Deepavali. Crackers. Fireworks.

From time immemorial – I mean circa mid-1990 CE of course – a propaganda against crackers (aka fireworks or pattasu, or as true bloods of Chennai say – dabbas) has been going around. Initially it was all about child labour and then it moved on to pollution and by the time it was 2014 CE, people started questioning whether it is mentioned in the scriptures etc.

The Crackerbans (see how I made those wanting a ban on crackers sounds like Talibans) who want a ban on crackers, talk about air pollution, noise pollution, the suffering of animals etc. Ardent defenders of bursting crackers quote a gazillion hymns and shlokas that have references to crackers and they also quote ancient books written circa 4^th Century CE as well. And then they always highlight the aspect of all such queries coming up only about rituals and practices related to Hindu festivals.

Let me also pitch in with my 10 paise in this debate.

You see, Deepavali is one Hindu festival wherein the religious element is quite less. As in, there is no elaborate poojai to be performed. The only possible stringent rule is that of taking an oil bath at 5 AM (or even earlier according to some) and then wearing new clothes. There is no rule for the neiyvedhiyam to be offered – any sweet and any snack is permitted. In any number of varieties; in any quantity. And therein lies the catch.

You are starting the day at an obscene time of 5 AM. And have an oil bath. This naturally invigorates you and what you see in front of you are a wide range of sweets and snacks. You start consuming them in excess. And you consume some more. And some more afterwards. So, basically, you have now consumed a high quantity of sugar and salt, and this in effect is a lot energy which has to be exhausted.

What can you do now? It is usually the winter season in North India and the rainy season in most parts of South India. The avenues to do physical work are reduced. And this is why the ancient folks created this activity of bursting crackers. To burst crackers, you have to bend down and up. You also have to move quickly after igniting the “thiri” (wick). You feel elated when the cracker works as expected. All this helps you burn the calories you have consumed.

Now comes the other important reason. As the earlier ramblings mentioned, you have consumed too much of high calorie food; Lots of oily items as well. Having consumed lots of sweets and savouries also gives you this satiated feeling, and due to weather conditions, you don’t drink that much water. In this scenario, it is but natural, that one starts developing flatulence inside their digestive tract.

Your gut is working the back channel to let this gas out of the body. It is also well known that the smell of the output is inversely proportional to the noise of the output. You can let go some gas quietly, it will clearly make it uncomfortable for all in the room; in fact, you even have to act as if you smell something and yet not be the first one to do so. To avoid all this drama, the better option is to let it out loudly. But this then takes the secrecy out of the equation. And the society is still not evolved to accept a loud fart as a socially acceptable bodily function; even within families to an extent.

This is why the elders devised this strategic method of bursting crackers. Imagine the same situation detailed above and there is a 1000-wala being burst by your neighbour. You can actually sync up your loud output to that sound and none would be the wiser; except you of course. And over the years of growing, you would be easily able to sync up your efforts with those bursting crackers in the next street as well.

So, you Crackerbans, please first fight for the rights of humans to fart in public and we will then think about not bursting crackers.

Double Standards in India

Bursting of fireworks is "regulated" for Deepavali and even the Supreme Court says that one cannot burst beyond 10 PM. Or the fireworks should not have x chemical or y composition etc.
All this is is ostensibly to prevent air and noise pollution.
Fair deal.

But why is there NO BAN for all the revelry that takes place in the residential localities like Besant Nagar. There are scores of misguided souls who are driving around like maniacs on bikes and cars. Doesnt that lead to air pollution?
And then the noise from the beach - noise from vehicles and also from the cacophonous sounds emanating from drunken hooligans - this is heard even 200-300 metres away from the beach. Isnt this noise pollution?

God save this country and the idiots living in it.

She hit me

I came home last night and didn't allow my mother to see my face, lest she see the mild reddening in my cheeks due to the effect of being hit by a girl in office. But I couldn't hide it for a long time and she caught me at the dinner table.

