I, Iyer, myself

Over and above the traditions and customs that are distinct to the Iyer community, one aspect that really stands apart crying for attention is the amount of importance this bunch attaches to food and everything associated with it.

The true Iyer is a foodie above all else. He can be living in a non-descript town in Kumbakonam district or in downtown California. Doesn't really matter.
Give him his daily quota of Paruppu, ghee, vetta kozhambu, potato curry, curd rice and oorgai and he doesn't ask for much more. I myself have grown up on countless kilograms of curd rice-pickle combo packed in 'eversilver' tiffin boxes during my school days. In fact that was my de facto diet for lunch for around 14-15 years, not counting sundays, saturdays (being half days and hence no tiffin) and holidays.

Pages and pages have been written by pen happy Iyers on the joys of relishing fermented curd rice and pickle/thovayal. You just need to visit any Iyer community on any one of the networking sites for you to find numerous threads dedicated to the virtues of this dynamite combo. All written by contented Iyers, no doubt. Easy on the stomach and extremely filling, the curd rice and oorgai will rank right up there on any Iyer's list of most preferred foods.

Giving curd rice intense competition and coming a close second is the vetta kozhambu - roasted potato curry combination. (Excuse me a minute here while I finish drooling). You have the option of adding a liberal dose of ghee or gingely oil to the rice-VK mixture. Mashing the rice along with dollops of VK with your bare hand, you need to hear the swish-swash of the oil jostling with the viscous VK and take in the wafting aroma. Help yourself to a generous helping of the golden brown potato curry and off you go. I leave you to imagine the rest.

I have the sambar-avial combo and morkozhambu-brinjal kootu vying for the third spot. It's like asking who is better - Pele or Maradona.
After intense deliberations, I'll have to pick the sambar-avial combination.

These are just the top three in my laundry list of dyno combos. This in no way reflects adversely on the erisheri-VK combo or the Paruppu Porucha Kozhambu and pulivendasaar combos in any way. Another day, another time, another list.

If you have a combo to which you think justice has not been done, leave a message here and I will take up cudgels for you ;)

Have you seen God ?

Have you seen God ?
An cliched question asked by and of believers and non-believers alike. I had the opportunity of seeing God Himself in flesh and blood when I visited the Kanchi Mutt some 15-20 years back. Yes, you guessed it. I'm talking about the Maha Periyaval HH Chandrashekarendra Saraswathi.

He must have been into his nineties then. His health had deteriorated. To give darshan to the people, He used to be physically carried - chair and all - into the courtyard and placed there. That was the only time I saw Him.

Of course I did not know enough about Him then to treasure that moment. It was much later that I came to understand the true brilliance and the divinity of this individual. A pity really. But then, I suppose I need to look at it as half full. I'm lucky that I saw him that once.I won't even attempt to describe the greatness of HH. This piece is not about that. Not that I'm qualified enough ! I've read and heard enough about this great person that I'm convinced that He was God Himself.

A realised soul. May His grace be upon us all.

Who's an intellectual ?

Which of these definitions is most apt ?

1. Somebody who doesn't work in the software Industry
2. Somebody who's English educated
3. Somebody who's NOT English educated and thus is not influenced by the crappy Indian English media
4. Somebody who knows who's the current dictator in Burkina Faso
5. Somebody who keeps track of how many explosions have happened in Peshawar this month
6. Somebody whose lips don't move when he reads the newspaper
7. Somebody who doesn't read the Times of India
8. Somebody who reads Bharathiyar
9. Somebody who follows Cho in Thuglaq
10. Somebody who can say if an English Daily is pro-Congress or anti-Congress
11. Somebody who knows India experiences two monsoon sessions - the south west monsoon and the north east monsoon
12. Somebody who invests in the stock market
13. Somebody who doesn't invest in the stock market
14. Somebody who reads the edit section in The Hindu daily
15. Somebody who subscribes to The Frontline
16. Somebody who doesn't flip to the comics section the moment he picks up a newspaper
17. Somebody who doesn't know how many centuries Sachin Tendulkar has against his name
18. Somebody who doesn't know Prabhu Deva and Nayanthara are an item
19. Somebody who doesn't know when is SRK's birthday
20. Somebody who has to read the review of a new flick before deciding whether or not to watch it - on pirated DVD !
21. Somebody who can hold his own in an argument about whether or not India should import food grains
22. Somebody who says he doesn't want his son/daughter to become a software geek
23. Somebody who visits the US and is so enamoured of it that he settles down there permanently
24. Somebody who can afford to lunch at a four star restaurant but prefers the idlis at Veena Stores
25. Somebody who owns more pairs of Newport jeans than Wrangler
26. Somebody who solves the cryptic crossword puzzle in The Hindu
27. Somebody who does his Engineering at the IITs AND gets his management degree at the IIMs
28. Somebody who supports the RSS
29. Somebody who's a Tambram
30. Somebody who has an explanation for why Beta Brinjal is bad for India
31. Somebody who's against the big bad retail stores
32. Somebody who can understand why Outlook publishes Arundhati Roy's articles
33. Somebody who studied in English medium schools but prefers to send his son to a Kannada medium school
34. Somebody who thinks donation is a four letter word
35. Somebody who thinks donation is a four letter word and yet sends his son to a school which demands donation because this school is hep
36. Somebody who actually stops at red and moves only on green
37. Somebody who uses the word 'paradigm' when he gives a presentation to his boss and actually knows what it means
38. Somebody who thinks Chetan Bhagat is cool
39. Somebody who thinks he is an intellectual

Reading Tamil

I made a conscious decision to devote more time to Tamil reading. Though I’ve always been able to read Tamil for many years now, it comes nowhere close to the speed with which I can read English. This has to be put right.

