The Bird Flew?

Reading a lot of student forums I sometimes find it difficult to understand the alpha-numeric code aka SMS lingo by which these youngsters communicate. Primary inference - Me getting old!! But lets leave unpleasant thoughts aside shall we!

So when I recently read about bird flu and stuff; for a moment I thought even journalism was going the SMS way. But thank the powers that be I can still read and make sense of some written stuff at least for the time being.

According to www.sciencebase.com, bird flu symptoms can include fever, cough, sore throat, muscle aches and headaches. Ultimately it leads to breathing difficulties, pneumonia (phew!) and is potentially fatal (eeks!).

So there I was doing my weekly shopping when I came across frozen chicken kheema by "Real Good". Having never had the courage to cook non veg stuff I would have normally moved on. But then my well meaning friends had been recently going on and on about how chicken is very easy to cook and also overcome by my carnivorous urges, I thought I'd take a chance this time around.

Took home one pack and sought help from the same set of experienced well meaning friends to give me step-by-step instructions on how to cook some really tasty kheema. Wash the meat, sautee the onions.. add a tomato..some ginger garlic paste.. curry leaves... (this was my usual routine) now add meat,pepper, chilli powder and cook for 20-25 minutes and you have lovely chicken kheema. Very simple!

So followed these instructions and soon the meat was gurgling in refined oil and I came over to watch Chennai Super Kings (Go Chennai Go!) thrash some hapless opponents. 30 minutes later the meat was ready and it did look quite tasty and tempting. Patting myself on the back I quickly put some on my plate and hurried over to the match.

My first mouthful made me forget the match altogether. It was rather sweet and maybe a little raw! I took another tentative mouthful. Initial diagnosis confirmed! Match now forgotten. I called my friends and presented the scenario to them. "Did you put salt?" - Of course I did. What a question to ask an expert cook?. "Did you put enough pepper?" - Obviously! "Did you cook for 20 minutes at least" - Well no. Actually 30 minutes. Unable to solve the puzzle and grateful that they were not invited to sample the results of my culinary expertise they gave up one by one and went back to Chennai Super Kings.

When all chips are down and you do not know what to do, you call the one person who knows you inside out - your Mom.

Mom found out what was wrong in 2 minutes flat. She just heard me out and told me "You dumb budhoo! You must not have poured enough water". Well I never poured any water!. No one had told me that.

When I called my well-meaning friends they went on the defensive telling me that since I claimed to be the great cook that I am I must have known something as basic as this. Grrr!

Hey one sec... I can feel something happening... I think am a little feverish. There is also some cough and my head is aching. My throat... my throat is sore and ouch my muscles ache too. I can't type anymore...You there...Hello?? there? Any idea whats wrong with me?

Guess I should call Mom!