, it was only available in South India and especially in Kerala itself. Because the cuisine is so complex, it revealed its secrets slowly. Even now, each time I try a new dish  from Kerala, I am surprised by the dexterity with which meats, vegetables and spices have been cooked.

The mark of a great cuisine, I always think, is that the food that ordinary people eat – not just the banquet and party food made by great cooks – is interesting and memorable. My favourite Kerala dishes have always been the simplest ones.

Take Egg Roast. It is not, as you might imagine, a roasted egg. It is, in fact, a dish in which hard-boiled eggs are cooked in a wet masala. I first tried it for breakfast in the 1980s in Cochin. And now, I am addicted to it.

Why is it called a roast when it is actually a dry-ish curry? Nobody I spoke to seemed to know. One theory is that the egg is meant to be roasted, which makes no sense to me.

And where is it from? I asked Arun Kumar TR, the filmmaker-turned-chef who has now reinvigorated the excellent Zambar chain. Arun said that every little dhaba and restaurant in the Fort Cochin area served it. Perhaps, it was a Christian dish.

I checked Lathika George’s The Suriani Kitchen, a wonderful cookbook, full of Syrian Christian recipes and found that she had claimed it for her community. Like Arun, George also regards it as a dhaba dish, and provides a recipe.

She writes: “Perfectly browned onions are the base of this slowly stir-fried dish. This is a favourite in little tea shops and truck drivers’ haunts all over Kerala, usually served with parota or appams. Bakeries sometimes stuff the spiced eggs into triangles of flaky pastry and sell them as egg puffs…”

Chef Ananda Solomon denies that the Egg Roast was a Syrian Christian dish

So is it really a Syrian Christian dish? I asked the great Ananda Solomon, who is from Mangalore but whose house falls on the border with Kerala. Ananda denied that the Egg Roast was a Syrian Christian dish and insisted that it had Muslim origins. But he also said that it had now spread all over Kerala and was common to all communities. Ananda sometimes puts it on the menu of his Konkan Café in Bombay in the winter, but his version has a slight Mangalorean touch because he uses a little kokum for sourness. Ananda says that Moplah food has Mangalorean influences and insists that the name ‘Roast’ was imposed by the Brits who called anything that wasn’t a curry a roast.

Finally, I decided to check with Dinesh Nair, the foodie who is MD of the Leela chain. Though the Leela goes on and on about Megu, Le Cirque etc. (with justification), the chain’s real strength has always been its South Indian food. Dinesh’s father Captain Nair opened his first hotel in Bombay convinced that even if all else failed, it would still be a success solely on the strength of his wife Leela’s Malayali cooking. The original cooks and chefs were all chosen by Mrs Nair herself and her family continues to be obsessed with food. For instance, the idlis at the Bangalore Leela have been justly praised for their excellence. So, Dinesh insists that the rice for idlis at every Leela property is flown in from Bangalore to ensure the same level of perfection.

Dinesh Nair, insists that the rice for idlis at every Leela property is flown in from Bangalore to ensure the same level of perfection.

Dinesh directed me to the Leela’s legendary South Indian chef (legendary to other chefs – he keeps a low profile, otherwise) Purshotham. Like Ananda, Purshotham says that the dish is now too ubiquitous to be associated with any one community but agrees that its origins lie with the cuisine of the Muslims of the Malabar coast.

Though all Leela hotels do a fabulous Egg Roast, on par with anything I have eaten in the dhabas of Kerala, I thought I should also find out how the home-cooked version is made. So I checked with Hindu friends in Malabar how they made the dish in their own kitchens.

Their recipe was broadly the same except that, because my friends are from plantation families, they relied on spices more than the dhaba cooks did. Also, their version kept the onions slightly more solid at the end of the dish (not unlike the Lathika George recipe) while the Leela Egg Roast depended on the onions melting into the masala.

Broadly, the differences in all the recipes were to do with a few ingredients. Ananda used kokum, Lathika George used no garam masala. My Malayali friends used cinnamon bark and cloves to make a more fragrant Egg Roast. Purshotham used fennel, which nobody else did.

And they treated their eggs differently. Usually people put the whole hard-boiled eggs in. My friends halved the eggs so that they could soak in the flavours. Purshotham kept the eggs whole, but made deep gashes in the whites to let the masala permeate the inside. My friends poured the masalas over the eggs. Purshotham cooked the hard-boiled eggs in the masala for a few minutes.

Chef Purshotham says that the Egg Roast is now too ubiquitous to be associated with any one community.

I’ve included Purshotham’s recipe because so far, it has been secret and available only to Leela chefs. And I’ve included the recipe from my Malabar friends because it is a home-style method. Lathika George’s recipe is in her book and therefore, in the public domain.

But whichever recipe you select, you should end up with a mound of onion-rich masala, delicious, dark and fragrant, combining the teekha flavours of the Malabar coast, the spicy aromas of the plantations of Kerala and the earthy simplicity of small roadside dhabas. The eggs, yellowed with spice stains, should be poking shyly through the masala, imploring you to eat them.

You should scoop it all up with a freshly-made appam or a parota and let the taste of Kerala fill your mouth.

It is God’s own dish.

Chef Purshotham’s Egg Roast

4 portions (should serve 8)

Ingredients
16 hard boiled eggs (remove shell, make gashes)
800 gm onions, sliced
50 gm garlic pods, peeled and chopped
15 gm ginger, julienned
15 gm green chillies, slit
10 gm curry leaves
200 gm tomatoes, sliced
20 gm coriander powder
8 gm red chilli powder
3 gm turmeric powder
2 gm fennel seeds
3 gm black pepper, crushed
2 gm cumin powder, roasted
2 gm garam masala powder
Salt to taste
10 gm coriander leaves, chopped
60 ml vegetable oil or coconut oil

Method
* Heat oil in pan, add fennel seeds, garlic, ginger, onions, green chillies and curry leaves.
* Stir fry for few minutes on a low flame until the onions become translucent.
* Add red chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder and salt and fry for a few minutes.
* Add tomatoes and saute until tomatoes are mashed.
* Now add eggs and stir fry without breaking the eggs.
* Add crushed black pepper, garam masala powder and chopped coriander leaves and cook on low flame until the oil separates from the sides of the pan and the eggs are slightly crisp.
* Adjust the seasoning and serve with appams.

The Home-Style Recipe

Ingredients

1 portion (serves 2)
4 hard boiled eggs
6-7 big onions, finely sliced (keep a fistful aside for later)
3 small tomatoes, diced (don’t dice them too small, it lets out too much moisture)
3-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped 
Small piece of ginger, finely chopped
2-3 green chillies, slit into two (add more if you like it hot)
2-3 tsp cooking oil
3-4 cloves
2 pieces cinnamon bark
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
2 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp red chilli powder (less, if you don’t like it so hot)
1/2 tsp garam masala
Coriander leaves and curry leaves 
Salt to taste

Method
* Heat the oil in a hot pan. Add garlic, ginger and onion (in that order) to the oil and fry them slowly over a slow fire till they are a little more than golden brown. Stir continuously so that the onions do not burn or caramelise.
* Now roughly grind the cloves, cinnamon and bay leaves with a mortar-pestle and add to the pan. Keep the fire low. Once you sense the aroma of the cloves, stir in the turmeric powder,
coriander powder and red chilli powder. Let the spices roast with the onions for a minute or so (be careful not to burn them).
* Throw in the green chilli slices and tomatoes. Stir till the
tomatoes are cooked, making sure the gravy is not too squishy. Stir in the garam masala.
* Your gravy is ready.
* Now, halve the boiled eggs, place them on your serving dish, and pour your gravy over them. Throw in some chopped
coriander and curry leaves. You can fry the onions you kept aside, and mix them in just before serving for added texture.
* The dish tastes better if you let it rest for an hour or so before serving as the eggs will take a while to absorb the flavours.

The Sharp Dropoff In Worker Happiness

The Sharp Dropoff In Worker Happiness:
This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert's views alone.