Mother: What happened to your right cheek? Why is it reddened? Did someone hit you?

She was clearly getting too excited and tensed, so I didn't want to prolong the discussion.

Me: Yes, someone did hit me.

She got agitated and asked who it was. I had to tell her that it was a girl. Needless to say my mother got more intrigued and asked who that girl was? I had to tell her that it was a girl in my team who had hit me. I then showed her my left cheek and admitted that she hit me there as well.

My mother was now almost livid. Her emotions ranged from feeling sorry for her son being hit, angry that someone had actually hit him and worried as to what her son would have done to a girl for her to hit him. She asked me if I had teased that girl.

I told her the fact that I hadn't teased her at any stage and such thoughts never enter my mind.

Mother: Then why did she hit you? I can clearly see finger lines on your face.

I told her that she actually asked for my permission before hitting me. Seeing the lines of confusion in my mother’s face, I clarified further that she even hit my friend after taking his permission.

Now my mother was basically flummoxed. She was getting clueless about what I was telling her. Then I decided that it was time I told her the full truth.

Me: Amma, it is Holi today and we had a celebration in the campus. The only North Indian girl in my team took our permission to colour and she used the pink powder to hit our face with it.

My mother laughed out loud at herself, for getting so hyped up over this silly event and the sillier narration. 

Lemon Squash recipe

Soak lemon (4 numbers) in water for 12 hours.
Remove lemon and drain the water.
Place one lemon...

Smog in Chennai on 13th Jan 2010

Pictures taken at the Kathipara Grade Separator and sections of GST near the airport.

While this doesn't look too bad on camera, the impact was much more when seen live! But in any case, it was not as bad as in 2008.

A brief history of the events in my life in the last 3-4 weeks

* Picked up a neck sprain in the first week of October. Self-medication with pain relieving gels and ointments didn't work. An Ortho' prescribed tablets, but to no avail. Registered 5 days of leave in October alone. Second opinion took me to a scan centre for an MRI. After the wallet became thinner by Rs.5,500 an obvious fact was documented - I am fat! Doing some basic stretch exercise which have definitely alleviated the pain. I am better.
Root cause - posture while operating the computer and while traveling.

* MRI scan is a 15 minute torture on the ears. The noise that the machine makes is very loud and quite irritating. And while I was inside the chute, I somehow felt nervous.

* Have been going more often to the office closer home to avoid the long distance commute.

* Had a rather quiet birthday. Some friends and team-members did organise a cake-cutting event in the evening and I had a tough time convincing them to stick to my principles of not wasting cake by smearing it on the face.

* Celebrated a very quiet Deepavali, though the officials seemed to hold a different opinion. Either I became deaf or my town has been moved out of Chennai!

* Seeing many resignations in the company at all levels. 2 in my team have quite in Sep-Oct. I have a feeling that a couple of more are due.

* I cleared all the exams mandated at work for a promotion and have been given strong indications that there are no slots for my band of employees! If it is available, I am not eligible. If I am eligible, it is not available!

* Learnt that murungaikkai is used in an oorugaai.

* Attended an awesome spectacle called Annaabhishekham at the Ratnagirishwarar temple near home. Refer pictures here.





* The rainy season finally started in Chennai last week. Pretty heavy rain. Saturday was non-stop. Memories of last year, when we witnessed a similar incessant downpour, came up.

* Nothing else of any significance. Hope to resume blogging with earlier frequency at the earliest. Have been staying away just to avoid spending long hours in front of the computer.

Quiet a Deepavali this time

I know that Raghu feels otherwise, and quite strongly at that, but I am very sure that this Deepavali yesterday, was easily one of the quietest (Raghu - I got the spelling right) I have experienced in recent times.

I may not have mentioned in these annals before, but the bursting of fire-crackers in my street is very much on the lower end of the scale. And this time around, with me taking a total back-seat due to my neck strain, there was hardly anything done in my street. If only the Neel Metal Fanalca folks come to sweep the roads, they are likely to think that my street was imported from some other country!

