Chp 633. Mizo Sesame seed delicacies

"Open Sesame", and the gate to the way Mizos prepare sesame dishes is opened. In this post, I would like to talk about how we Mizos consume sesame seeds.

Sesame seeds are an intrinsic part of our Mizo cuisine, but the way it is prepared has not been adapted in any of our mainstream Indian cuisines because of its gory history. In the year 1659, when emperor Aurangzeb sent his general Abdul Khan to conquer the Ahom Kingdom and Twipra dynasty of present day "North East India", Mizo warriors unified under the great Sailo chieftain Khumliana ambushed a scouting regiment. They beheaded all the soldiers and sent them back to Aurangzeb with sesame plants growing on their heads to indicate that Mizo headhunters will multiply in numbers just like the sesame seeds.

Ok fine, I just made all that up. But I got your attention now, didn't I? :D It's kinda easy to BS to people who may not know much about our history, but in this post, I would like to talk about the awesomeness of the way we Mizos prepare sesame seeds, no BS I promise, and hope I continue catching your attention :)

In our language, we call sesame seeds as "chhawhchhi". Now as I was discussing with my friends about this, many were of the opinion that chhawhchhi and sesame should be termed differently. Because in other parts of India, sesame seeds are usually just added to a dish as condiments, or sprinkled over bread, muffins etc. But in our Mizo society, that is not how we consume sesame seeds.

First of all, we have different types of chhawhchhi, like chhipui, chhitak, chhibung, chhiriat, chhitunglung etc depending on the variety of the plant. They all have slightly different taste and smell, except for chhibung which stands out. It is more whitish in color when compared to the others, and it does not taste very good when grounded like the others, so instead, chhibung is prepared differently.

To make chhibung, the sesame seeds are usually grinded for a long time and after this, hot water is added until it becomes quite semi-solid in state. Then it is kept in a wide bottle or container and sealed shut and placed under sunlight for around 4-5 days (fermentation). After that, this paste is consumed as chutney or mixed with other side dishes. This is known as "chhawhchhi um" where um means fermentation or the act of preservation.

As for the other sesame seeds, they are first roasted until they turn golden black, and then grounded like hell until they become this chunk of awesome tasting and smelling dish.

The above grounded sesame seed is chhitak from Mizoram. Because it is grounded, we call it "chhawhchhi den" where den means grounded.

In most typical Mizo households, you'll find a "suk" and a "sum". A suk (pronounced "sook") is a large wooden pestle, and a sum (pronounced "soom") is a large wooden mortar. Thanks to my blogger friend Muantea who posed with his suk and sum just for this blog post.

The suk and sum are used not just to ground sesame seeds but other edibles like rice, wheat etc as well.

After the sesame seeds are roasted, they are grounded (with occasional salt added to it for taste) until they become chunks like in the first pic above. They stick to each other in chunks because of the oil present in them. The process of grounding it is quite tiring and rigorous, you gotta keep pounding and pounding with your suk for a really long time, but the final outcome is totally worth the trouble.

This dish is a part of our tribal heritage, and it is very popular among us Mizos. You can also just eat it with boiled rice by mixing the two together, making a ball with your fist (rice cake) and munching it. Yummm.

In fact chhawhchhi is so popular in my community that the name has become a part of our idioms and phrases!

For comparison, if people say "chhawhchhi ang" (translation: they are like chhawhchhi) then they are implying that all the things they have to select from are all very similar (considering there is no tastier part in a grounded chhawhchhi plate as they all taste similar because of the hours of grounding) and so it is not possible to choose what they actually want (for example, in terms of scandals, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are like chhawhchhi).

If somebody say "Min be chhawhchhi" (translation: you speak to me like chhawhchhi) then they mean to say that you are speaking to them like a commoner, like you don't treat them any differently (usage can be a girlfriend telling her boyfriend that he was speaking to her as if she was just his friend and not his special someone). However, some of my friends also argued that the phrase "Min be chhawhchhi" is nowadays used to imply that "somebody's talking to them in a very simpleton manner, as if to undermine their intelligence" and they say this is a wrong usage of the phrase.

"Chhawhchhi hlo den" (translation: to do something like you’re grounding chhawhchhi) - This is used to imply a reckless and careless action, since the act of grounding chhawhchhi involves something rough and brute (for example, be careful while carrying that vessel of milk, don’t chhawhchhi hlo den, otherwise you’ll spill it). "Chhawhchhi buh kalh ang" is another usage of the name chhawhchhi to imply how two different entities are mixed up really densely. "Chhawhchhi buh pawlh" is used to denote a specific color that is a mixture of white and black, kinda greyish but not mixed in a uniform fashion.

