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.

Untruth is stating the correct answer to the wrong question

Well, the dictionary definition of “untruth” may not be very easy to understand and hence, I am coming up with this one page document, which with the example quoted inside, should help one understand what the meaning of “untruth” is all about. 

Two days ago, I was headed to the Upanayanam of the son of a close friend of mine. I could have easily missed the function and he wouldn't have complained. But, there was no way I was going to miss a function arranged by him, because his aasthaana caterer is one phenomenal cook. 

I was also informed in advance that the first pandhi would be served at 9 AM, to help the office goers take an early brunch so that they can sleep easily in the office; assuming of course that they didn't sleep while driving to work and cause even bigger traffic snarls than usual. 

So my friend Raghu and I had decided to target that first batch, despite the lack of requirement of physically having to go to office. We could sleep at home right? Anyway, on the ordained day of eating, I was slightly delayed while starting. It looked like our aim of being part of the first pandhi may not really materialize. Also, the later it started getting, the traffic build-up would be higher and I was afraid that the caterer maama would run low on payasam. 

And like I guessed, the traffic on Adyar bridge was quite heavy, so much so that it was a standstill towards the north end; the very direction I was headed to. All along, I had been updating Raghu about my position, so that he we wouldn't waste time in waiting for him to reach the predefined pickup spot. The updates were being sent via Whatsapp messages. 

But I wasn't typing while driving, since I know that it is dangerous. So, I had started using the Google feature of giving it instructions, including the dictation of message to be sent via Whatsapp. I followed the same modus operandi on Friday and in hindsight, maybe sharing my Google location would have been a more effective input. 

Anyways, to give instructions to Google, one has to hold the phone on hand and as bad luck would have it, an “Uncle” spotted this. He pulled me over after I crossed the signal. If you know Andhra Mahila Sabha signal, you will also recollect what a busy junction it is and that most of State Govt ministers ply along that route. Now, I somehow understood that my phone usage was the issue and quickly let it off my hand and let it reside in one of the cubby holes of the car. 

The uncle didn't come to talk and I found that a senior uncle was asking him what was going on. And all these uncles were on walkie talkie, so presumably, some Minister was on the move and these folks were a little jittery. The junior one told his senior that I was talking on the phone. So my suspicion was correct and I was cursing myself for being so naive in using the phone such that someone could spot it! The senior uncle had by then come near my car and told the junior that it was someone else. The junior reiterated that it was me. The senior guy looked at me and asked if I was talking on the phone. 

Now we get to the place in the climax of the story line, where one reveals the title. I basically said an untruth by nodding my head in the negative to the senior cop and said “No”. The senior simply waved me away and I went off. 

So why was my statement not a lie but an untruth? It is because one has to understand what was asked. The question to me was if I was talking on the phone. The implication was that he was checking if I was on a phone call with someone. My answer was “No” and it was the right one because, I wasn't on a phone call. I was not “talking to someone on the phone” and was in fact, talking "to the phone”. 

If the cop had asked if I was using the phone, I would have confirmed it and would have been booked for “rash driving” as was the case sometime in 2015. But here, my answer was a perfectly correct statement for the question that was asked, though in wholistic terms it was not true. This, my dear audience, is what an Untruth is.

P.S.: The food was as amazing as ever.

Mysore-Madikeri Vacation May 2008: Part 4

We decided to visit the temple, with the standard “having come thus far, let us at least make an attempt”. As we neared the temple, I realized that my memory of visiting this place 12 years ago (as part of my Study Tour in my 3rd year while at college) was blank. I didn’t remember the route to the temple, didn’t remember the temple and didn’t remember the general neighborhood.

Since there was a very heavy rush, we decided to take the special darshan route; a route which was charged at Rs.100 per adult head. Surprisingly, the counter issuing the special darshan tickets was itself very crowded and we got ours after a good 10-15 minute wait in line. Thanks to the special ticket and of course the relatively small interiors of the temple, we were able to have a quick darshan and come out very quickly.

We came out of the temple and took the mandatory pictures with the gopuram as the background. We headed back to the car and then it was off to visit the Mysore Palace. We didn’t stop over at the Nandi temple and had a quick 5 second glance from the road.