And even in the neighborhood, there is usually a lot of fanfare and celebrations. There are many vedis - sarams and bombs and single vedis - that are burst and usually it all starts by 5:30 AM for sure. Not this time.

Only on Saturday night did I see an increase in the festivities. Even then, it was not like usual. Usually, when I watch TV on D-Day, I'd have to increase the volume frequently to compensate for the noise outside. Not this time.

I dont think that an entire neighborhood suddenly woke up to the idea of pollution, global warming etc. I like to think that people are clearly thrown away by the exorbitant price tag associated with fireworks. And in these difficult economic times - I still don't think we have come out of the slump - the priorities of people has clearly changed and the consumption of fireworks has reduced. The age-old adage of "Kaasa Kari Aakkaadha" has been adhered to.

From my side, I didn't partake much in bursting of fireworks for 2 reasons. One, I have not recovered from my neck strain and didn't want to risk playing with fire-crackers. And two - sheer boredom.

Instead, I spent the whole day in front of the TV. There were 2 Tammu movies telecast and there was also an interview of hers at 10 PM. So I was there on my sofa from the afternoon till night, with frequent breaks for munching, bathroom visits and one solid break of 30 minutes when the channel itself had a break for News. That period was used mainly to watch my parents burst the left-over crackers of last year and then me taking a much needed shower.



When I finally called it a day, I am sure that my sofa and TV heaved a collective sigh of relief!

I was warned by a Security guard in a mall

First of all, hope you all had a good Vijayadashami.

Second of all, if you thought that I was warned for leering at women or moving around in a suspicious manner or whatever, well you have to wait till I fill out the historical events leading to the said warning.

Today marked the opening of a new mall in Chennai which claims to be one of the biggest in Chennai in some category or the other! It is the Ampa Skywalk mall.

There was an article in The Hindu a few days back about the planned inauguration on Vijayadashami, which is today. Raghu and I christened this mall as pu.pu.ka - Putham Pudhu Kadamai. For those of you who dont remember, pa.ka is Pazhaya Kadamai and represents Spencers and pu.ka is Pudhu Kadamai and stands for City Center.

Anyways, we went to the mall and found that the place was very much under construction. That is to say, the infrastructure was ready, but the shops weren't. Kinda like the cliched phrase "Operation success; Patient dead".

The whole place was basically getting ready with a dais and arranged chairs - a clear indication that some kinda formal inauguration meeting was going to be held. My boss' husband is an architect and worked on this mall. After reaching the mall, I checked with her to find out if any celebrity was expected for this function. She said that Maddy could show up. I asked if Tamanna was expected and she couldn't quite confirm that.

Since there then was no point in staying there, we left the place and decided to head to Ispahani Center for a change. While we were there, Raghu and his wife went to one of the fancy-high-priced-up-market leather goods shop to look out for something. I stepped in to the shop and felt totally out of place. So I came out and decided to wait for them.

While waiting outside, I was leaning on the rail that they have put up to avoid people falling into the atrium. And I was leaning by resting my body against the rail and also had my right leg up on one of the lower rails.

A security guard was walking around and he came towards me. It was clear that he was going to say something and I knew he that he was going to say something objectionable. And he came near me and said "Railings-ல கால் வெக்க கூடாது Sir" (Don't keep your foot on the railings Sir). I asked him why? He only smirked and said "வெக்க கூடாதுன்னு சொல்லிருக்காங்க Sir" (They have said that one should not keep foot on the railings Sir) and then moved away.

I was in a relatively good mood and took my foot away. Luckily Raghu also came out by then and we headed out.

And, that was the warning I got from a Security guard in a mall.

Once again, wish all of you had a good Vijayadashami today!

இனிய தமிழ் புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்

End of post!