Another use of the word chhawhchhi is "i hmai a chhawhchhi" (translation: your face is like chhawhchhi) which means that you have a lot of pimples on your face :D And of course as Muantea pointed out, there is another usage where if a woman is said to "chhawhchhi a ei hnem" (translation: she eats a lot of chhawhchhi) it apparently means "she has a… chubby vagina". Lolzzz, I swear I did not make that one up, and I fail to see the relationship between vagina and sesame seeds (maybe except for the "open sesame" part :P ) but I did ask other friends around, and this is apparently true it seems! Whoah! :D

Anyhoo, forget all that and let us come back to the topic :)

Chhawhchhi den. Grounded sesame seeds. So delicious. The ones that I got from Mizoram didn't last long, but I did enjoy them, trying them out with different Mizo dishes.

They went really well with my smoked pork dish boiled with cabbages…

For ingredients of the above dish, if you want to know how to make Mizo style smoked pork dish, you can find your answer here - Chp 390. Mizo Smoked Pork and if you want to know how to make the above potato dish you can read this post - Chp 582. The Bachelor's Potato.

Sometimes I would mix it up a little bit by combining our Mizo dish "bai" with non-Mizo dish like sausages and salamis, and the chhawhchhi den went well with the combination too.

And of course chhawhchhi den was perfect with our "bekang", known to us as fermented soybean but known to my non-Mizo friends as "that stinky stinky beans" :D

If you're new to my blog, you probably won't know that I'm sort of an amateur foodie who loves mixing up different cuisines, especially our Mizo delicacies with other Indian dishes. You can read some of my old blog posts like Food Fusion I, Food Fusion II, Food Porn, My Spiral Sausages etc etc.

One of the first things I tried out was having chhawhchhi den with Upma. OMG they tasted so well together!!!

I regularly eat these "instant" upmas for breakfast, where I just have to pour in hot water and the upma is ready in 2 minutes. The chhawhchhi den really spiced it up!

Here’s another food fusion I tried – North Indian dal khichdi, South Indian chettinad chicken, slices of fresh Bauwens ham from Nature’s Basket, my own egg fry concoction, and chhawhchhi den. It was amaaazing!

Chhawhchhi den too went perfectly with Hyderabadi chicken dum biryani! It was as if this was the perfect match that had been missing all this time :)

Earlier, I mentioned that people in Mizoram sometimes mix just rice and chhawhchhi den alone, and eat them like rice cake. Well I tried it too, but with Kerala rice!

For those unaware, Kerala matta rice is an indigenous rice that is grown mainly in Palakkad district of Kerala, where a lot of my Malayalee friends from School and College are from. As you can see from the photo above (click on all pics to enlarge), the rice is much thicker than normal rice and considered to be extremely nutritious. It also has a smoky and earthy flavor that blends so well with chhawhchhi den!

Speaking of Kerala dishes, I also tried chhawhchhi den with appam and puttu! It was perfect. The gravy dish you see below is Chicken Varutharachathu, made from spicy coconut gravy, and it truly complemented the chhawhchhi den flavor.

Chhawhchhi den went really well with Masala dosa too. Most of you who have only eaten in South Indian restaurants outside Tamil Nadu will not know this, but in TN, whenever you order dosa or idli or even "meals", you will be served this powdery side-dish called "podi". You take that powder, make a hole in the center and pour sesame oil in that and mix it yourself. It is so yumm. Chhawhchhi den perfectly plays that part, especially since it is sesame based too.

A simple bachelor dish like Malabar parathas, dal and egg can also be made tastier with the addition of chhawhchhi den.

Puri bhaji is another dish that truly went well with chhawhchhi den. Roll that soft puri into the yummy gravy and dip it on chhawhchhi den to have a truly fantastic taste.

And hey, I’m not talking about just gravy and dishes, chhawhchhi den was awesome with a couple of other type of food as well.

For example, here is my home-made egg cheese sandwich. Once the bread had been toasted, apply butter on them, add a layer of cheese slice, sprinkle chhawhchhi den on top of the cheese, top it up with egg and voila!

I made a mistake in the above sandwich because I also added Thai bird chilly (which I think is what we Mizos call vai hmarcha). It was so bloody spicy that I didn’t feel the taste of chhawhchhi at all. In the next sandwich, I avoided the chilly and finally got to enjoy the great fusion of cheese and sesame.

I even tried chhawhchhi den with Pork ribs! :D

I ordered Spicy Honey-Mustard Glazed Pork Ribs from Effingut Brewerkz. And man it was bloody expensive. This is why I miss Mumbai. Back in Mumbai, I could order good pork ribs for around 300-400. Here in Pune, hardly a few restaurants serve pork ribs, and the few that do price it above 600 bucks! :(

So, how well did the chhawhchhi den fare with Pork Ribs?

AMAAAAAZZZING :) It went well with the fatty pork, it went well with the mashed potatoes, it went well with the boiled veggies, it went well with everything!

And if you think I’m going overboard with this whole chhawhchhi den thing, check out the next combo I tried :D

Yup that’s right. Pizza baby! :D

Just add some chhawhchhi den on top of the hot steamy cheesy pizza like how you would add oregano and chilly flakes, and then devour it like you’ve never eaten in a thousand years! Sooooo good! So so good!

