Film Review: AJAB PREM KI GHAZAB KAHANI

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Dharshan Jariwala, Smita Jaykar, Upen Patel

Director: Rajkumar Santoshi

The Story:
Prem (Ranbir Kapoor) is a high school dropout who hangs around with his friends at his Happy Club. The happy-go-lucky young man has no job and takes no responsibilities much to the disgust of his father Shankar Sharma (Darshan Jariwala). He is adored by his mother Shalini (Smita Jaykar). Prem and his friends do their best to bring lost lovers together. When Jenny (Katrina Kaif) moves into the neighbourhood, Prem falls for her at first sight. She befriends him despite the differences in their backgrounds – she is Christian while he is a Hindu Brahmin; she is well-qualified while he is 9th fail and so on. But very soon, Prem is heartbroken when he finds out that Jenny loves someone else. But being the Happy Club President that he is, he goes on to set her love story straight.

What I liked about the film:
It’s a cute film that makes you laugh non-stop. Despite being a no-brainer, it still manages to keep you in splits. Ranbir Kapoor has done a wonderful job and his acting skills grow by leaps and bounds. Katrina Kaif is her usual glam-doll angrezi self. Darshan Jariwala and Smita Jaykar as Ranbir’s parents have done an excellent job. It is very obvious that the full film has been shot in a studio but still is quite pleasing to the eye. It has a bit of everything – humour, drama, pathos, fight-scenes, villains with also a bit of spirituality thrown in the form of Jesus Christ making an appearance in the end.

What I did not like about the film:
Nothing, actually.

Verdict: If you are looking for a couple of hours of fun without asking too many questions, then you must watch it.

Rating: ****

* Silly

** Shaky

*** Smart

**** Snazzy

***** Super

Recipe: MOR KUZHAMBU

This is a typical recipe from my Grandma’s kitchen and very simple to prepare. It tastes delicious mixed with steamed rice and along with Kothavarangai Paruppu Usili or Stuffed Brinjals.

Ingredients:

Coconut – 1 cup (grated)
Channa Dal – 2 tsp (soaked for ½ an hour)
Green chillies – 8
Curd – 3 cups
Curry leaves – 2 strips
Coriander seeds – 2 tsp
Cumin seeds – 2 tsp
Salt to taste
Water – as required
Coconut oil – 2 tsp
Rai – 1 tsp
Red chilli – 1 (broken in two)

Method:

Wet grind coconut, soaked channa dal, green chillies, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, a few curry leaves with water to a smooth paste. Run the curd also in the mixer and add to the paste. Add salt and mix well and add water if necessary. Cook the mixture on a slow fire, stirring constantly. Switch off the gas when it comes to a boil. Heat oil in a kadai, crackle the rai and add red chilli and curry leaves to it. Then add this to the yummy mor kuzhambu. Mix well and it is ready to be served.
Optional:

I make this plain. You can add to the taste by adding boiled yams (peeled and cut) or shallow fried ladyfingers to the mor kuzhambu at the end.

Health: THE ELIXIR OF LIFE

Four litres of water a day keeps the doctor at bay and that is the truth.

Eighty percent of our body consists of water. It is very important to maintain the water content in our bodies as it is a very important ingredient for the following:

1. For rebuilding cells – this applies to all kinds of healing processes that happen in our body. Mending is quickened by keeping the water cycle regular.
2. For keeping the blood flowing consistently.
3. Helps digestion.

A minimum amount of water a body requires is about 3-4 litres in a 24-hour day. This is true for children too after they begin to eat solid food. Try to drink more water during the day and comparatively less before you go to sleep.

If you don’t drink enough water, the body tries to find various ways to retain the water already present in our systems. The first couple of signs are that you stop sweating and want to pass less urine. This is the body’s way of defending itself. It refuses to let go of the little it already has stored in the system. This probably will lead to a headache (a tiny hammer that keeps knocking and gets no relief from tablets as you are obviously barking up the wrong tree) and swelling of hands and feet. The few times you may pass urine, it tends to be a dark yellow and you also get a burning sensation.

These are warnings that your body is giving you about the lack of water supply it is getting. And it is the beginning of dehydration. Drinking a few glasses of water will immediately ease this kind of headache. Coconut water will be a great help at this point too. But you carry on with this situation over a few days, it might result in retching when the body refuses intake of even fluids through your mouth. That’s when you need intravenous fluids.

One more problem when you don’t drink enough water is kidney stones. The situation is very simple and logical. The excess salt in the body - not necessarily the common salt we consume, this is also salt that is produced by the body to aid the various chemical processes such as building of cells, digestion of food, etc. - is flushed out from the system through the kidneys. Urine is made up mostly of water and these salts collectively called urea. The more water consumed, the better these salts are cleared from the body. When you drink very less, the salt that is unable to get out slowly solidifies to form kidney stones.

Some common reasons why people drink less water are:

1. People get overweight when they drink a lot of water. This is probably the other way round. When you consume more water, your food intake is reduced and your digestion also improves terrifically. Your skin glows with health.
2. New born babies should consume only mother’s milk and not water. This is just not true. Babies should be given water from the day they are born. Only ensure that it is purified water.
3. Drinking a lot of water means that many visits to the loo. Stop one to avoid the other.
4. Drinking a lot of water makes one bloat. It is actually the other way round. Parts of your body swell up when you drink less water.