Holi Jimmy version 2009

I wrote about this last year and it is no different this year.
These pictures were taken only this evening.

Choose your greeting

Since today and the next couple of days have a lot of religious and social and political significance, I request you to choose one or more or all of the greetings listed below:
1. இனிய பொங்கல் நல்வாழ்துக்கள்
2. Happy Sankaranthi
3. Happy மாட்டுப் பொங்கல்
4. இனிய தமிழக அரசு புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்

Deepavali 2008

It's Deepavali time again (technically its tomorrow morning in Chennai). And thankfully, the State Minister in charge of providing Power Cuts seems to have slipped up on his work and we have had uninterrupted power for the past 2 days. What this means is of course, we all get to switch on all the lights and thereby increase the power consumption. Which would then warrant our dear Minister to get back to work!

Anyways, after the great fire-cracker bursting last year, I decided to cool it off this time. But my mother insisted that we have to burst something at least for the sake of shaasthram. So, I went out in the afternoon with my father and got some dappaas for Rs.1340. As is my habit with the purchase of fireworks, here is the itemised breakup:
1. 1000 wala - 1 - 330.00
2. Big Flower pot - 3 box - 180.00
3. 7cm Sparklers - 10 box - 120.00
4. Green Flower Pot Tablet - 1 box - 60.00
5. Zamin Chakkar - 2 box - 160.00
6. 56 wala - 10 pcs - 280.00
7. Bijili - 1 pkt - 40.00

At first I thought the prices had gone up from last year. But after reading my earlier posts, I don't see any significant increase. But again, I bought most of it in TUCS store this time and that would surely give quite a bit of saving.

Ok, time to go and burst a few of 'em.

And dear readers, here's wishing you a Very Happy and Safe Deepavali.

Krishna Mukunda Murraray

Since I am returning to blogging after a small gap, I thought I'd resume duties with a post on how Krishna Jayanthi was celebrated at home this year.

We had a really low key celebration this time, mainly because we didn't want my mother to exert herself into the laborious chores involved in the whole pujai. She has recovered well after the cataract surgery on her left eye earlier in the month, but the Doctor has advised her not to do too much of labor intensive tasks.

So much so, that she herself dragged me out of my TV-trance state in the sofa and made me draw the "communist kolam". And I must admit that I created quite a good kolam. This was it:


You may wonder as to why there was a big deviation in the path taken by 'Kuzhandhai Krishnan'. I didn't want to create any illusion that the Lord walked around in a 'thathaka bithaka' fashion like a baby. It was just a case of me choosing a wrong destination and then being reminded that I had to continue the walk to a different place.

But anyways, I went one step ahead (sic) and traced the path of the Lord right from the main door at the ground floor, through the stairs, joined them to the set that my mother had drawn from the first floor entrance till the puja room and then continued from the puja room till the puja spot!







This work earned me a lot of brownie points and totally negated the battle of Kurkshetra that my mother and I had earlier in the day. :)

I have not converted my Tamizh New Year and other points that don't really warrant separate posts

A couple of months ago, the "illustrious" (sic) Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, introduced this new bill,seeking to change the Tamizh New Year to the first date of the Thai month in stead of the ages old tradition of Chithirai month.

Ordinary folk can afford to make errors due to senility, but letting such individuals be a head of state is bound to cause such official jokes. While he may have his own linguistic chauvinistic reasons to make this change, he basically ignored the religious sentiments of the Tamizh speaking Hindu community.

I don't want to get into more details of this bill which will soon become a law, but to me, my Hindu New Year falls in the Chithirai month. I am least bit bothered about what the Government decides is the New Year. My religion, my tradition, my culture, my customs dictate that my New Year starts with the Chithirai month and I am not planning to deviate from it!

Anyways, this puthaandu started on a relatively low tone at home. The reason was just that with all the painting work going on, things are still not in place (quite literally). So in terms of the Vishu kanee, it was nowhere like usual and definitely not like last time.