I wanted to try so many other combos, but unfortunately, I ran out of chhawhchhi den.

So I hope I was able to entertain and inform you about the Mizo delicacy that we call chhawhchhi den. I sincerely believe it should be more popular in mainstream Indian cuisines.

Special thanks to my friends from misual.com and Mizo bloggers whatsapp group who explained different phrases and history of chhawhchhi to me. And of course Muantea for sending me his suk and sum photo, along with explaining the meaning of "women who eat too much chhawhchhi den" which was totally unnecessary :D

Cheers.

Chp 632. Demonetization of 500 and 1000

Two days ago, the Govt of India dictated a very bold and surprising move -  the demonetization of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes!

This was an enormous decision on the Government’s part to combat “black money”. Now all of us have seen enough WhatsApp forwards and news articles and op-ed pieces regarding this action, so I am not getting into the details of it. But this is indeed a very huge step that is affecting all of us.

As for me, I was working late in office, around 8:30 PM, when the news broke out. At first, it sounded like one of those WhatsApp hoaxes your technologically impaired friend would always forward without even attempting to verify if it’s true or not (we all have at least one such person in the different groups we’re in). But then seeing PM Modi announcing it LIVE on a news website portal confirmed how true it was.

I panicked. Not because I have any black money (hell, I don’t even have enough white money), but I knew at once that it was going to be chaotic at the banks where every citizen would be storming to exchange/deposit their 500 and 1000 rupee notes. I could already imagine how long the queues would be.

I wasn’t going to have any of that shit, especially since I had so much work in office.

And so, my friends and I decided to spend all the 500 and 1000 notes we had before the midnight deadline was up!

I had just one 500-rupee note in my wallet :D but like most people, I had some "emergency cash" stashed up in my apartment, just for a rainy day, like what if there was a total bandh or a sudden flood or the Apocalypse happened, you know, normal stuff that could happen any day.

My colleagues took me home and I dug out my hidden stash.

And so, there I was with 13 notes of Rs. 500 that were about to become defunct in the next few hours.

It was already 9:30 PM, most of the shops had closed, and so we rushed to the nearest store that was still open.

And by a big stroke of luck, it happened to be a Wine Shop :D :P

News travelled really fast, and the wine shop owner was already aware of the demonetization announcement. He asked us how many 500 and 1000 notes we had. I told him I had Rs. 6500. We didn’t want to buy so many bottles of different alcohol and so decided to buy just 1 or 2 bottles of something that was a bit expensive. My friends bought Baileys and JDs. I went for the Jägermeister (4400) and two Captain Morgans (2100) which came to exactly 6500 bucks.

Now I never thought I would ever buy a bottle of Jägermeister in my life. I guess demonetize times call for demonetize measures :P

This coming weekend, I am so gonna make a Jägerbomb! :)

Demonetizing the 500 and 1000 notes definitely generated a great amount of noise in social media. Some supported it, others criticized it, others forwarded jokes related to it, and most people were just forwarding information after information regarding what to do, how to do, when to do etc etc. People actually forgot about the ongoing American election.

Not to mention WhatsApp groups and messages, I was also bombarded by the many apps I have installed on my phone, with many grabbing this occasion to take as much advantage as possible. Box8 pushed its customers to make online payment…

Food Panda too immediately offered discounts on online payment.

Faasos on the other hand, I guess, was trying to cash in on both the demonetization and the American election result :D

And ugggh of course the numerous spam push notification from various ecom apps like Jabong, Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal etc were there as well.

Not to mention the push notifications from transportation apps like Ola, Uber, Meru etc

In the midst of all this chaos, I listened to the many issues many of my friends, especially those in Mizoram were facing. With 500 and 1000 notes now considered invalid and with ATMS still not operational across the country (hopefully, they will start working from today or tomorrow), a lot of people went through a tough time.

Like for example, in Mizoram, yesterday, people stood for hours at the bank to exchange or deposit notes. And then they found out that only those who had opened an account in that specific branch were allowed to deposit money. Apart from that, the limit people were allowed to exchange was just one 1000-rupee note (or two 500 notes)! I can imagine how difficult it must be for the common man, especially in Mizoram where most people don’t use plastics.

In a way, I guess I consider myself really fortunate to live in a plastic world. Because of my debit and credit cards, life is still the same for me. I had around 600 rupees in loose change of 100s, 50s and 10s in my wallet after buying the Jägermeister that night, and today, Day 3 of demonetization, I still have around that much.

To go to office, I simply pay using Ola Money if I’m taking an Ola auto or Ola cab. And I already have my Uber account linked to my credit card, so no hassles there as well when it comes to commuting between work and home.

For cigarettes, bread, milk, diet cokes, bisleri etc that I require daily, the General Store below my apartment accepts debit card payment, so taking a puff is just a swipe away.

And for the basic necessities, like vegetables, rice, cooking oil, processed meat, I shop at Nature’s Basket, which is just 10 minutes walking distance from my home, where I don’t even have to pay using my cards because I have these!

Yeah, suddenly my Sodexo passes feel so valuable right now! lolz.

And when it comes to eating lunch or dinner in the office cafeteria, I usually order from Zomato, where I not only have options to pay via debit or credit cards but also through many wallet options like Paytm, PayUmoney, Mobikwik and FreeCharge.

Like for example, this is what I ordered yesterday for lunch (can anyone see the special cooking instructions I requested? :D "Lungtat" is underlined in red because my keypad didn’t recognize it as an English word, lolz).

Zomato had discontinued COD payment option for now because of this demonetization process, but I wasn’t planning on paying by cash anyway.

What I love about Zomato is that, apart from all the different online payment options they offer, I also have a lot of Zomato Credits left that I could spend.

I have accumulated a lot of Zomato Credits because I am a regular customer, and every time there are inconveniences caused to me, like late delivery or wrong order etc, Zomato gifts me some credits lest they lose a valuable customer :)

Finally, the time has come to cash in on all those credits :)

Like I said, I feel lucky to be unaffected by the current situation so far, but I do hope things get better for other people too, especially the daily laborers and people who do not have Aadhar or PAN cards. And based on all the information people have been forwarding, I think this is a storm that will pass by quickly, bringing in a new era of corruption free society (well at least that’s what people are claiming it will do). Let’s not forget that this is a big landmark in our Indian history, and in a way, I feel lucky to be living right in the middle of it. I don’t think we’ll ever see another demonetization of this scale in our lifetime again.

So cheers to you all for now, and hope the ATMs start functioning again soon!

Chp 629. Arsenal Membership

On Saturday, two awesome things happened. First, Arsenal totally outplayed Chelsea with three beautiful goals (much to the pain and dismay of Chelsea ManUtd fans).

Secondly, my AMSC membership renewal kit finally arrived by mail.

For those who are unaware, the AMSC - Arsenal Mumbai Supporters Club is the first Indian Arsenal fan club to be officially recognized by Arsenal FC. You can read more about it at Arsenal's official website here - Arsenal Mumbai.

I used to be a part of the AMSC for many years when I was working back in Mumbai, before I moved to Pune and lost track. This year, I decided to become a part of it again and applied for a renewal.

The membership renewal process was simple, I didn't need any vetting as I still knew most of the admins. I just had to make an online transaction to pay for the renewal fees, and just like that, I was back in the fold again.

I received a couple of official merchandise as well, provided by Arsenal FC.

I like being a registered supporter for Arsenal because the club is close to my heart and this is my way of giving something back to the club. Plus, it kinda gives me bragging rights over those other rival fans whose club won't even know they exist, while my name is proudly there among my club's supporters' list :D :P

Nyah nyaah :P

So, here's to interesting times ahead, as Arsenal prepares itself to clinch the title this year :)

Cheers.

Chp 628. Bring Me To Life - India to Brazil

Four years ago, I wrote this blog post - Those good ol cassette days, reminiscing about the golden era of tape cassettes. In that post, I displayed photos of my cassette collection (which I still have with me to this day).

A few months ago, I received a mail from somebody who stumbled across one of my cassette photos in that blog post via online search. He is a huge fan of Evanescence and he collects their CDs and cassettes from all over the world. He asked me if I was willing to sell my "Fallen" cassette to him, as he didn't have an Indian version (Sony Music) yet.

His name is Helton Araujo, and he's from Brazil. I sent him photos of my cassette again, as requested -

When he found out that my cassette even had a lyrics sheet on the cover, he was even more excited and asked me how much I was willing to sell it to him for.

I mean, I'm not a big fan of Evanescence, I just like some of their songs because of their Gothic influenced style of music. I am a huge fan of Gothic Metal and Symphonic Metal, especially female-fronted bands like Sirenia, Within Temptation, Nightwish, Theatre of Tragedy, Visions of Atlantis, Macbeth, Xandria, Atargatis, Lacuna Coil, Lunatica etc (as obvious from some of my old posts like Sweet Gothic Love and The women in my life).

Though I don't consider Evanescence to be on par with some of my favorite symphonic gothic bands as I treat it to be more of a nu-metal punk rock gothic band, I still like some of their songs, especially "Bring Me To Life", "My Immortal" and "Going Under".

And that is why I was quite honoured to meet a hardcore fan of Evanescence and I truly understood what it was like to be crazy about a particular band. And so I told him I wasn't going to sell the cassette to him, I was going to give it to him for free :)

For me, I would rather see my old worn-out cassette lying in the hands of a genuine collector who treats it with utmost care, rather than collecting dust on my bookshelf.

He couldn't believe it when I told him that. I mean, comon, there must be a catch to it right? Somebody you've just met for the first time online on the other side of the world said he'll give you something for free, pretty much sounds like one of those Nigerian 419 scam cases, tbh. But yeah, he trusted me, and I told him he only had to pay for the courier.

It was then that I learnt a lot of things about sending stuff from India to Brazil by parcel :D

All private couriers like DHL, First Flight etc were super expensive! The minimum cost to send that small piece of cassette to Brazil from India was around INR 6000!