A friend of mine resigned his long-time bank management job this week to take early retirement. I learned about it on Facebook.
As I began reading his announcement, I fully expected it to be an animated recounting of all the new hobbies he planned to pursue and exotic trips he intended to take. But it quickly became clear that this was no ordinary farewell note. He was truly upset about ending his career prematurely and wanted everyone close to him to understand why.
It was painful to discover that my former colleague had grown profoundly disheartened by the way his organization’s leadership had been treating him. With over two decades of service behind him, he called it quits simply because he couldn’t take it anymore.
“I felt like no one cared about me as a person there, and finally decided to extricate myself from the grind. I know many of you feel the same way now in your jobs…trapped and unappreciated.”
There was a sense of relief in his words, as if I was reading about someone who had been imprisoned, found an escape route, and wanted to show others the way to freedom.
“You may not be able to retire quite yet like me, but please do yourself a favor and look for something more satisfying. It might take a while (it took me eight months once I made the decision), but it’s been so worth it. If you're old like me, then think about early retirement. If you're young, look for a more satisfying, fulfilling career path. Don't let these companies drain off your sense of worth, pride, health, energy, honesty and ethics. Are you listening [XYZ Bank]*? Of course you're not.”
I share his words as another illustration that our common approach to workplace leadership is failing. And experts have been trying to tell us this for years.
New York’s Conference Board, a century-old research firm, began studying employee satisfaction and engagement 25 years ago. Their work shows that worker happiness has fallen every year since--in good economic times and bad. Today, over half of American workers effectively hate their jobs.
But it’s the past four years that have brought employee discontent to new and highly charged levels.
"People were already unhappy, but the recession years have made things much worse," says John Gibbons, formerly of the Conference Board and now Vice President of Research and Development at the Institute For Corporate Productivity. "Whether we realize it or not, workers have been under constant duress. Because of scarce resources, few opportunities for development and promotions--not to mention the fact that people often have been required to do the work of more than one person--a lot of our workforce is burnt out. Employees across the country feel overworked, under-rewarded and greatly unappreciated."
The recession has been hard on managers too, no doubt. Delivering great customer service, and achieving KPIs and revenue goals all have been a tremendous challenge during this extended period of limited means.
But it’s clear that many leaders have lost sight of what matters most to people at work. Appreciation. Support. Recognition. Respect. And when people feel disillusioned and virtually convinced things have to be better somewhere else, they do what my friend did. They quit.
According to the U.S. Labor Department, 2.1 million people resigned their jobs in February, the most in any month since the start of the Great Recession.
Dating back to mid-2011, numerous studies have reported that at least one-third of the American workforce planned to jump ship in 2012. Since very little action has yet to be taken on that threat, however, those predictions have come to be seen only as “Chicken Little exaggerations.” Business leaders, therefore, have grown less concerned.
But the government’s new “Job Opening And Labor Turnover Survey,” (JOLTS), holds the reminder why more employees haven’t (yet) departed. Jobs have remained scarce; 12.7 million people remain unemployed in the U.S. today, while only 3.5 million job openings exist. That translates into nearly four people chasing every one job--not including already employed workers seeking greener, and more respectful, pastures.
Simply because 2.1 million people were able to find new jobs, February’s mass exodus may prove to be the watershed moment when turnover becomes the problem it was predicted to be.
However, there still may be time for managers to re-recruit their employees before they leave. This won’t be easy and it will most definitely require a significant change in leadership practices. Here are three things leaders should learn quickly and never forget:
1. What makes people happiest in their jobs is all profoundly personal. “Do I work for an organization whose mission and methods I respect?” “Does my boss authentically advocate for me?” “Is the work I do meaningful?” “Am I afforded sufficient variety in my day?” “Do I feel valued and appreciated for all the work that I do?”
We know that all these matter more to people than their compensation--and workers generally don’t quit jobs when these basic needs are met. According to a worldwide Towers Watson study, the single highest driver of employee engagement is whether or not workers feel their managers are genuinely interested in their well-being. Today, only 40% of workers believe that.
2. People only thrive when they feel recognized and appreciated. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, "Why Appreciation Matters So Much," Tony Schwartz reminds us that all employees need to be praised, honored, and routinely acknowledged for their efforts and achievements. Consequently, leaders must allow themselves to manage more from their hearts.
Our brains are great at building strategies, managing capital, and analyzing data. But it’s the heart that connects us as human beings, and its what’s greatly lacking in American leadership today. This is what now must change.
3. Your employees will stay if you tell them directly you need them, care about them, and sincerely plan to support them. Any time someone quits a job for a reason other than money, they’re leaving in hope that things will be better somewhere else. So, everyone who works for you must be made to feel that they matter. Plan one-on-one meetings and re-discover the dreams each person has at work. Tell people directly how valuable they are to you. To be successful, all your future behavior must demonstrate to your employees that their best career move is to remain working for you.
Being human and treating one another with dignity and respect is something the heart already knows to do. Leaders would all do well to follow it.
*His former employer, one of the U.S.’s largest financial institutions.
Mark C. Crowley is a former National Sales Manager for WaMu Investments, where he was named its Leader of the Year. He’s the author of Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership For The 21st Century; follow him on Twitter at @MarkCCrowley.
[Image: Flickr user Vinoth Chandar]