Once again, when we entered the Mysore palace, I didn’t remember too much of this place either. I only had very vague memories of the outer of the building but that could very well be due to the pictures one comes across in various media. But during our visit inside, I was able to relate to couple of places. Yet there was one memory where I was in this room filled with various swords and other weapons used by the Maharaja, but I was not able to see that room this time around. Perhaps it was closed for maintenance! The palace, for those who have not visited it, is simply magnificent.

By the time we came out of the palace, my parents were quite exhausted since it was well beyond 1.30 PM. We then returned to our cab and headed out to Hotel Dasaprakash Paradise for lunch, yet another place very strongly recommended by Raji. As has been frequently observed in our group, what she likes most of us don’t and what we like she doesn’t. The restaurant we went to was no different.

A bunch of us ordered their special thali meals. Mahendran and I were trying to figure out one of the side-dishes that was served for the Roti, when my father discovered that it was actually bisi bhella baath!!!

After we wound up our lunch and gathered around the lobby, I chanced to meet upon the brother-in-law of a close friend of mine. This person is actually staying in Adyar and I rarely if ever, meet him. It was ironical in a way that both of us met each other at a city where neither of us resides!

After the lunch was done with, we started from the Hotel leaving behind Raji, since she was planning to join some friends of hers who had come there. She would then accompany them to Brindavan Gardens which was supposed to be where we were headed for the evening.

But my parents were naturally a bit tired with the car journey and the late lunch. I decided to let them take rest in our hotel room, whilst Mahendran and I would go to the Mysore campus of my company. We were going to drop off Uthra and Co. and pick them up on our way back.

I had a brief stop-over at Uthra’s place, to take a look at her house. Dunno if it is considered auspicious or not, but before I set foot in their house I spotted this “pooraan” and her MIL killed it; I helped in removing the carcass.
We then headed to our office in Mysore and what I saw there is going to remain etched even in my RAM like memory for a long time to come.

Old friends in a new restaurant

An old friend of mine from my previous company had come to Chennai last week. He stays in the City of Angels and had come here since his father was not keeping well.

On Saturday, I met him and 3 other friends from that circle, for dinner. We went to the roof-top restaurant in The Accord Metropolitan hotel. It was good to catch up with old friends and exchange data about who's left in the old place; where people are currently located; who has switched companies etc - basically glorified gossip.

Anyways, the restaurant was one pricey affair. The spread on the menu wasn't that great and whatever little was available was bloody expensive. And worse, the serving portions were also quite small or normal at best. But I must admit that the taste was good. This restaurant is probably the 5 star equivalent of Saravana Bhavan!

Another thing was the ambiance. The area was very dimly illuminated. There were small blue colored lamps on each pillar of the stylishly designed canopy and a couple of blinking lights on the floor. And reading the menu was quite an arduous task considering the unwieldy size of the menu card, the layout of the card (there were barely 8 pages, each written in a font size like the first letter you read out during an eye examination), the really thick material of the card (thick enough to replace a plywood plank on a cupboard) and the complicated names and descriptions given to the dishes ensured that people opted for the tried and trusted varieties.

The crowd that came there was quite up-market and from a vasool perspective it was worth the price. All in all, its a place one must visit if you are planning to mottai adichufy someone in the guise of a treat.

We then bade our farewells and went our own ways. Of course, I followed one guy till very near his house (he stays in Thiruvanmiyur) just because he had some beer. I followed him just to spite him a li'l and he finally called me and shouted at me to go away from his route. I felt that my good deed for the day was done.

A quick visit to Bangalore

I went to Bangalore on a one-day official visit, yesterday. Actually, it was for a lunch meeting with our unit head as part of the package for "winning" the MVP award in Q3 for the Recruitment initiative.

Even though it was only a lunch meeting, we (3 of us from Chennai) still had to report there in the BLR office on time. We took a Jet Airways flight at 6 AM and returned by a Jet Lite flight that reached Chennai at 10 PM. A quick note on Jet Lite - I have experienced quite a few bad landings, but this one beats the shit out of everything else.

As I anticipated, the lunch meeting turned out to be quite pointless - an exercise in futility. If there were junior folks, they would have probably enjoyed being in the presence of Unit heads et al. As someone who has had direct interactions with him on a couple of occasions, I lost that attraction. I am also not impressed by one of the persons in the next rung, so my expectations out of the meeting was quite low already.

And what transpired during the meeting was a classic case of people talking in the air, with the sole purpose of exhibiting their talking skills. Unfortunately, the food that was served was quite bad and all in all, I would rate this luncheon meeting as one of my low points for the year.

The only good thing was that while in Bangalore, I got to meet a couple of people with whom I've been speaking over the phone for a year-year-and-a-half. Otherwise, I would have been happier if I had been given gift vouchers for even half the amount it cost them to fly us to Bangalore for that lunch!

Tirupati travelogue 9-Feb-08 to 10-Feb-08: Part 4

After the darshan, we completed the rest of the formalities including visits to other sannidhis and also the hundial contribution. We regrouped at the main entrance and were waiting for our guide to get us our laddoos. By then, it was already well past 8 PM and finally, the lack of intake of food was beginning to show into my psyche. The fact that I’d been standing for quite a long time didn’t help things.

We finally got our pack of laddoos and started moving out of the temple premises by 8.45 or so. I had to make a quick halt at one of the road side shops to procure ‘rakshai’ threads, since some of my team members had specifically asked me to get that. Since it was getting late, I thought that we could perhaps go down to Tirupati by one of the ubiquitous jeeps available there. It would have cost us like 300-400 bucks and would have saved us quite some time.

This suggestion too was shot down with the same vigor exhibited on other occasions earlier in the day. I thought we could at least finish off the dinner at one of the restaurants near the temple itself. We saw a very decent looking one near the Vaikuntam complex. I reasoned that the presence of elderly people who were getting exhausted, accompanied by the fact that none of us had eaten anything after the lunch at noon and topped up by the fact that we had spent some 3 hours waiting inside and outside the temple, would make people complete the dinner there itself.

But somehow, the usual majority was hell bent on going back to the Hotel and eat only there. Thankfully, we at least took a jeep back to the petrol bunk where we had kept our footwear and other valuables like mobile phones. We bid farewell to our guide and walked down to the bus stand. There was no bus immediately available and we then took one bus that was headed to Chennai.

Most of us got seats right at the end and the bus started some 10 minutes later. The ride down was anything but comfortable and holding on to a bag of 10 laddoos, with an attempt not to let them get crushed, didn’t help me at all.

We finally reached the hotel at 9.45 PM and luckily, the restaurant was still open. We all had a very hearty dinner and I might have gone slightly overboard too. But that was the minimum I could do to keep myself from crying!

I also arranged for the cab to take us from the hotel to the College for our interview on Sunday. I am sure there would have been enough buses to go there as well, but since it was official, no one objected to booking a cab for 1600 bucks.

We decided to meet up in the restaurant for breakfast at 7.15 AM the next morning and then we all went back to our respective rooms.

[To be continued in Part 5]

Trip to Madurai

As part of the campus recruitment initiative mentioned in my previous post, I visited Madurai on Saturday, the 22nd of December 2007.

Actually, a bunch of us from work went for that initiative, so we all had a pretty interesting time, especially sharing all the oddities observed during the interviews.

Originally, we all wanted to travel by Paramount Airways, but unfortunately, our Travel Department refused to procure tickets on that airline quoting a significant difference in cost. We couldn't refute it either and neither could we use the ploy of flight timings, since all morning flights out of Chennai to Madurai are barely 10 minutes apart. Same holds good for the last flights out.

So, we had to make do with the Jet Airways ATR flight. Man, that morning flight was one big torture. The pilot, a Caucasian btw, was navigating it like the ubiquitous share auto driver in Chennai. The way he landed in Madurai would have converted all atheists into die-hard religious fanatics! I must actually appreciate him for having the talent to remind all of us that there 3 wheels in the plane. He also showed us how long the runway at Madurai was, coz he practically went to the edge of the tarmac before turning back!

We hired a cab and reached the venue and got on with the proceedings. We broke for lunch and found that the food arranged by the College was almost unpalatable. It was toooo spicy for our comfort and didn't look hygienic at all. After making enquiries with the watchman, we headed out to a "hotel", where after much waiting, we managed to get a table. Unfortunately, my bad luck continued there as well, since the food served was not really tasty. In fact, the curd rice I ordered seemed to have been prepared using stale rice.

Anyways, after our interview sessions got over ahead of time, thankfully due to the no-show from almost 100 candidates, we proceeded to the Meenakshi Amman temple. Ramadurai had called up his contacts and the basic understanding was that we had to stand in front of the Co-optex shop opposite the South entrance. Apparently the coded message was if anyone approached us and asked us "vellai kaaka enna color muttai podum?", we were supposed to respond by saying "karuppu muttai" whereby we would have established our credentials.

