Can people survive without restaurants?

Lockdown after lockdown has proved,

That people can survive without restaurants…

As all eateries and restaurants are closed,

People cooked at home a variety of food,

Regular, exotic and restaurant foods happily,

In large quantities, unlike the small restaurant portions,

To their satisfaction!

Those who could not cook learnt to cook,

Thanks to their mothers and sisters,

And of course to YouTube and cookbooks,

They all became not-so-bad to good chefs,

And the lockdown of seventy days passed quietly.

However, the restaurants could not endure,

The lockdown and the mounting overheads,

They had to pay rents, loans, wages,

Taxes and electrical charges,

The owners were in tears,

All that they could do is blame Coronavirus.

Now that the lockdown is relaxed,

And restaurants are permitted…

To operate with several safety measures,

Restaurants are anxiously waiting for customers.

Craving for restaurants is very high,

The desire is there to visit favourite restaurants,

But the fear of hygiene at these places is high,

So the multitude are sticking to healthy homely food,

Which they have accepted during the lockdown period.

Roadside and small eateries and restaurants,

Will be shunned by the majority,

5-Star restaurants shall thrive,

Due to their high standards of hygiene.

For years, every month new restaurants,

Opened all over Hyderabad,

Especially in Cyberabad,

Now one by one; many may close,

As a therapy or vaccine for Coronavirus seems distant,

And until such time customers will keep away,

And restaurant businesses shall crumble.

The Coronavirus pandemic has caused chaos,

In the lives of people and to businesses,

Fear apart it has set many trends and established,

That people can survive without restaurants,

But restaurants cannot survive without customers.

If you are craving for restaurant food,

Order only from reputed restaurants,

That can safely home deliver,

Until we have overcome this pandemic.

Pleased with online ‘Temple Sevas’.

You are all aware that the entry of devotees to temples within Telangana State and for that matter all over the country has been prohibited, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For some of us who have the tradition of visiting temples a few times in a month, at least the one closest to our house is no longer possible. And such a situation may continue even if the prohibitory orders are relaxed or lifted, for the fear of contracting the disease.

When the need for something becomes imperative, we are forced to find ways of getting or achieving it. And this issue of offering prayers at temples too got sorted out strangely.  Like many other modern commercial practices, a digital solution is being offered… of a variety of online Pujas/Sevas. This is through a widely publicised notification by the Commissioner of Endowments, Telangana State, stating “All devotees are requested to utilise the facility of online Puja/Seva and gain the divine blessings of the holy deity,”

Though this appears very strange, under the present circumstances this seems to be the only way to offer our prayers at temples, though ‘In absentia’.  

I am happy with this new settlement and I have participated in the ‘Anthralaya Archana Seva’ and ‘Swami Vari Nitya Kalyanam Seva’ at the temple close to my heart, the popular Sri Seetha Ramachandra Swamy Vari Devasthanam, Bhadrachalam, on 6th June 2020.  

I booked for these two Sevas and a few packets of ‘Swami Vari Talambralu’, through ‘T App Folio’.

If interested you may book for such Sevas at few other temples too in Telangana State and seek the blessings of the Gods.

In celebration of making an exotic dish - Chicken Lasagne.

It has been in my mind since very long to make Veg. or Non-Veg. Lasagne. And as a result, it has been long since Lasagne sheets were available at home. Finally, the right time came on the evening of 2nd June to celebrate Telangana State Formation Day. And it was Chicken Lasagne with creamy béchamel sauce, a variety of cheeses and a spicy tomato sauce (3-layer Lasagne). Though this was my maiden making of Lasagne (with the assistance of my wife), the dish turned out to be extraordinary, wonderful to look at and extremely delicious, far better than what we have tasted in restaurants.  

Every member of the family relished it and wanted more, so it will be Lasagne time again and very soon. After all, life is a combination of family and good food.

Here is how we prepared this exotic dish, to everyone’s delight at our house. Hope the attached photographs will interest you in making Lasagne:

Of all the movies you've seen, which do you remember and like to see again.

During this lockdown period Television and to some extent Internet have become big entertainers and pastimes to many families. Countless old and new movies in regional and English languages are being screened 24X7, and also many old and popular TV shows/serials.

I like movies but I am not a big follower of them. I do not see all Telugu and Hindi movies but only a few popular and good ones that are recommended to me. And same is the case with English movies; I see only the good and popular ones based on their reviews. As I am browsing TV Channels if I find some movie interesting I see it till the end. And on the recommendation of my sons, I and my wife watch some movies on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, even Korean, Malayalam or Tamil with English Subs. And this has become more frequent during the lockdown.

Now coming to the title of this article… ‘Of all the movies you've seen, which do you remember and like to see again’:

In my life, I've seen many movies in Telugu, Hindi and English. I do not remember all the movies that I have watched but for the extremely good and great ones. I like movies with unique original good stories, and universally acclaimed ones, to whichever genre they may belong. Whatever the genre from romance, fantasy, comedy, drama, historic, revenge to a mystery I like them all only if there is a good and captivating story in them. I would normally not prefer horror, action and thriller movies unless the reviews are extremely good. And definitely, I would not see (9 out of 10) Telugu movies, which are said to have a common and highly predictable story with loud background music, artificial dialogues with funny accents, cheap comedy, silly and unrealistic fight scenes with absolutely no respect to elders and the laws of the land and vulgar bosom-tossing and obscene pelvic-gyrating dance-song scenes.

The list of my favourite movies is quite long and it would be difficult for me to mention them in total and impossible to state in the order of my preference/liking.

As I said there are many movies to my liking but somehow I preferred to write about a few of them in the past, in my blog. Here are the links to these posts by me. From this information you would surely know the type of movies I like, these are movies with very good storylines. If it has been a while since I saw one such good movie, I would love to watch it again after some time!

You may click on the following movie titles to reach my blog posts:

My Fair Lady.

(IMDB Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058385/ )

Fiddler on the Roof.

(IMDB Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067093/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 )

The Terminal.

(IMDB Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362227/ )

Turn Left, Turn Right.

(Wiki Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_Left,_Turn_Right)

Hum Aapke Hain Koun…!    

(IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110076/ )

This is just a sample representation of a very long list. There are however two other movies I would always remember and I would like to mention them here not only because they are good but because they have an extraordinary connection with our house. By house, I mean these movies have extensive use of our decades-old phone number and house address number. In the movie ‘Turn Left Turn Right’, our phone number is repeated several times in the movie, it is a pivotal number to connect two lovers. The lovers know each other only by this phone number and the story revolves around this.

And the other movie is 'Sully', a true story wherein the pilot Chesley Sullenberger landed the US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River on 15th January 2009, when both the engines of the Airbus A320 were damaged by bird hit soon after takeoff. The number of passengers and crew on the flight matches our House Number. This number keeps repeated regularly as the safety of the passengers and crew is most important and after the rescue of everyone, there is a great relief that all have arrived safely.

I am sure you too have such memories of movies!

For your amusement, here are some pictures from our family’s Movie Themed Birthday Party: