The Bean bag that escaped from Arnab's studio!

(This)Claimer - Thsi article has complete relevance to the happenings in the recent past that which has shaken the bellies , tickled the nerves of aam aadmi of the nation and goose bumped and caused imaginary brain deaths to many a politicians involved in the content discussed in the below referred situation )


News is - A bean bag escaped from Arnab's studio all scratched and hurt and bruised. Minutes after it absconded, sonia's security calls her from the security manning the 10 Janpath abode.

Security to Lady S -  Ma'm, a strange thing we see here, there a errr.. torn bean bag waiting to talk to you desperately

Lady S to Security - Uh! I know I know, what could that be, please bring it in to me! I have stitched up many a bean bags before !

The Bean bag to Lady S - Madam ji, mujhe bachaalo, I have been bruised and beaning (read bleeding) since the time your son gave the hysterical.. oops historical interview seated upon me (which shall be the interivew of the year! )

There was a man next to sonia who watched this quietly and opened his mouth to say something softly taking aside the Lady S, he though was extremely pensive, tensed and shivering inside, his tone was as calm as the sea after a storm.

The calm man to Lady S - Aap kahen tho main apni head gear uspe lapetke bandh kardhoon chedh ko???

Lady S - to the calm man - Arrey Chup kar uske bina Mannequin ko shobha naheen detha. The guy silences away into oblivion. Seeing no help coming its way, the bean bag vanishes into thin air before Lady S could lay her hands upon it.

And today we see the Respected Turbaned community in news flashes in Delhi doing what they Ought to do! Salutes to Shiromani Akalidhal and Sikh Gurudwara!

Arnab Goswami - Rahul Gandhi - Rajini-ism

Pyaare Chote Sarkaar, aap tho Rajnikanth se bhi aage nikle.. you want to bring democracy to a democratic country. You want to do what is already evolving in our society today by itself.. wah kya baath hai! .. you are talking about women empowerment, when power was in your hands what measures helped aarushi and nirbhaya's lives? and you talk about bringing women in the forefront. U did sound like a... bollywood hero who 'runs' (read beats) around the bush! Did'nt it?


I imagined being Arnab at that moment while he was questioning the prince repeatedly, the camera closed up several times on rauls plastic facial expressions. What a feeling to be in Arnab's shoes ..wow! Reminded me of the Shankar directed movie - Mudhalvan in tamil and Nayak in hindi! Arjun sarja / anil kapoor / arnab goswami ..target raghuvaran, rahul varave ille! (Read - Rahul failed to arrive! 99% of the questions he wishy washeed with his bhaashan friendly family genes! LOL) . The prince's mind must have been trying to think and answer like how his mom would do. But severely failed at it .. Not that we had any hopes on you but you still happened to hope'less'ly fail.. Now you get the Rajini-ism here don't you ?  

Vidya Ramamurthy *Almost falls down trying to take a bow for Arnab* jai ho Arnab ji! I hope you go home safe and sound :-P and be back tomorrow on your desk to dig your grey cells on another such nonsense!

Tamil Movie Review

For a change, am compelled to write this tamil movie review! Yeah! It is .

To begin it’s the usual common man vs underworld don’s repetitive formula. Without saying much about the flow of the story, would want to delve into the facts that made me stay gripped watching the movie till the last minute! Ofcourse there’s ...a lot of murder , blood shed and the usual Indian recipe for a movie. To know what makes it a class apart, read on.

It was those post dinner quiet times when kids have gone to bed and I get back to clearing up and closing the kitchen for the day. MIL was switching channels and for a minute or more the song ‘Yele Yele Marudhu’ continued to play. She’s got a classic taste for songs and would stop to watch only those that hit the chord ! So as I guessed it right, it was.. the simple love song shot in the Madurai Meenakshi temple. Now, just a month ago having been to the same temple and adored it to the bottom of my heart. You can imagine the kind of thrill in me to see the same temple, the nataraja mandapam, the sculptures on each pillars, the various nooks and corners of the same place you too had stepped into!

The picturisation was subtle , the hero’s ‘love at first sight’ kinda emotion to a very cute thing for a heroine. The music of the song, the instruments used, the melody made me want to watch the movie more.

So here I am, glad that I did watch it! The story’s script has been handled tenderly and brilliantly. Until I watched it, I could not have told that a boring story line as this could be told so interestingly differently. Now enough of all the adjectives! Vishal’s portrayal in Pandiya Nadu has given more benefits than one to his own personal career I read from many other reviews which is true! He’s done some serious acting here. Bharathiraja having appeared in few of his own films as a cameo, has done full fledged acting for the first time I think!