We waited for a short while before Ramadurai's contact showed up. We obviously didn't have to use the coded greetings and were taken inside the temple. Once inside, the "guide" explained to us about some of the landmark spots and escorted us along the special path to the sanctum sanctorum in a matter of a minute or so. After some deliberation with the authorities there, our contact took us inside the special darshan area. There we had a really good darshan of the Amman. Even when we had our heart's fill and started moving out, the contact kept sending us back for some more additional darshan.

The same was repeated at all other important sannidhis and all in all we had a fantastic darshan. I was so ecstatic, that while returning to the airport, I told Ramadurai that he finally gave me something useful for being his friend!

We even had a great visit in the "1000 kaal mandapam" and I was really amazed with some of the statues. There is a statue of Rathi Devi, carved in stone. Our contact asked us to feel the hand and boy, it was so smooth that one can easily be fooled into thinking that it was wood. Then there were a couple of stone statues of Lord Shiva, where one could hit certain portions of the stone and hear a good metallic sound. Then there was this giant wooden door made of Burma Teak wood. It was like 9.38 metres long and some 2.2 metres wide. Really awesome stuff.

By the time we were out of the temple, we were quite famished. Thankfully our guide took us to a restaurant called Modern Cafe. It was a quaint little joint and as we found quite soon, it served great food. I had Adai Avial and Plain Dosa. All of them were excellent. Special mention must be made of their Coconut chutney. We topped it up with one of the best coffees I have had in recent times at any restaurant.

It was getting quite late, but thankfully, the airline had issued us the boarding pass for the return journey in the morning itself. So we had enough buffer time to reach the airport. And to make thing more comfortable, one of our friends who had reached there earlier, told us that the flight was delayed by 30 minutes.

The return flight was more peaceful and the pilot ensured a really smooth landing. However, he was allotted a parking bay right at the end of the runway and to reach the terminal, we actually had a 5 minute ride on the airport bus.

All of us went our separate ways after that and I reached home at 11 PM. Since my day started at 4.30 AM, I was quite exhausted and crashed on the bed quite soon. But for some of the annoying interviews, this trip was quite a good one. I had a really good darshan at all sannidhis in the Meenakshi Amman temple, unlike my trip in Feb this year, where it was a really abridged visit.

So much so that, I have prayed to the lady of the temple that I would visit her temple once I get married - the third wedding vaendudhal I have made, the first one being a hike up the seven hills to say hi to Venky and the second one to my kula dheiyvam temple.

For the record

Like most of the other posts in this blog, this one is being posted just to record the fact that I have been taking lunch from home for the past 10 days. It has sent mild shock-waves in my circle of friends.

The deal I have brokered with my mother is that she should make only one rice and one side dish. We have now settled on Curd Rice and a side dish. Health and weather permitting, she might indulge in some other rice variety as well.

Random Jotting #017

I was having my favorite murungakkaai poricha kozhambu on Saturday. While I was having one of the many refills of the same, I looked at my plate and saw all the left over pieces of murungakkaai.

It looked like a scene from the movies where some character gobbles up a pile of chicken and leaves out the bones on the plate.

As usual, the eureka gong sounded in my head.

We call murungakkaai as Drumstick. Drumstick is also a cooked part of the leg of chicken or any fowl for that matter (ref here). Sheer coincidence?

Or probably, we vegetarians call it drumstick, to satiate our desire of eating non-veg without actually eating it. On the lines of naming dishes as "aamai vadai" or "palli dosai" etc...

Explain to me what lime soda is all about

Was at dinner yesterday at Mathura's with Raghu and his wife.

I wanted to have a fresh lime soda and asked one of the waiters to get me one. He said ok and went towards the kitchen. He returned a couple of minutes later and informed me that they didn't have fresh lime soda.

Frankly, I was surprised. But I let it pass. I asked the guy to get me a 7UP. He acknowledged my request and moved away. But nothing came my way even after 5 minutes. So I called up another waiter and repeated my order.

And he asked if I wanted just 7UP or 7UP with lime. I thought for a moment if 7UP now came in some new flavor and said ok to the 7UP with lime. The guy came back a minute later, with a glass and a 7UP bottle.

Closer examination of the glass revealed what looked like an extract of fresh lime.

Ta-da! Isn't that part of fresh lime soda? The one that I was informed just 5 minutes back that they didn't have? Oh, I get it. He was out of soda.

