Jet setter

So tomorrow I embark for my first holiday post World Cup, I dont regard my travels from there a "holiday" seeing as most of the time it was rather stressful! not to mention the winter cold wasnt a welcome, especially in Joburg where I at one point thought I was seriously going to die from being too cold!

ATB in action

The kind folks at Smirnoff have given me a ticket (well its an sms really) to attend the Night life exchange project which is being held in Cape Town this year, the host's will be none other than SA's 2 great House sensations DJ Fresh & Euphonik popularly known as FeU. Cape Town was chosen with Berlin as the 2 cities that will exchange their ideal party, so their line up (which gave me goose bumps) consists of ATB, lengendary trance DJ Mark Schulz & Monika (havent heard of her before). I still remember my first ATB CD I bought, which was "Dedicated" which featured some great hits such as "Dedicated", "Hold You" & the club pumper "Let U go". It was my facourite CD from the bunch of randoms I bought. André (ATB) has been making beats that both rock the club world and yet still playable on the radio, his currently ranked 11th in the world of Top DJ's, that is quite an accomplishment after being in the business for so long.

Mark Shulz also has been on the DJ seen for a while will be more famous for his mixes, as he has remixed many a top artist such as Madonna, Depeche Mode & worked with Fat Boy Slim of the UK. To be honest I havent heard much of his stuff so Im really looking forward to see what he has to offer.

Mark Schulz in the mix

The thing I like about these Smirnoff parties, is that they're well setup & managed, the crowd is limited & its invite only. Fair enough you have to be the lucky ones amongst thousands vying for the prize for an entrance ticket but its totally worth it if you do win. Even such events where you do have to purchase tickets such as the recent Gods Kitchen gigs with Above & Beyond have been awesome or so I've heard.

Other than the wild night on Saturday, Im looking forward to relax, something I hardly get to do on holidaying with the family as there is always places to see or people to visit, this time its me and what ever the fuck I want to do. Looking forward to meeting a few tweeps (twitter people) I frequently chat to on twitter from the Cape, so if you spot me on the street, dont feel shy, come say hi... but dont rob me as I got hardly any cash left since this trip is costing me a bit ;)

So this is my last blog post before I leave.
Cheers

150 up

Today marks 150 years of Indians in South Africa, yes its been 150 years of us in the land that the white man claimed to be their's but was actually some other guys who he stole it from previously. Anyway it was on this very day that the SS Truro sailed into the Durban Harbour or beach... I dont know if we had a harbour back then, but like I said the ship arrived on this day 150 years ago from the motherland.

SS Truro

Anyway here's a little snippet on how things actually went down as I feel I wont do it justice expressing it in my words.

Two ships set sail from different parts of the Motherland. The Belvedere left Calcutta for Port Natal on 4th October 1860 and the Truro disembarked from Madras on the 12th October 1860. The first ship, the SS Truro arrived  on 16 November 1860 with 341 immigrants, whilst the Belvedere and other ships followed thereafter. They came as indentured labourers on many broken promises. The Indian nationals realized the term “indenture” was a philosophical term meaning bond or agreement . The code for slavery was locked in its expression in many ways. Bearing in mind that they were away from family and friends, once our brothers and sisters landed on this foreign soil they had to adjust to the conditions at hand. The majority in time returned to India. Those who stayed pursued under adverse conditions . They succeeded from adversary to advantage in that after 150 years today we emerged and produced legacy leaders, destiny carvers and history makers in this dispensation. We have become part and family of the Rainbow Nation.

Just to sit and think what these laborers had to go on is quite frightening, besides the false promises and being away from their families and on foreign soil, they had to work through 12 hours a day, 6 days a week or they didnt get paid. The living conditions we terrible and being away from India they werent getting the staple food they were used to, but still through all of this they fort on and the population grew. Slowly but surely more Indians came in from India for other reasons than working on the cane plantations, setting up business in the area's near the farms, selling spices and other things that were not readily available for Indians and thats how many Indian businesses grew.

My family were similar, 79 years ago my grandfather and his brother setup shop in Durban and from there it just grew, my dad and his brothers joined the business and it just got bigger unitl this year where most of them felt they've reached a good age to retire and hence we sold the business in town. You can read more about that here.