Again, having met Bharathiraja sir for a brief 3 minutes, running back to my dinner table pulling out my diary , getting back to him who was all smiles at me who happily wrote both in tamil and english and signed in it during our holidaying at Wayanad a year ago added my enthusiasm to pen this review even more

To me, Bharathiraja sir independently is one of the best story tellers in tamil cinema who glorified village life and portrayed to the world to his best possible abilities! No other director gets as much credit as him for this aspect! As an actor to see him in this movie, was such a nostalgia, in my mind I thought of all the numerous stalwarts in tamil cinema ranging from kamal, rajini, radha, sridevi, amala, revathi, suhasini, sivakumar, shivaji ganesan to whom he’s taught them to act in his movies. To watch the same person do the role for a change in front of the camera was a great feeling. All along it made me say, no wonder he acts so well too! He is brilliant in all the emotional scenes the story demands. In fact I soo watched it more to see him in the movie than Vishal I can say.

But Vishal too was good since this was a differently treated script! For it clearly completely portrays the helplessness of a common man when affected by underworld and the hero is shown as an ‘escapist’ for most part of the movie! Which one can relate to a common man quite directly.

Laughed away thru the lyrics of the ‘fy fy’ song In all it’s a completely gripping movie. Not a minute boring! Total paisa vasool .

It squarely reminded me of the Naseeruddin shah starrer ‘A Wednesday’ and I would treat ‘ Pandiya Nadu’ with the same energy I would watch Anbe Sivam and Gandhi!

Women Empowerment and Sugar cane???

Yes ! lets see how and where the link comes through 

And so we bid farewell to the Sankraanti/ pongal festival for a year. There we gave away old clothes on the Boghi day, we thanked the Sun God for a good harvest (sadly.. whatso ever in today’s day of middle men squandering the rightful return a farmer is due to get, that which he does not get! ). We allow you to say and tell ourselves too with your blessings ‘badavaa, naan madugdhange iru’ !!

Kids and elders alike got to relish all the naivedhyas that were shown to you Sun God , just for a minute!! And the family relished all of it. Then we prayed for our brothers, dads and uncles by a small custom thats done in the wee hours of the next morning after Pongal. Feeding food in style to the crows thus!

Wait, now women get our share too! For the festival does leave a residue behind!! Two Long Sugar Canes !! Right! Now in villages and a few houses in cities, there are people who would just chew away the skin and relish a one ft long piece over a family gapshap. But here, what do we women choose to do with them?

Group A - Uh.. how do I cut it, I need the yester year’s aruvaa manai ( the wooden based , curved sickle edge shaped cutter that ended with a coconut grater at the top! )I don’t have it so I will let the maid cut it for me, give her most of it and get my (strong daanth wale ) family members to enjoy them too. Then the scene unfolds where the maid gets to take away one, but within her self, we can feel the maid cursing us for giving that extra job of scraping the skin and cutting them into small pieces. We better pay her an extra buck for, she would just give away that other sugar cane to any friend of hers she’s gonna spot on the road. Am sure she would not want to go thru the hazzle of cutting them all over again for a drunkard husband who just hit her ten days ago for a few hundreds to spill out over his bar sessions!! :-P.

Group B – No time to worry about it, give it away to my maid, not my favourite either. Eeks that mouth ulcer it gives me when I get greedy .. Let me resist!

c. Group C – Ah , that looks so tempting.. all my life my mom / granny / aunt someone did the honors and I was able to relish its taste. I so want all of us to enjoy it the same way too! But the task of cutting them uh!! There goes my motivation down the drain ! What do I do??

Here’s some help for the Group C! and here’s what I do.

1. Take a small part of it for your taste buds to chew and eat. Cutting and peeling them if done the way shown in the picture is no herculian task! For you could proudly treat this spot too where the ‘literal’ Women ‘En’ Power is also Meant to be used ! eh?  All you need to do is keep edging the knife to the top corner of the cut piece and keep slitting it downward at the same time twisting the knife a bit so the peel comes off actually pretty easily . Cutting the juicey stem part comes easy. You could make smaller cubes for your kiddo and teach him how its relished! (for those of you who thought of this process to be a taboo! )

2. Get the rest of the canes to a sugar cane juice cart vendor, take an empty one litre or 2 litres bottle along with you who will add up lime and ginger too in your drink for you with your own sugar canes!! (the bottle better be a wide mouthed one :-P for the vendor is gong to loose patience! )LOL .. He would insist that they not be cut into smaller pieces for its tough for him to get them thru that hand operated machine with those wheels crushing the cane no?!



I know this post is awfully late by a few days.. but yeah ! too early for next year 

My Inspiration to write!