Daymmm.

Hector then told me to send it to him via Post Office, as that would be much cheaper than private couriers. And so during one of our office lunch breaks, my colleague Amit took me to the Post Office here in Pune (just in case Marathi needed to be spoken).

 Took one last photo with my "Fallen" cassette at the Post Office.

We found the parcelling division. There were a couple of people ahead of us, and they were all sending really huge parcels to different destinations, while there I was, with a very small cassette in my hand :D

They asked me to put the cassette in an envelope...

After that, the Post Office clerk typed in a couple of stuff and handed me my receipt. Can you believe it, it costs only just 156 bucks to send that parcel from India to Brazil!!??

Compare that to the INR 6000+ charged by private couriers! I even told Hector there was no need for him to pay for the courier cost. He was happy :)

But the downside to using the Post Office service is that, it takes a lot of time. I sent the cassette to Hector on 10th June. He received it on 24th July. 45 days. But still, for 156 bucks, I still think that was a very good deal.

Hector was happy anyway. He sent me these photos the moment he received the cassette :)

And so just like that, another good deed was done across the globe. I love how technology makes this so simple. Do check out Hector's amazing collection of Evanescence CDs and cassettes - Hector Collection. He has more than 150 of them, and it sure feels good to know my cassette is now among one of them :)

Cheers everyone, and do reach me in case you need any cassette for your collection :D

G'nite.

Chp 627. Reaching 500 Games + Level 50

Today, September 5th, I reached another very big milestone in my gaming career. I now own 500 games on Steam! :D

It wasn't very long ago when I blogged about reaching 250. But before you think I'm spending too much on games, most of the games I have bought were on discount. Big huge discounts. Like for example, the recent Steam Summer Sale. Yeah, I too have my bills to pay just like you.

The thing is, I don't have a social life. And being an introvert, I like to be on my own most of the time. So, I usually spend my weekends watching TV show marathons via hotstar premium subscription. But as I have blogged recently, I didn't have internet at home for the past 3 months. During those dark times, playing games was the only thing that kept me from losing my sanity.

I'm not going to make this post boring by writing a review on some of the new games I have bought. You can check out my profile on Steam - [link] anytime and see my games collection. I'll leave the reviews for another post.

Another big milestone I reached today was reaching Steam Level 50!

And not only that, I have managed to craft exactly 50 badges as of today. Very nice coincidence. :)

I feel kinda nostalgic, and quite accomplished to know that I have bought all these 500 games out of my own hard-earned money. It made me recollect all those years when I used to beg my dad or mom over and over again to buy me the latest Nintendo or Sega game cartridge out in the market, and I would throw a tantrum or sulk in a corner if they didn't buy it for me :D

I wish I could go back in time and bitch-slap the young me and say, "Listen son, you wanna play Contra or Mario bros, you better work your ass out. Work hard and years later, you can buy any game you want." and then I disappear in a puff of smoke while Britney's song "Work bitch" plays in the background :P

To keep this post short, yeah to me, collecting and playing different games is important, especially in my line of work. I like playing all sorts of games ranging from Casual to Action to Strategy to Tower Defense to RPG to MMOs to FPS to Simulation and so on (I think the only genre I don't play are car racing games :D ).

What is important is, at the end of the day, it makes me love my work. I don't hate waking up early to go to office every morning or staying back late in office after work. And that is a luxury most working professionals don't have.

So until my next post then, see you all, cheers.

Chp 626. My First 10 Perfect Games

So yesterday, I reached a milestone on my Steam account. I now have 10 Perfect Games! Woohooo!



A "Perfect Game" is when you complete an entire game, while unlocking every single achievement badge within that game. Once you have unlocked all achievements, then you get a "Perfect game" status.

Perfect Games are usually hard to achieve, depending on the mechanics of the game you're playing. In some games, you must play over and over again to unlock certain achievements, while in others you have to do a very difficult combo move and stuff to unlock an achievement. I have played more than 500 hours in "Team Fortress 2" and a few other games, but I am nowhere near a perfect game. And for games like Age of Empires II (on steam), one game analyst even did an extensive research and concluded that you must grind and play every civilization for at least 7000 hours if you want to get a perfect game! That is almost an entire year of continuous gameplay! Whoah.

And of course, there are games where it is impossible to get a perfect game, not because there is one last remaining achievement that is extremely difficult to unlock. In such games, you get an achievement simply for "pre-ordering" the game. Pre-ordering is when you buy a game before it has been launched. And so when you buy the game after it has been released and you play for weeks and unlock all the achievements, there will still be one last remaining achievement you cannot unlock, just because you didn't pre-purchase it. And so, no "Perfect Game". Sucks huh?