Indians helped shape South Africa into the country it is now, from laborers, to businessmen, to freedom fighters. They came in all shapes and sizes and most of them wanted to see this country succeed in unity. So we've got alot more to be thankful for than just curries & bunny chows. To see what so many have achieved in a country where people of colour were oppressed, it makes me proud to say that I am a South African Indian.

oh and I thought it would be nice to try and get #150th trending today in SA, and thanks to all my followers of all races it was done!

Number one baby!

Woy Way

So I tried not to blog about football again after my manic October which saw me break all sorts of records on this blog page but I just had to blog again of Liverpool's recent form and the antic's from our Manager that many love to hate. Roy "Woy" Hodgson. Now you know my views on him already, but to put in brief, his good but I feel not cut out to handle the pressures of a modern day top flight club and I feel that the club should have brought in Kenny Dalglish as a stand in manager but thats done and dusted.

Last week Sunday was our (Gujerati) New Year, the same day that Liverpool were paid a visit by Chelsea. Now normally this fixture would have been marked on my calender and I planned my day accordingly to view the game. This time round I couldnt be bothered. We ended up out playing the Champions and won 2-0, with two stunning goals from El Nino himself. Maxi could have added a 3rd at the end but he chose to do a Drogba.

Now after watching this performance albeit a bit intoxicated at the time, I thought maybe Woy does know what his doing, maybe this was the match he proves to everyone that he can manage a top flight club. Then came the away game at Wigan, within the first 10 minutes, 1-0 up. That man Torres again. Looking good alright! Then the crap started, players lost their way, Wigan bossed us for the rest of the half and quite honestly should have equalised before the break, they ended up getting their equaliser a short while after the break. We looked completely out of our depth and this was against a team thats already mooted to go back to the Championship!

They were apologies and understandable excuses that the team was tired from playing 3 games in 7 days, but I beg to ask why not rotate? Its not like our squad is made up of superstars, give the young guys who want to prove a point a run. Guys like Pacheco, Wilson and dare I say it, Ngog! We are paying their wages right?

Anyway, with the scares of Pepe wanting to leave which would be monumental in our downward spiral as he has saved our behinds many a time, cleared by the club on Friday as non sense I thought the weekend could go on to be a good one for Liverpool Football club as all fans like to hear that their star players are happy to carry on playing for them, sadly it wasnt. We all know Stoke are not the easiest bunch of guys to play against. They are tough and play a game of football that seems to have fused a bit of rugby into it. They will break your players if they are not careful, add to that the freakishly long throw's by Delap and you're time at the Britannia might not be the most pleasant experiences. Now I didnt see the game, my brilliant PR skill's that Im blessed with arranged a meet with my family at the same time as kick off. The place we went to did have TV's but cousins that got their before me arranged for a table outside away from any TV... which turned out to be a very good thing seeing how the game went. 

Now what Im trying to understand is how can you go from beating Chelsea to drawing then losing to two mediocre teams? Was the victory against Chelsea just luck or did Woy really plan that tactical genius strategy? I think it was the first one seeing how these other two games panned out, the away supporters seem to think so to as they chanted "Dalglish Dalglish Dalglish" at the end of the game. Sure enough Woy heard and said they can chant who's ever name they wanted to but those were just a portion of the millions of fans LFC have... Woy, the entire world was chanting "Dalglish Dalglish Dalglish" at the time. I honestly think that Woy will do nothing significantly good with the club even if given the money to spend on good players so theres only 2 things that can be done now, 1. Woy steps down, or 2. John Henry tells the old timer to give it a rest.

I tweeted something on Saturday night: "I hate the feeling of a loss, but I hate the feeling of getting used to seeing us lose more". Its not something Liverpool fans should get used to, its not normal, we should be up there where we belong. This season is a big wake up call for so many reasons and the roller coaster isnt going to stop here I can guarantee you that, but just be sure that....

You'll Never Walk Alone

What are you doing?

Let me be straight up and honest first, Ive heard the stories on the radio, saw bits of it in the news but havent sat and read any of the articles written on the incident.

What am I talking about? The recent drugging and gang raping of a school girl in Gauteng. Not only was she raped by more than one male, there were other students present to witness this! Im sorry, since when was this type of thing entertainment?! But wait, as they say in TV infomercials "there's more!" some of the spectators (if I can use the term) were videoing this on their cellphones... this is our countries future? Im scared to shit, no wonder some want to run away to Australia, but thats for another topic and another blog.

