Away from home in a foreign land-IDENTITY- what is your own?

Being away from mother land, being away from kith and kin, being away from what is your own! What does that mean to you. I chose to write on this topic, because, nine years away from my own land has caused a deep scar in my heart, which I dont think will fade away.

To my people back in my mother land, it is a great opportunity to go to a foreign country, where of course the currency value is higher than your very own country's. It may be exciting to go to foreign countries, but it should never be for very long. It is considered a privilege if the son in law of the family was working overseas. The entire family would boast about it to the family members. There was a time in India when unemployment was at its heights, and hence people with good talent moved out of India in search of jobs. That was the dot com fall time. Then when the field of IT began spearheading, unemployment was thawed by it.   Yet people did not stay back in India, in fact more people started going out in search of better jobs, better lifestyles. I wonder how many of you, my readers will agree to this point. But I wish to write as I percieve it.

Different countries offer different privileges to foreigners working in their Country. In that order, Singapore gives good privileges to people from other countries, staying and working for Singapore's development. Knowledge workers can obtain their Permanent Resident (PR) privilege, and once you get your PR you are also eligible to buy a house. Houses cannot be bought on first hand though, it can be bought as second hand, meaning the first owner has at least owned it for five years. Though these privileges are  given to  foreign talents, citizens are treated with a higher order of preference, which I think is fair. Likewise, there are umpteen other issues. Yet, citizens of the nation tend to hate foreigners. For some reason or the other they keep taunting foreigners for having taken away what could have otherwise been their opportunity. Now how is it that foreigners could have helped this?  I seriously do not know the answer.

And I DONT consider myself to be blessed amply for staying  in a foreign land, where I hold a valid NRIC, have my own house to stay in, a job where I am satisfied, my kids get to enjoy so many things that they would not get to in my motherland and my list continues.....for the reason that I wonder what is my true IDENTITY!

I bet there are many out there who would share similar feelings. Share your thought by sending in your commments.You may have had same kinda experiences, but in other countries. I would love to read your comments.

Butter Paneer Masala with love!

Are u thinking this may be a recipe note? Okay may be or not! I would rather say that this post is more on my style of cooking! Ha ha, having written this I cant control my laughter thinking of the different short cuts I take to cooking most dishes. I am not the kinda person, who goes out of my way or takes the pain to buy exclusive ingredients to make a dish taste yummy.......i just put in any substitute possible either to get the color, taste, serving etc.

One of the days last week I decided to make some different gravy to go along with Chappathi, for dinner.This thought occured to me at around noon time, I decided to make butter panner masala. That meant that  I had to buy panneer on my way back home. This is another big process to be carried out on my way back home- SHOPPING! Believe me I totally hate shopping (not so feminine right?!?). Anyways, now that I had already thought of butter paneer masala for dinner, I decided to do this shopping part. So on my way home, I had to alight in a stattion called Little India, to buy panneer(which is so INDIAN, and hence you will not get it in ANY supermarket except for Indian shops).

I am not an expert in cooking, and so I had already looked up some easy recipes on the internet, in fact a few you tube videos on how to do butter paneer masala! See how complicated cooking can be!!!

 In the recipes there was this ingredient mentioned- cream. Now it happened that cream was not available in the shop where I purchased paneer, i decided to make do with a substitute, and u guessed it right- i decided to use milk.

Having done the shopping part, I went back home with the same spirit and started my task of cooking. Quite inspired that I had most of the ingredients for cooking, the task was completed satisfyingly. So the chappathi was made and also the butter paneer masala, done with a substituted ingredient for one of the major ingredients for taste. Anyways I had no regrets, because this is not the first time I did that. Haha!

Dinner being served I was waiting for my family to comment upon the defects in the dish, probably I could have even altered the original taste of butter paneer masala. So with curiosity in my mind we started our dinner, and to my surprise my make do cooking was tasty too. The appreciation from my daughter and husband took me by surprise and the feeling at that moment of time was that of the cheif chef of a five star hotel being congratulated for her cuisine.......

Nevertheless, it was served with love!