Anyway, I hope you get the gist of what a "Perfect game" means now…

Of course there are games where you can easily get all achievements, usually the cheaper ones, but I am not going to include those here. In this post, I want to talk about the 10 games where I unlocked all achievements but at the same time got an immense gameplay experience from. Also, I have included the time it took me to get a "Perfect Game" status, but if you're an "achievement hunter", then don't go by that number because you'll be able to do it much faster, I was just playing it at my own casual free leisure time (and in some cases, I have left the game on pause while attending a meeting).


1. LYNE

Total achievements unlocked: 33/33
Total time played: 19 hours
Game link: Lyne
Cost of game: INR 169

I'm a huge fan of puzzle games, and LYNE hit the sweet spot for me because it was a very interesting game with a minimalistic design. It is a mobile game ported to PC. I had to rack my brains for a long time trying to figure out the solutions. In this game, there are different colored shapes that you must all connect within a given grid, while making sure they don't intersect and at the same time, all paths are utilized. Tough AF.

And the best part is, every achievement is a letter, so once you get them all, you can spell out a name using it :D And since I wanted to use "MIZORAM" in my "achievement showcase" (as you can see in the pic above), I had to freaking play till the last level to unlock "Z",and that was how I got a perfect game from playing this game. Almost 20 hours! Totally worth the money spent.




2. Hexcells

Total achievements unlocked: 6/6
Total time played: 2 hours
Game link: Hexcells
Cost of game: INR 169

Next up is Hexcells. Any Minesweeper fans out there? This is one game you're really gonna love. It is much better than Minesweeper, and you have to think real hard in many scenarios. In this minimalistic puzzle game, there are a couple of hex tiles and you must figure out whether a tile must be highlighted or not based on the clues given. I unlocked all achievements in just 2 hours, and it was a very pleasant experience, especially because of the soothing ambient soundtrack.




3. Hexcells Plus

Total achievements unlocked: 6/6
Total time played: 3 hours
Game link: Hexcells Plus
Cost of game: INR 169

This is the second installment of the above game, and it is as wonderful as the first, though, maybe it's just me, but I felt this version had a lot more of "chance" situations, where the clues given were not enough to determine whether the hex tile should be highlighted or not. But then again, that's a subjective opinion. Completed the game in 3 hours.


4. Hexcells Infinite

What sets this third batch of the Hexcells series a bit different from the earlier two is that it has an infinite mode! And the last achievement to unlock in order to get a perfect game status is to win at least 60 of the 1,000,000,000 randomly generated levels, so yeah, it took me much longer to unlock all achievements, as you can see from my stats below.

Total achievements unlocked: 6/6
Total time played: 5 hours
Game link: Hexcells Infinite
Cost of game: INR 169


5. Hook

Total achievements unlocked: 1/1
Total time played: 2 hours
Game link: Hook
Cost of game: INR 58

Another mobile game ported to PC, this puzzle game entertained me for a good 2 hours. In this game, you must carefully select which line or section goes in first. It is quite simple, but not like "lame" simple. I found it very relaxing and it was worth the $1 I paid for this game. Once you complete the game in about an hour, you will unlock the one single achievement to get a "Perfect Game".




6. Gunpoint

Total achievements unlocked: 42/42
Total time played: 10 hours
Game link: Gunpoint
Cost of game: INR 369

Spent 10 hours on this game, and I just love it! It took me a while to understand the basic gameplay (lack of tutorial), but once I understood how things work, it was amazing playing this game. Gunpoint is a stealth puzzle game where you must steal items and stuff, based on the storyline, without being detected by the cops. And the next mission or story actually changes based on your reply to the conversation (decision-based game). That is why I replayed many missions to get different outcomes. And some of the achievements are really really funny as well. :)

Also, I received a free hat for "Team Fortress 2" because of this game :D




7. Thomas Was Alone

Total achievements unlocked: 35/35
Total time played: 4 hours
Game link: Thomas Was Alone
Cost of game: INR 369

What a beautiful, awesome and relaxing game!!! The story narration is well executed too, and taking that into account along with the ambient music and minimalistic design, I must say this is definitely on the Top 5 of my favorite games. If you really think about it, it is just a simple platformer puzzle game, with basic controls and gameplay. But the sound, design, character and narration turned it into a totally mind-blowing game.

Trust me, I never thought I could get so emotional about geometric shapes before I played this game! :)




8. To The Moon

Total achievements unlocked: 1/1
Total time played: 4 hours
Game link: To The Moon
Cost of game: INR 369

Speaking of being emotional, here is my favorite game this year. I'm not going to talk much about it here as I had already written an entire blog post about this tear-jerking super amazing game - Mizohican: To The Moon. All I'm saying is, if you haven't played this game yet, your loss.

You'll get a "Perfect Game" by completing the game as this game has only one achievement, but trust me, this is not about getting a perfect game status. Just play it and get onboard the Feels train, you won't regret it. 




9. The Purring Quest

Total achievements unlocked: 23/23
Total time played: 13 hours
Game link: The Purring Quest
Cost of game: INR 369

Another very cute and casual platformer game. My only criticism about this game is, the controls are a bit hard using a keyboard. But the story line and ambient soundtrack (which has a very similar "To The Moon" vibe) make up for the hard control system. You play the role of Kimchi the cat, and if you are a cat lover, this is one game you're definitely going to love! As you can see from my stats, it took me quite some time to unlock all achievements. Some of the hidden rooms were really interesting as well.