Duh! Couldn't he have at least told me that and asked me if I wanted "Fresh Lime 7UP" or even "Fresh Lime Pepsi" for that matter? Its all the same at one point. I just wanted my version of fizz with lime juice!

Why does God make me interact with such specimens?

Uppili

It didn't strike me until now, that I haven't mentioned about our lunch at Uppili's house.

Uppili is the name of the food counter at the Food Court in my office, where we get truly authentic home made stuff. They haven't been given a big space and have in fact been asked to provide only few food items.

Its being run by an Iyengar named Giri, who has his residence at Singa Perumal Koil. His brother-in-law (wife's brother and not sister's husband) helps him at the counter.

My group was the first to get his business going. In local parlance, our friend VKS, was Uppili's "mudhal boennee". Uppili has quite a regular clientele and even over the duration of almost a year, the excellence in quality has been sustained.

A few months back, Raj found out that Giri was providing lunch at home as well. So we all decided to check it out. I went under the impression that it was like a small "mess" and experienced a pleasant surprise when we went there. It was basically his home itself.

We were served food on a plantain leaf. On the dining table used by Giri and his family (wife and a very sweet kid who answers to the name of Srinidhi, Abhi and Varshini). The food was verrrrrrrrry tasty. Unlimited stuff. Ever since, we make it a point to go to their house for lunch especially when we bring our car.

The cost is Rs.25 (there was a price hike of Rs.3 a few weeks back). The menu typically includes 1 sambhar, 1 vetha kuzhmabu variant (if there is no v.kuzhambu, then it is some thogayal), rasam, appalam/vadam, thayir and 2 vegetables (side dishes). All unlimited. The only thing though, we have to check with Giri in the morning about availability of lunch, since its only his wife who has to prepare everything. They have a cook who prepares the evening snacks that is sold in the office and so if that guy goes on leave, she will not be able to prepare additional lunch.

The taste is really amazing. Its very difficult for one to not indulge in a big meal. The other thing I like is that its not prepared "commercially". The lady just cooks for 10 people or so and its pure home food. In fact, very often, the girl also eats along with us and she gets the same food that we do.

While some of us do have greater demands/complaints about this setup, in the overall scheme of things, I have absolutely no complaints. By itself, this option is fantastic and compared to the alternatives available in the Food Court, it is almost inhuman to find fault with Giri's food.

All in all its a very neat arrangement and for the 2 months we had the car pool going, we were there almost every day. Even now, the unwritten rule is that, if anyone of us comes by car, we should go to Uppili's for lunch.

On a related note, the snacks that they supply at work is also awesome. I am a HUGE fan of their peanut sundal and so is my mom. I always take home a pack on the days he puts serves this sundal. Its 5 bucks for one "dhonnai". Then he also serves adai avial on one day and pesarat on another. Even a melagu dosai on another day. All great stuff. And needless to say, the day he sells akkaara vadisal, I don't think he would have any left over to take back home.

Grihapravesham on 29-Apr-2007 ::: Part 04

After the invitees started trickling in, it was time for me to take up my Tour Guide duties. One after the other, I took people around the house.

Luckily, except for the first couple of people, the rest arrived in batches and so it made my job easier.

I am not going into the attendance list, but at the end of the day, we found at least 20-25 no-shows! That sure lead to a lot of food going waste, but we packed off most of the left overs to the maids who had come to help us out.

I had my lunch a bit late, but luckily, for the last pandhee, I had enough company. I was too gassed out to enjoy the lunch, but what little I tasted, I liked. Based on the feedback I got from the others, the caterer had done a good job.

Slowly everyone started leaving and finally it was left to my parents, chithappa, chithi, cousin and myself to stay back. My father tried a siesta but failed miserably in the absence of a bed.

After an hour or so of just lazing around and bidding farewell to the helping staff, I started to feel the pain of hard work. The pain from having to go up and down the stairs every 5 minutes or so to check on the guests. I stretched myself out on the plastic chairs we had rented for the day.

Around 3 'o clock, my mother asked me to prepare coffee. Of course, she wanted me to prepare the decoction using the new coffee maker. In my eagerness to make a strong decoction, I used a lot of powder and got the machine going. In a minute or so, I saw decoction coming out of all places in the machine. It was not supposed to happen that way. So I stopped the machine and took out some of the powder and had the machine resume its duties.