And this must be one holiday that I have spent at home without watching much of TV. Once again, the blame is on the painting job and it was only in the late afternoon that I reconnected my Tata Sky to my TV.

Other than that, I have spent quite a lethargic Sunday. Of course, I washed two loads of clothes and still have some left over, but other than that, I didn't do much at home. I did help around in re-hooking many of the screens and putting them back in place. But in general, I guess I was probably I am a bit tired after my outstanding performances of scoring 56,51,64 and 64 in consecutive Hoops games at City Center. I now have around 350 tokens and from next week onwards, I can probably think of redeeming them. I bet its gonna be QUITE embarrassing having to exchange tokens in the midst of kids, but just because I am bigger than some of them, shouldn't make me feel out of place right?

Also, my newspaper agent came by to collect the first month's prepaid coupons for my Times of India subscription. He says it will start tomorrow. Eagerly waiting for it!

On a sad note, the father of one of my superiors in office (in the same unit, but not my line manager) passed away yesterday - may his soul rest in peace. I didn't see the message he sent me and only when a friend of mine called me later, I came to know about it. We couldn't visit him yesterday and today being the festival day, we couldn't go today either. We planned to go tomorrow, but my mother says that the "Dhukkam" rules allow me to visit him only on Thursday. I will decide on the course of action after consulting with my friends at work tomorrow.

Holi Jimmy

This year too, there was the usual Holi celebrations at the two "offices" next to my house. And as usual, the Security staff and the office helpers, involved Jimmy in the festivities.

Smog in Chennai - annual Bhogi impact

Pictures say it all. The location is GST and near the runway of Chennai Airport.

Karthigai Dheepam

Yesterday was the festival of Karthigai Dheepam. Today was its spill-over, also named as Kuppai Karthigai.

Due to my interview schedule yesterday, I couldn't participate much in the events at home last evening. By the time I reached home, my folks had pretty much completed the formalities of lighting the agal villakku and placing them at all the strategic places - like vasal padi, main gate, pillars etc.

But today, I was clearly warned by my mother not to venture outside and take up the job of placing the lamps everywhere.

I did the best I could. But unlike yesterday, there was a lot of wind today. This meant that the flame went out quite often and I had to run around from one lamp to another to keep them going. If that was not enough, there was the obvious consumption of oil in these lamps, so I had to closely monitor the oil levels and replenish the stock in each lamp continuously.

All in all it was quite a tiring job(!) and I am now taking a well deserved rest.

These pictures were taken yesterday.

Ho hum

The darned extended holiday season is over. Gotta return to work tomorrow and wait until the Christmas week, before I can get such official breaks.

This Deepavali has been one of the best that I can remember. I got to burst a lot of crackers. I didn't spend too much on them - in other words, I spent a lot of money and got lot of crackers (unlike the previous year). I had a lot of sweets and savories. There was no untoward incidents during the festival - burns etc. Saw quite a bit of TV.

Then on Friday, I went to the branch of my office closer home, along with couple of others from my car pool. I did this 'coz my teams at my regular branch were all on leave since they got my permission to compensate last Friday by working the next Saturday. Many teams in my office were doing it and I found it quite a sensible thing to do. I only hope that the organisation also implements it. I say this because, when I went to the office, I found very few people there. Though the car park did look full, I couldn't see enough people around the campus. And one needs to factor in the fact that many people would have come to this branch like me!

That day, I even left the office around 12.45-1.00 and was home by 1.30. Went out that evening as our dear friend Nilu was giving his birthday treat at The Piano in Hotel Savera. Nice dinner buffet and it really helped that I was
wearing my bigger sized trousers. ;-)

Didn't do much on Saturday, other than going to the Sholinganallur house and having it cleaned by a couple of guys whom we took along. The cleaning was mainly for the exterior of the house - too many shrubs and lots of grass had grown. We've arranged for some helping hands to clean up the interior as well. In the evening, I went out and bought my next TV.