My inspiration to write
It was during my 8th grade when my brother handed me a book of Nancy Drew! I so loved that book . Now, don’t ask me what thuh !! 8th grade and Nancy The Drew eh??! Nooo.. blame it on the ignorance may be ! :-P..
But yeah, to continue about how my love for books began , it was more for the love in my brother’s gesture of getting me a book from our colony’s library just for me to read!! We used to fight like all siblings. That was the first time I got my period and being from a Tam Bram family.. I was outcast for 4 days. Now my brother who was used to us being normal human beings. Our first floor stairway ended in a small room, where I was to sleep alone :-p and no one was to touch me! Love my dad for many reasons and now if I think of those things that he stood guard about, I can only ‘nazar andaaz’ this bit actually. He’s been an amazing source of inspiration for my life! That apart. Talking about my brother, he could not take this different treatment all of a sudden towards me! I remember , each time this had to happen there used to be hulla bulla.
I was not to go to the kitchen.. Mind u not a step inside! When dad vanished into his room. Arvind , my bro..thats what we used to call him at home. Now he’s subbu to the world slowly to us too , so anna used to sneak in pull my hair and run off to his room. Now what can your appa do :-P he did not see, but I touched you , what happened? Mom used to laugh at us saying u both are mad! Few months later, one such time, in front of dad, he touched my hand and said , now what appah? LOL.. Dad was upset and did not know how to react! We sure gave dad a tough time together. Finally the outcastism stopped once anna got married and my life’s God mother came into our family , my Sister in law Priya! Bro stood strong and said this is not going to be continued and we all lived peacefully ever after. My respect for my dad grew double fold after he adapted to the change smoothly! Thank you appa!
That day the 2nd day of the outcastism in my 8th grade was when I actually began reading books after books. Anna, inculcated the reading habit in some way! (not that am a voracious reader now) with 2 kids, cooking and a hobby turned passion turned small biz. The Hotel by Arthur Hayley is on my table for the last one year! That’s a different league but!
My college library was a great source of reading material. I remember every weekend my friend Vinitha and me used to spend long hours choosing books and loved every bit of it!
For a beginner , I should say anna was my inspiration. But creative writing to me hit the chord with Sadiqa Peerboy! Ah! The name itself brings a smile to me. She’s just amazing.. Imagine , she would be given just a quarter or less of a page ka space in Deccan Herald. And she was so current ! She would not leave any social happening, political happening and occurances then and there. So when Janata Dal and the drama went on for months. I feasted on her articles big time! She’s been another major inspiration to me 
Hope to entertain you all the same way!

The Celestial Fight!

And then the day of Pongal dawned as always. There was this lingering confusion still as to what exact time should the pongal be ‘pong’ged!! (the time when the khichdi within the cooker vessel boils and ebbs out of the container). This to be done after surpassing the rahukaala , the yamakantha and the likes. In south indian customs (customsoh ille kashtamso) unable to decide yet.

Now not less than 7 opinions floated about the time of the pongal getting to swell in the cooker. There began the celestial fight between the Sun god and the maaseeka calendar his creation , the humble human being created looking up at the movements of His (Solar) Systems! Call it wrong data entry? Or linguistic differences in notations of times? for tamilians have the festival today and kannidigas do the imaginary rounds tomorrow!

1st opinion said the ‘thai’ maasam begins only at 4pm , but then the rising sun is what is worshipped always so the good time to do the swell is between 1.10pm to 2pm and the likes. (the same story had 2 variations which I did not understand)

2nd opinion said the rahukaala or yamakandam one of the 2 is between 9am to 10.30am so the pongal can ‘pong’ between 10.30am to 11.30am. beyond 11.30am the yamakandam or rahukaala one of the 2 continue over the indian segment of the world. So better pull your sleeves up and finish the swell story by then ha..

3rd opinion said 11.30am to 12.30am is a good time!

4th opinion said something more for sure..by then my grey cells shut down and I had begun forming my own opinion!

Alright! Its algebra! Go girl go! What would you want to do. I tell myself, okay.. if I do the neivedya by 11.30 itself.. I will end up celebrating a ‘Maarghazhi Pongal’ and not a ‘Thai Pongal’. Which to me sounds wrong! Arrey kya basics main goof up math kar..thoda ‘math’ kar, maths!. So timed such that I finished with the pooja decos and got FIL and kids to start with the pooja , flower shower , shloka power and the likes!

Thereby, lord ganesha was invoked first, then the sun god, then came fillers, subramanya shlokas (buy 2 get 1 free haan)! By then I made sure the pongal base rice and moong daal is kept to swell accordingly. The clock read 11.28am the fountain over the whistle less cooker lid happened. Happily all of us told one another ‘ Pongalooo pongal’! and I made sure almost everyone saw the ‘Ponging’ (the sight of which is symbolic of happiness to swell in our lives! Love the logic personally!!

Meanwhile remember! The ‘Thai’ maasam was not to begin until 1.10pm! So I parallely finish up with basic cooking a sabzi and a rasam, what with sakkarai pongal, venn pongal and ulutham vadais in tow, the former two shall suffer a steppy treatment! Then it did, it struck 1.10pm and lo our prasadams were all ready, there happened the dhoopam , deepam, neivedyam and karpoora aarathi. Then the ‘one minute pause’ before the above were relished!

But the fun I get when I see my kids relish the vadai, the sakkarai pongal and the ven pongal soon after they get prepared. Poor Sun God has no say here since he’s just shown the containers with the sweets and savouries. For it’s a herculian task to keep the kids at bay until the mangalaarathi thatte (plate) with the lit karpoora goes down after the vicious circles to the imaginary Sun God brought alive with yours truly’s kolams :-P. I had to keep warning the kids to allow the neivedhyam containers atleast for a minute in the pooja room. A minute celestially is supposed to be thousand years eh! Like always man alters customs to his convenience!

Remember Arjun Sarja’s last dialogue in the movie ‘Mudhalvan’ Enna sir ennayum kolaigaaranaa aakitingale’ :-P

But had the consolation that I did not do a ‘Maargazhi Pongal’ and did the right one instead! Call me dumb head go people go ;-)! 
Jokes apart! These are what make a festival day fun to us isn't it! 

Proud to be an Indian! Jai Ho! 

Pongal / Sankraanthi , the time of the year for a New beginning, A New Harvest, A New perspective!

To me, it turned out to be a new start to my writing skills from where I had almost forgotten that I could write too! Hope you find this piece interesting.

Pongal to us has always been yet another occasion to relish Ven pongal , Ulutham vadai, Sakkarai pongal and Payasams.

But to a million other people living in villages and towns, its the sacred time of harvest – the ‘suggi kaala’ that it is called , truly a time of merriment (suggi), of hope of a new and better life with better revenues at least in this year’s harvests!

My maid who hails from the mandya belt shared a short story of how they celebrate the festival of sankraanti. This could be the best way to start my blogging again after quite a hiatus of not being able to blog so far!

On the eve of sankraanti, the families go to their respective paddy fields and agricultural lands. Each of their farms / lands have anthills for sure itseems! Now the Snake God is worshipped even before the Sun God! Come to think of it , their native wisdom is to be applauded big time. For Snakes mainly feed on rodents, bandicoots, rats, leeches and other insects which are feed on the plants and destroy the crop. So snakes help in keeping the rodent numbers at bay! There by helping the people to yield a good harvest. And hence, the Snake God is given its due respects. The family collects around an anthill where possibly there’s a sure existance of the wriggly wonder. Use blocks / bricks to build a small compound like a structure around the anthill symbolically protecting the anthill from getting destroyed, a way of saying thank you!. And then proceed to making the ‘oppotthu’ , a meal that they make and eat next to the anthil…symbolically saying you helped us get this food today so we thank you to the snake!  So very touching this was!

The main harvest is already under progress , what follows after sankraanti is just like the finishing touch where one good share of the harvest is dedicated to the family deity. The rest split among the joint families and what remains gets to the market!. Be it barley, rice , wheat, maize, ground nuts, coconuts, sugar cane.. and the likes…

My house help lady had a beautiful point to share here. Says she (translated for the readers in english) – ‘See akka, how beautiful is Gods creation and how god balances his creation between animals and us human beings. For when we separate the husk from the main crop , the crop is useful for us human beings and the husk is the main feed for cattle, sheep and other farm animals!.

Personally one rule I follow is to buy my vegetables and fruits from the push cart vegetable vendors who come in tens every day in front of our houses. I REFRAIN from buying veggies and basic fruits from super markets like spencers, food world or reliance ( I don’t have anything against these supermarkets though) I do depend on the supermarkets for a lot of other rare things which one can’t find in a local kiraana shop!

But it is my way of saying thank you and a way of helping the same people from villages that have come to cities to find a living thru selling veggies and fruits. So for festivals again the main vegetable market in our locality, being in koramangala to us it’s the Madiwala market to rescue!

(now why kiraana shop and why not supermarkets for grocery shopping is for another article!!) .

I know am a bit late in posting this as most of you would be amidst festival shopping , if you are yet to do it, do go to the local markets and buy your festival supplies!

HAPPY PONGAL AND HAPPY SANKRANTHI TO ALL MY READERS!