I dont know if its just me, but if I knew about something like this going down, the last thing I'd do is hang around to watch, let alone record it! I'd go tell someone with some sort of authority to stop it. But thats just me, maybe Im strange like that. This poor girl, knocked out of her senses lied helplessly as each of these monsters took their turn at her. Okay well maybe thats where I should have started, these spawn of satan that decided it would be a good idea to do this. What the hell must go through ones head to conduct something like this? Surely they need some sort of mental help to rid their minds of such evil ideas? I dont care who they did it to or what that person did in the past, NO ONE deserves to go through that!

Guys that do that to woman are the scum of all things made, they shouldnt be allowed to roam around and instead should be kept in a living hell. Date rape is a common thing world wide, just the other week someone I know had something slipped in her drink at a nightclub, luckily she was with friends and stayed with them, so they took her home to recover.

This incident on the other hand happened in a school, a secure environment, or so we thought. We all know that bullying and fights go on in schools, of course we had that one incident with a samurai sword which was.. well tragic and freaky and totally different to this but bottom line is, kids go to school to learn, not to worry if they're going to be drugged and raped, and seeing that even after this incident was reported, the police felt that the perpetrators should at least write their exam first before they take any action. Ya because in jail you need to be clever hey? thats why you sitting there in the first place. I hope to god that these guys are brought to book and given the punishment they deserve and they turn a blind eye to their age, because they sure as hell knew what they were doing so they must face the consequences!

Finale

 

So the other weekend was the final of the Currie Cup, a local rugby competition which involves a round of league games which the top 4 go through to the semi final knockouts then progress to the final. Now my local provincial team The Sharks have had a stella season with them only losing 4 games and finishing off at the top of the table making them able to host a home semi final and if they progressed, a home final. They managed to withstand a tough onslaught from the Bulls and win the semi final at home and securing the home final. 

Now I watch all if not most of the Sharks games, be it Super 14 or Currie Cup, but hardly go see them play live. It seems like the general Durban public do the same. We rather sit at home and watch it on TV then go down to the stadium to support them. We have a lovely stadium that is Kings Park, seats 52,000 paying spectators and while the stands may not be at the most gentle gradients, each and every seat provides a great view for the fan. So maybe we're just lazy? Most games get an average of 22 000 people which isnt bad but the big games draw the crowds. Semi finals got just under 40 000 people in and the final was a sell out. 

I just had to go for the final, after being sucked into the atmosphere of the semi finals and not being able to go I made sure I tried to get tickets to the final as early as possible to avoid the the disappointment of it being sold out, first batch were released on that Monday after the semi but were only for the upper east stand... not a chance, few days later I managed to get some behind the posts which were probably the best I was going to get so I bought them with out thinking twice. Luckily I did as the stadium was a sell out on match day.

The game itself was amazingly brilliant, it always is when your side is in control. Seeing Patrick Lambie prove the naysayers wrong and put in a man of the match performance was proof that he is worth all the praise. The vibe was incredible as Ive never experienced a capacity crowd at a rugby match before. The Province guys were in full voice before the game but that soon changed after the first try, then we, the Sharks fans decided to have a go at them. Changing their famed "PROVINCE" call to "PROBLEMS". Although I must admit that WP did have us on the edge of our seats for most part of the 2nd half, but we did manage to hold out till the final hooter, oh and Lambie went over for another try in the process to push the scores up to 30-10. 

As it was the first final I attended I had no reason to rush out the gates soon it was over. We stayed for the trophy presentation and watched as the players did a lap of honor with the big old cup. Then in true Durban fashion went to the outer fields to soak in the atmosphere with the rest of the fans, we did in the process get soaked as the heavens decided to bless us with a light showering, but after a game like that no one really cared. The Durban Diwali Festival which was being held just down the road from the stadium provided a fitting fireworks display to end off a brilliant evening.

Question: Whats big, shiny & not in the Western Cape?

Answer: The Currie Cup..... PROOOOOOOOBLEMS

SHARKS FOREVER

Minced Meat

Ok so I said I'd blog some recipes from time to time so here's another one that doesnt require much effort that even if you're suffering from a massive hangover like I was you can complete. Its a basic dry mince curry that will satisfy your hunger if you not in the mood to chew whole meat.

Ingredients:
300-500g Lamb mince
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp turmeric powder
2 tsp chilli power
2 green chilli's chopped
1 red chilli chopped
1 clove garlic
tiny bit of grated ginger
2 cinnamon sticks
1 dried clove
1½ onion coarsely chopped
½ green pepper
1 soft tomato
½ cup sour milk
1 tbsp oil

ok I'll admit, its not the best looking thing

Rinse your mince out as they maybe excess blood in it, we dont want that in there now. add the salt, black pepper, tumeric power, chilli powder, green chilli's, red chilli, ginger & garlic. Mix well and allow to stand for 15 minutes.

the onions & green pepper

In a pot heat your oil, add you cinnamon sticks & dried clove, when they begin to sizzle add your onion & green pepper. Allow them to go limp, then move to one side of the pot and add your mince mixture in the pot. Make sure you continuously mix the mince otherwise it will be lumped up. Once the mince starts to get cooked, you can mix it up with the onion and green pepper.

mince one side, onions & pepper on the other

Take your soft tomato and grate into a bowl, add you sour milk to it, mix it well and add it to your mince. Mix into your mince & allow for excess water to burn out.

 Again I made a quick and easy "roti" which consists of cake flour, oil, salt & water.

Its that time again

Its that time of the year again, where the skies will be filled with lights and the silence will be disturbed by loud bangs. Now besides the actual fireworks causing a racket, the people will be making quite a noise as well. You see every year around about this time you get those that honestly do care about the noise pollution and trauma it causes to animals then you get those that feel the need to make a noise because they can. You know the type that try to give Hindu's like me a lecture on how to celebrate my culture. Now while I dont want to get into any religious raucous regarding this issue, for those that want to explain to me how I suppose to celebrate Diwali, please dont waste your time. I know back in the day when my lord returned from exile, the small village of Ayodya didnt hire pyrotechnicians to celebrate his home coming with his wife Sita & brother Laxman. They lit lamps and welcomed him with song and dance, most probably like a Bollywood movie, but like many things in this world, things evolve. Cultural celebrations did too and thats exactly what happened with Diwali, please dont tell me Jesus sat there at his birthday pulling crackers with his family & waited with bated breath to see what Santa brought for him. Some where along the years people incorporated fireworks with it and so it went on.

Now dont get me wrong, Im not saying stuff the naysayers and screw the animals, I love pets, be it a dog, cat, bird, monkey. I've seen first hand at what this noise does to them. Its not a laughing matter AT ALL. Hence the reason for this blog. My family owned a business in the Durban CBD for 79 years, we sold fireworks twice a year (legally, with a license to sell explosives issued by the Police & Fire Department) this being for Diwali & the normal year end celebrations. There are a number of different explosives available now to purchase, some so dangerous that it will cause serious bodily harm, hence the warnings that go with them. The SA government did do its best to ban the really loud ones but there are still those on the market that produce the same amount of sound but since its made safer (i.e has a long fuse & a 10 second flare warning before the explosion) that they allowed to be sold. Now Im not a fan of these that just shatter your ear drums, I like the display stuff. You know, the ones that go high up and make pretty flowers in the sky, ya those.

Also as I may like them, I dont buy them, they cost a huge amount of money and in actual sense you are burning money! I rather just stand on my 3rd level balcony and enjoy the view, also try to practice my photography.

Getting back to the issue at hand now, the fireworks itself, we've seen many a year where the front pages have had pictures of kids with half blown of fingers etc. Please for god sake, if you're going to buy fireworks for your kids, please make sure they are old enough to handle it and be there when they are using it! Its not a toy. Also Diwali is one day, not 8 days in a row. You celebrate on the one day and thats it. Some people seem to think they need days of preparation for the main event, I dont like to have the shit scared out of me whilst Im nestled on my sofa enjoying my favourite TV program okay? Also if you dont live in an area where people are tolerable to you bursting these explosives, find a place where you can gather with others to celebrate together. The last thing we want now is to cause trouble on a auspicious day, I know its your house and you can do what you want but sometimes it helps to take the higher ground. Then to those that have pets, please take the proper precautions as you know fully well whats going on. Lastly to those that want to cause trouble, whether its by picking fights or the misuse of fireworks, I honestly have nothing to say to you, besides get a life.

Happy Diwali to all