10. A Bird Story

Total achievements unlocked: 1/1
Total time played: 5 hours
Game link: A Bird Story
Cost of game: INR 299

This is the second game from the people who made "To The Moon" above. Perhaps because the previous game was so great that I wasn't actually impressed with this one. It is the story-based game about a boy who befriended an injured bird. The soundtrack is nice (but not as great as TTM) and there are some funny and emotional parts in the story (again, not as deep as TTM), but it’s a cute game, and I completed the game in less than 2 hours (don't be fooled by the 5 hours given above, this is one of the many games where I left the game on pause while attending a meeting or call conference).




And with that, I now have 10 perfect games. I do recommend all the 10 games above, not just for the achievement part but they really entertained me well.

Until the next update, cheers.

Chp 625. Reliance Broadband - terrible ordeal

From the headline, you can make out this is going to be a rant post. Now I usually don't write such posts on my blog, but the treatment Reliance has been giving me is way past the border of tolerance and understanding.

Yes, there were times I received bad services, be it from a restaurant or an ecom delivery service. But you know, as most Indians, I just shrugged it off. Chalta hai. I'm too busy with other things to waste my time giving a bad review or writing a blog post about it. Plus, it's not like we always get a bad service, so we just sweep such incidents under the carpet.

But what Reliance is doing to me is torture. I'm not talking about a few days or a week or a month of no internet connectivity. It has been THREE months since they stopped giving me net, and the worst part was, they sent their goons, the so called "collection agents", telling me to make payments for the months I didn't have any internet! But I'll come to that later. Here's how my ordeal with Reliance started…

First of all, it took around FIVE months for Reliance to finally give me a connection, after I had already registered and paid the advance and registration fees! You can read more about the pain and trouble I went through trying to get a broadband connection in Pune here - Home is where the Wi-Fi is. Yeah those could be the early warning signs, but if you're suggesting I change my ISP, please read the above link first.

Even after I finally got the connection, there were times I didn't have internet for 3-4 days a month, but hey I'm not complaining about those. I was happy with the 4 mbps connection, it was pretty fast and smooth. And the fact that I took an unlimited plan was perfect for my browsing behavior. For that, I am actually very impressed with Reliance.

The nightmare started in June.

I didn't have internet from 7th June, and like other times, I complained the next day. Complaint number - 246682613. Oh by the way, I have taken down every single complaint number because I like to keep track of things. Before this incident, there's a list of more than 20 complaint numbers.

Finally I had internet back on 13th June.

And then on 17th June my connection was stopped and I complained again.

Complaint number - 246998577

And like before, they quickly solved it and by June 19th, I had internet again.

But that was just one day of bliss. On 20th June, my connection stopped once more, and I complained the next day.

Complaint number - 247111968

And from that day onwards, till today, I don't have any internet!

I complained almost every single day, and I was always told the same thing - "Sir, it is a work in progress".

And if you're a Reliance customer, you'll know the frustrating experience of trying to call up their help-line.

I dial 180030007777.

It will ask for language selection, I type "2" to select English.

It will then ask for what type of service and I type "1" to say it is regarding internet service.

It will then ask for what type of customer I am and I type "1" to say I am an existing postpaid customer.

After that it asks me to enter my customer id, but THAT is always wrong somehow, and so at this section, I just enter 9# (any number followed by the # key) and it will say it is an invalid number (even if I enter my actual customer id followed by # key, it will say incorrect, so it is much faster typing just 9#), and at the second attempt I enter 9# again, and again it tells me it is wrong and finally at the third attempt I enter 9# again. After that it tells me that I have exceeded the maximum number of tries, and then finally forwards me to a call executive.

And that's not the end of it. Once my call is forwarded to a call exec, I'm usually made to wait for around 5 minutes, sometimes even 10-15 minutes, as I am on queue because "all our customer service executives are busy at the moment", while listening to that very irritating and ear-piercing Reliance theme music.

And when a call executive finally does pick up my call, 80% of the time it is somebody who speaks only Hindi, in spite of me selecting "2" (English) in the language option.

Yeah I had to do that almost every night, speaking in broken Hindi about my issue. So you can imagine how frustrated I am with this now.

And I always got the same reply, "Sir, it is a work in progress". And every time I called, I would request a call-back from their engineer to explain to me what exactly was wrong with my connection, and yet I never received a call from their office.

And to rub salt into my wounds, Reliance started spamming me (SMS and inbox) at the end of June asking me to pay my June bill, even though I had connectivity for around 10 days only. I called up the help-line and asked them if I was to pay my bills, would I start having service again, but they said no need to pay because it was still a "work in progress".

And then came the month of July, and the entire month I was calling up the help-line almost every day again, to know the status of my internet connection.