Today, I got to meet my college buddy Karthik after nearly 7 years. I last met him in Los Angeles when he and a couple of his friends had come there during the Christmas holiday weekend. Shankar also came along and we had a good time catching up with things at the Fruit Shop.

This evening, I went to Spencers (where else) with Raghu (who else). We were quite shocked by the crowd there. Rather, the shock was due to the lack of crowd. All shops were open, yet there hardly few people around the place. The eating joints were REALLY empty. The Arun Ice Cream outlet guy said that they were barely doing 50% of their regular business. The place was so damn empty, that we left it within an hour's time.

So anyways, the holiday weekend is coming to an end now. I gotta resume my duties at work from tomorrow. Since 24th Dec falls on a Monday, there wont be too much activity that day, what with most people trying to make it a long weekend. The same holds good for Dec 31st as well. So if I can take a day off some 2 weeks from now, I can pace myself through to the end of 2007!

nnnnngggggkkkkkkkkkkkkkuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

That's precisely the sound that is there in my ears for the past 1.5-2 hours. Reason: The firecrackers that are being burst for Deepavali.

And I am very much to be blamed for my predicament, 'coz I've been bursting some of the high decibel ones at home.

After my major bulb last year, I became very wise this time around. On Monday, I promptly went with a couple of my colleagues, to the TUCS fair price shop and bought myself the goodies - for Rs.2300/-. Since this did not include my favorite long wala's, my father got them from the shop at Food World. Total cost in both places came to nearly 3700/-. And what did I get:
1. sparklers - 30 cm - 10 boxes of 10 each
2. zamin chakkar - medium - 2 boxes of 25 each
3. Flower Pot - medium - 5 boxes of 10 each
4. special noise emanating zamin chakkar - 2 boxes of 5 each (this was actually my costliest buy: each piece cost 19/- bucks).
5. kuruvi vedi - 20 packs of 5 each
6. red fort 56 wala small - 20 numbers
7. red for medium shell (28 wala) - 20 numbers
8. 1000 wala - 2 nos
9. 5000 wala - 1 nos
10. fancy dappaas - 2 items

I overcame my fears to a good extent and burst the flower pots this time. Other than that I've been focusing only on the sarams. Some 15 of th small ones are over.

Need to plan out the items for tomorrow morning and tomorrow evening.

Bloody friendship day nonsense

First read this, just to prove that this is not the first time I hate this bleeping "day".

So, when this Sunday started off with a few of these nonsensical friendship day wishes forwarded via SMS, I went in for a pre-emptive strike and sent off another SMS.

Don't get me wrong. I fully appreciate the kind of feeling that the people had and why they sent it to me. But I only fail to understand, why they chose not to use their logical thinking capacity.

I cannot think of one logical or even emotional reason why I should tell a friend of mine that today is "Friendship Day". What the bleep?

If you really think that you must commemorate a friendship by greeting your friend on one particular date, only to prove that you are both friends (yikes yikes yikes on multiple levels), then why don't you send that wish on the day that you first spoke to that person?

Extend the same to that bloody killer day in Feb. Also to the insane days in May and June dedicated to fathers and mothers.

Why the hell aren't we celebrating a "Happy Son/Daughter day"? Is it because we mature over the years and realise how ridiculous such "days" are? Why not a day for Uncles and Aunts? For cousins. For nephews and nieces. For grandchildren or grandparents for that matter.

I guess it is too much to expect this out of Indians who pray for foreigners and prefer being ruled by one.

In any case, this was my SMS:

"I dont believe in special days created by greeting card companies, primarily to rake in huge profits by taking advantage of juvenile sentiments commonly found in people, especially those in their teens and those who want to be in their teens. So I'd rather greet people on the day that has a religious significance at some level. So here's wishing you a happy 'sani peyarchi' day. Hope the Saturn lord doesnt trouble you that much this year."