When my father started preparing the coffee, he realised how bad the posish was. While I did use a lot of powder, I'd also used a lot of water. So ultimately, we got quite a watery decoction. Needless to add, the coffee we all had to drink was quite BAD.

Anyways, we all continued our chit-chat and around 5.30, we realised that it was time for my chithi, chithappa and cousin to go home. So they packed their bags, took some more of the food from the afternoon and by 6.15 or so, they were off. We also gave instructions to our driver to drop them and then leave the car at our B'Nagar house.

By 7.30 my parents and I got into our dinner and then cleaned out the surplus food. After that was done, we started assembling all the items we brought in for the function, so that we could move them all into the car the next morning.

There were quite a lot of gifts given by my friends. And that alone took up most space in the car.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I didn't sleep that well. But the next morning, we started loading the goods into the car and we were out the door by 6.45 or so. We reached home by 7.20.

Without much further ado, I will conclude this narration of my grihapravesham. It was definitely a success and all credit goes to my folks for arranging 95% of the show. My contribution was certainly limited to transportation, handling of accounts on the D-day and of course looking after my friends who had come over.

Before I close out, a quick note on the gifts. Each and every item was fantastic. We opened up the gifts only on the 30th (night) but it was worth the wait. I have already placed some of them in the display shelf at B'Nagar. The rest will have to wait for my relocation to Shollinganallur.

Grihapravesham on 29-Apr-2007 ::: Part 03

To put it in Chennai Senthamizh, the navagraha homam "bend-a kazhatidichu baa". In other words, that part of the whole ceremony warranted 9 namaskarams with about a minute's gap between each.

The priests let me go after that. A little later, they asked all of us to come to the homam area and asked us to do 3 pradhakshanams around it. And even as we were doing it, they started putting stuff into the pyre and it increased its smoke output manifold. Needless to add, all the smoke getting into the eyes, made the walk around the homam quite difficult.

The eyes were watering like crazy and I had to take a pit stop after every 2 steps or so. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one facing that ordeal. It was experienced by all of us. I came out of this episode quite shaken and apparently, Superthumby felt that my eyes were bloodshot - probably due to the excessive rubbing.


All this while, Superthumby was quite keen on taking pictures. Not of the function per se. His focus was more on how I was going about the namaskarams, pradhakshanams et al. I had brought my digi cam in the hope that some good pictures of the whole function would be taken. But he had other ideas and thankfully, to negate his goal, the memory stick on my camera was near full and so he stopped taking these voyeuristic pictures.

Anyways, as part of the closing ceremony of the religious aspect of the function, my parents and I were asked to sit near the homam and give the dakshinai to the priests. It included cash and clothes. And BTW, I was intentionally wearing one of my cargos that day, just so that I could keep all the cash needed for the function in different pockets. My uncle was quite impressed with this!

So we dished out the dakshinai to the brahmnaall and in turn we were asked to drink the milk that was boiled specifically for the function. I am totally averse to drinking plain milk and that if its warm. I cannot stand the smell and the taste. But like they say about porcelain (like the sand has to be mixed in water to make a yucky paste; then be spun around in a wheel; finally get baked in an oven), one has to sahichufy such tortures in the bigger frame of things. (I am actually not sure if the milk drinking part came at the end or somewhere in between itself, but that doesn't really matter).

So the brahmnaals finally went to have their breakfast. After some time, Superthumby, Madhu and I had breakfast and we were the last ones. Nilu was coming in late and so we'd decided not to wait for him. The breakfast was cold yet, quite tasty!

A while later my invitees started coming in.

Viboothi Pazham - Sacred Ash Mango

There is a mango tree at home which, by the grace of God, has quite a good yield every year.

In fact I have a strong suspicion that God has a big stake in that fruit, because it tastes like viboothi!!! Yes. I know it irks my mother no end, but unfortunately, my dad and I have the same opinion in this case.

This fruit in contention, is quite bulky. It has a good shape to it. Nice color too. But the proverb about not assuming books to be good just because they have some fancy cover, holds good in this case. The fruit is high in fibre too. But no one has been able to discern its taste and classify it as sweet or sour or bitter etc. But I repeat, it sure tastes like the sacred ash.

And the best part is that, for all the street urchins in my 'hood, this tree probably offers them the best summer 'time-pass'. Day in and day out, you can find these kids in packs of 3-6 trying to steal the mangoes. While we have no objection to the stealing of the mango, the trouble is that, these kids could extend their stealing service to other items in the house.