Towards the end of July, I received not just June bill but July bill payment notification as well, even though the connection was still not restored!!!

And then on 30th July, Saturday, somebody rang my doorbell. When I opened it, there were these two huge mean looking guys at my door, asking me why I haven't paid my Reliance bills of two months!! They didn't directly threaten me, but they spoke in a very passive-aggressive tone, like as if I was some wanted criminal. I explained to them that I didn't have internet connection since June, and they abruptly told me that it was because I hadn't paid my bills, and the moment I paid my bills, my connection would be restored.

In my case, this was a chicken-egg conundrum. I need internet to make my payment, but I will get internet only after I make my payment. But I didn't want to argue with those two thugs. I didn't even raise the fact that they told me to pay for the month of July too. I didn't want to be roughened up as I am living alone, so I told them I will then go to office right away to pay my bill online. And then they said I better do that, or they will come back the next day (Sunday) to check up on me again.

Scary unbelievable shit indeed!

This is what I hate about Pune. I don't know any important people here. Back in Bangalore, we used to have Pu HT. Sangliana, who was the Commissioner of Police back then, so he was always there to protect us from such harassments or exploitations. And in Mumbai, I was an executive member of NEHM (North East Helpline Mumbai) with a direct line to many senior police officers, so I had people I could run to for help. But here in Pune, there's nobody I know who can help me out.

And so, on that same Saturday afternoon after the two guys left, I rushed to office even though it was a holiday, logged in to my employee account and paid my two months Reliance bill through online transaction.

I slept a bit peacefully that night.

The next day, Sunday, thank God those two guys didn't turn up again. Just to be on the safer side, I placed a couple of my kitchen knives on my bookshelf, my dining table, behind my TV, etc in case they turned up again and things became unruly. Like I mentioned earlier, those two guys didn't threaten me or abuse me, but I have heard many stories of such "collection agents" from friends, about how they broke a person's leg and stuff, and I promised not to go down without a fight even if I was outnumbered.

Luckily, they didn't come. But unfortunately, neither did the internet. Since it was a Sunday, I assumed I would get back my connection on a working day.

And then Monday came and went. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, all came and went, and still no internet. Whatever happened to that, "your connection will be restored the moment you pay your bills"?

Finally I called up the help-line again, only to be told that my issue was still a "work in progress"!!!

You can imagine how angry I must be right then.

I asked them why they sent those two guys then, and why made me pay for the months I didn't even have internet. The call executive guy nonchalantly replied, "Saar, the amount will be readjusted on your next bill"! Wow, what audacity.

He assured me that my issue was almost fixed (same old excuse), and that my next bill would be calculated and adjusted based on the months I didn't have internet.

Well, August month is now almost about to end, I still don't have internet, and just yesterday, I received the freaking bill for August, asking me to pay for this month as well!!!

This is too much. And I'm sure if I don't pay the above bill, certain collection agents will pay me a visit again? Maybe I'll even end up in a hospital if I refuse to pay this time? Or prison, depending on the outcome of our conflict? How do I get out of this mess? Is it even legal to do this, first of all - not providing service that you subscribed to for 3 straight months, and then forcing people to pay for the service that was not rendered?

In the 1.5 years that I've lived here, I really got to love Pune a lot, but this is one part of my journey I definitely want to erase from memory. It is unpleasant, obnoxious and at best, threatening. Horrible experience indeed. And all my online premium subscriptions to Hotstar, Netflix etc are being wasted every month because of this, not to mention missing the last two episodes of GoT, the entire Olympics, and football matches that I paid extra to watch via online subscriptions :(

I have experienced many bad services across different sectors, but nothing beats this current hell I am in.

And the fact that I am not staying at some isolated locality or upcoming neighborhood but right in the heart of Koregaon Park, a supposedly prime and upmarket area of Pune, and still having to face all these problems truly sucks…

UPDATE 24th Aug: Less than 2 days after I published this post, Reliance called me up, and today their technician came and solved my issue. I now have broadband again after 3 long months, thanks to this post and all your shares. Cheers :)

Chp 624. Reunion Videos

And so that was it. Our batch reunion concluded, and it wasn't easy writing about them! Here are the links and the number of word count for each reunion post I have updated the past 3 weeks -

Chp 619. The Reunion: 1273 words, 19 photos.

Chp 620. Reunion Day 1 + 2: 3529 words, 142 photos.

Chp 621. Reunion Day 3: 2055 words, 175 photos.

Chp 622. Reunion Day 4: 2465 words, 152 photos.

Chp 623. Reunion Day 5 + 6: 1949 words, 50 photos.

That's a total of 11,271 words and 538 photos uploaded!

Dayyymm I should have submitted my thesis or something for that :P

Anyway, enough words have already been said and more than enough photos have been uploaded, so in this post I will just put up two videos, taken and edited by the awesome Stapp, who also played a huge role in organizing our reunion and pumping up different people and finally convincing many of them to turn up for the reunion.

Just enjoy. And cheers :)