Moreover, they throw stones to get the mangoes to fall down and this stone could end up injuring someone - directly or otherwise.

So, we call up some of the helping hands at home - usually the car cleaning kid and his buddies - and have the mangoes plucked at regular intervals. The picture you see here is a sample of the mangoes that were made to detach themselves from the branch of the tree.

I am planning to give these to some of my friends at work. And within a week or so, I will find out how many of them continue to be my friends!

Silver foil in Indian food stuff

I first came across the information that the silver foil contains remnants of the intestines of cows and pigs. There was a talk show hosted by S.Ve.Shekar a couple of years back and he had asked this question to one of his guests - who was associated with the Consumer Affairs Forum or some such body. The guest answered in the affirmative that the foil did indeed contain animal parts.

So, unknowingly, we have all been consuming non-vegetarian food for years together. Be it on the sweets or sometimes on the paan and sometimes in mouth-fresheners as well.

But, ever since I heard that news, I have stopped taking all the above mentioned items. If there is silver foil, I reject the piece. Many a time at work, some people distribute sweets for some happy occasion and I have had to refuse it. With some, I tell them I not much into sweets and with few others who know me better, I tell them the fact.

I have tried to look this up on the net, but unfortunately, I am not able to land on any web page that is recent. Most of the content is really old.

The other thing is that, some scientific study seems to be suggesting that this foil could be carcinogenic.

Anyways, I am not willing to change my opinion on this matter yet. And if I've influenced a couple of my fellow vegetarians, then I will feel happy.

You can possibly check these links too:
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=167&page=28
http://www.jainworld.com/society/jainfood/silverfl.htm
http://www.petitiononline.com/VarkhBan/petition.html

16-Feb 7:15PM to 18-Feb 4:30PM ::: Part 7 - FINAL ::: Indian Flight

When we reached the airport, the security guard at the entrance expected us to produce our tickets, so that we can enter the airport. This we promptly did. But then the guy put a twist in our plans and said that we were one ticket short.

After repeated counting of heads in our party and the number of tickets in hand, we were unable to reconcile the difference. It was only after a few minutes of confusion, that the guard enlightened us.

Apparently, you are expected to buy tickets even for babies. We had a 1 year old and hoped that we wont need one, but we were informed otherwise. The guy instructed us to proceed to the Indian office and buy the ticket. He also told us to then collect the boarding passes and show it to him! Talk of Government high-handedness.

So the parents of the baby paid up the 10% ticket cost (applicable for babies who don't occupy a seat of their own) and we checked in our luggage. We requested for 2 window seats and the guy issuing the boarding passes was actually kind enough to allocate an entire row for us.

However the flight was delayed by nearly 45 minutes. And after a wait that seemed longer than the actual 45 minutes, we finally saw the plane land at the airport. I was happy for one reason. Basically this was the first time I was travelling by Indian and luckily for me, the plane that we were gonna be on, was the one with the new logo.

Once the flight took off, the soon-to-retire air wardens (they didn't look like hostesses, more like wardens) gave us candies. We were then served lunch. One chappathi. A little dhal, cup of basmati rice and some gravy. There was a sweet piece, some juice in a tetra pack and water.

I just gobbled up the grub in no time, considering that I hadn't really eaten anything after the breakfast at that posh Udupi Hotel. The interesting part of the food served on the flight was the sweet. By the looks of it, I assumed that it was a milk halwa/burfi. It was quite big in size.

But one bite and I realised that I was very wrong. The sweet was in fact mysore pa. I cant say it tasted well, but it wasn't unpalatable at any rate. Just that it was a really odd sized for a mysore pa.

The rest of the flight was uneventful and we landed at Chennai after 45 minutes. If you look at our plane trip from Madurai to Chennai, we can look at it in terms of Project Management Metrics like this: The effort variance was 0% but the schedule variance was around 40%.

At the airport, while we were waiting to collect our baggage, we saw the Sri Lankan cricket team also come down the stairs and wait near one of the baggage carousels. I saw most of the team - Jayasuriya, Atapattu, Malinga, Zoysa, Tom Moody and a whole lot of other names that I don't remember. But 2 people I missed out were Sangakara and Jayavardane.

So, to finally end what has been a really long travel chronicle, I reached home safely.

16-Feb 7:15PM to 18-Feb 4:30PM ::: Part 5 ::: Reception Food and Lime-Soda

We reached Nellaiappar kovil and due to paucity of time, we had to limit our darisanam/pradhakshanam etc to a very short duration. We made a whirlwind halt at Ganthimadhiamman kovil as well.

Once this was done, we stepped out of the temple and before boarding the van, we made an attempt to buy halwa at the famous Iruttu Kadai. This "Dark Shop" is one of the landmarks of T'veli. It was quite evident considering the number of people standing outside the shop.

If you haven't read about or experienced the Dark Shop, its a small shop that sells T'veli Halwa. In the town, its one of the better tasting ones. Also, its a shop that has not changed itself with the times. It still is a small looking shop with an entrance which doubles up as the shop window - i.e. you don't really enter the shop. Its like a potti kadai where only the shop-keeper enters it from the road and all transactions are carried out across the shop.

But contrary to popular urban legend, the shop is not running with a single light source. It is quite well lit up - thankfully. But net-net, it doesn't have any of the jazzy neon lights on a big name board. In fact it doesn't even have a name board.

We didn't buy anything there and returned to the Hotel. After what promised to be a quick shower and change of clothes, all of us set out after almost an hour. We boarded the van and by the time we actually settled properly into our seats, the driver took the van into a building, which turned out to be the Hotel where the reception was being held. It was practically a 4 minute walking distance and we went there by van!

The reception went on well. It had the usual light music, just that this time the singers also danced. (Talk of exceeding expectations...).

After talking to the groom's brother and a bunch of other relatives of common friends, we finally caught up with the couple as well. Exchange of pleasantries were done and all of quite literally ran to the food section.

Man, the food they served was AAAAWWWWWWEEEEEESSSSSSSSOOOOOOOMMMMMMEEEEEEE. By itself, it was very tasty and considering that we were quite exhausted, all of us had a very quiet dinner. It was a dinner where everyone had a 'hand to mouth' existence for close to 20 minutes.

All the fried rice (2 types), bisi bhela baath, cutlet, uthappan, idiyappam, poori, thayir saadham, halwa, kesar peda, chips, appalam and ice cream settled into all the empty pockets in the food canal.

So stuffed were we that we decided right there that we needed to send in a lime-soda so that we can at least start breathing after some time.

We then took leave and went back to the Hotel. Then, RG and I went out to buy halwa from the other good place that sells this dessert of Gods. The shop is called 'Lala kadai' and is near the bus stand. On the way, we spotted a road side tea kadai which also had some soft drink bottles.

We asked him if he had lime-soda and he gave a positive reply. An order for one apiece was placed. The guy then took the glasses on his counter and immersed them in a big container near his leg. There was some violent shaking of the hands and then he stood up with the two glasses.

Under normal circumstance, I would have run away from the shop - actually I wouldn't even have gone near it in the first place. Anyways, these were testing times with the intestines fighting a losing battle. So I didn't care and preferred to ignore what I saw.

The lime-soda was finally delivered to us and after doing a bottoms-up, we proceeded towards the halwa shop.

After buying 2.5 Kg of it for self (2 Kg was for distribution to my friends), it was finally time to go back to the room and sleep.

BTW, I forgot to mention that during the reception, RG and Sathya were deeply discussing the ways and means to go from T'veli to Madurai, since we had to catch the flight from Madurai to Chennai. The outcome was that a van from Madurai would come to T'veli, pick us up and take us to Madurai.

But we had to leave at 6.15 AM on Sunday. 'Sharp' - was the key word that was thrown into our conversation right throughout the evening.

So after watching a bit of TV, I finally dozed off around 10.30 PM with the alarm set to wake me up at 5.00 AM the next day.

Random Jotting # 004

In many food joints, you get options for the serving or portion size - like small/regular, medium and large.
On some occasions, the guy at the counter informs you that the size you want is not available and only the smaller and larger ones are available.
So what do I do?
Always order the larger one. I really cant think of times when I've actually ordered the smaller portions.
This probably explains why I look the way I do.

Latest vegetarian dish

Found this sign at Tamizhini Inippagam near Tiruvanmiyur Signal, one evening. I took a picture from my office bus. And believe it or not, some 3 days later, the sign was partially corrected. Probably he saw me take the picture. :D

Please decode this menu

I've seen 'sandwitch' but this.....