As far as English mags, newspapers or novels are concerned, I don’t ‘read’ the words in them as much as I ‘see’ them and associate meanings and comprehend. I guess this must be true for anybody who’s been reading stuff in any language for a long duration of time. I’m quite proud of my English reading speed.

Now, I’m not sure if I can acquire that much proficiency in Tamil (after all, it has taken close to 30 years of reading stuff in English to reach this level) but I intend to make a start now. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. It is still takes an effort to complete reading a 10 page article in any tamil magazine. That is if the article is interesting ! Else I often catch myself giving up midway.

However, there has been a significant improvement over the past one month. I’ve forced myself to read lengthy stories and political analysis. This is a far cry from the days I used to just read the jokes that punctuate the pages in any Tamil magazine you pick up and be done with it. As of now, just to make things easier, I’m devoting more time to movie reviews, gossip columns and the like in Ananda Vikatan, Kumudam etc ! Those will be interesting and spicy and will help keep me absorbed J The droll heavy stuff can wait.

Rice Murukku - Tirunelveli style

They don't make murukkus any more these days like the way Paati used to. Take the 'benne' murukku and stuff 'em, I say. Real men don't eat benne murukkus. Rice Murukku is the real Murukku - Tirunelveli style.Murukku making is an art, or should we say 'was' an art. Yes, surely it is dying out. You hardly get to see Rice murukkus any more these days, save at the odd wedding.

There were no fancy gadgets those days for puzhinjifying the dough into hot oil. Nor were there monster grinders to prepare the dough. The good old 'aattu kallu' was all the paatis and maamis of yore had.

Summer vacations were for eating murukkus and loafing around in the hot sun, not giving a damn about what the elders at home had to say about becoming 'black' due to excessive exposure to the sun ! And what murukkus they were ! Hmmmm.....Like i said there were no fancy gadgets that Paati used for laying out the twisted, perfect concentric circles murukku dough on wet white towels with blue borders. She had magic in her hands. Wonder how many murukkus over one's lifetime one needs to make before one acquires that level of expertise. Flying fingers were all you could see. And lo ! Ten more murukkus on the towel. Taking one tip of the towel at an angle in one hand and gently transferring one murukku at a time to the other hand and ever so smoothly dropping it into boiling oil, was with Paati the work of an instant. No sooner than five or six of these murukkus found their way into the oil, out would come the huge, flat, black round ladle with the long handle with the tip bent at right angles. Turning the murukkus over a few times would give those babies a rich golden yellow hue. Smack ! Then the final transfer into the the aluminium 'thookku' producing the distinct clackety-clang sound !

I'm convinced these murukkus useed to taste at least 25% better than text book because of the love that went into making it.
Yep. Pure art. How many 'modern' girls of today can claim to make murukku like this ?

The vegetable vendor

I felt a distinct pang of sadness when our domestic maid informed us that neighbourhood 'tarkari thatha' had passed on. He was one of the regular features of the Vyalikaval area. With his almost permanent 10 day old white stubble, his trademark beedi and his 'patta-patti chaddi' visible under his folded up lungi, he used to roam about the streets of Kodandarampuram and Vyalikaval indefatigably.

Apart from the tarkari, he also used to peddle 'Soppooo', cucumbers, thotapuri mangoes. I remember buying the latter off him during my school days. Used to cost 50p then.

His friendly banter (often long after they have gone out of earshot !) with his regulars was a treat to hear."Prices have gone up , madam. Can't afford to give for Rs 10. Try and understand", he used to say but used to close the deal for probably nine rupees !! I always used to feel people took advantage but he was never one to mind too much.

He got his cataract operation done a few months back. I happened to chat him up then and he revealed it was at the KC General hospital in Malleshwaram. Unfortunately that was the last I talked to him, apart from the casual 'Nashta aitha' now and then. He was on his usual rounds even a day before his demise. May his soul rest in peace.

Wonder what will happen to his cart now.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

No good ever came out of increasing one's materialistic possessions. Yet everybody in today's world appears hell bent on doing just that.
Will buying a new car make me more happy than what I am today ? (Yeah, untill the car gets a scratch !)Will buying that cool pair of Levi's do it ?
Will buying a new home do the trick ? (The Damocles' sword of EMI comes into existence and increases misery)
Will taking up a foreign assignment make one happy ? Or how about going on a foreign holiday ?
The irony of it all is that the solution is very simple and yet so out of reach. So easy to understand yet so complex in comprehension. So easy for me blog yet so difficult for me to give all my jeans to charity. So easy for me to preach yet so difficult to practice.

I'm sure God wanted it this way. I'm sure He's having a hearty laugh at our expense !

All our so called 'progress' is in fact taking us farther and farther away from spirituality (unless we are tracing out the trajectory of a giant circle and are ,for now, going away but ,in fact, are on our way, slowly but steadily, back to the starting point) .
Singapore has the best looking streets, buildings and parks. But are Singaporeans happier than people in , say, Taiwan ? The United States ranks up there in every conceivable index related to 'progress' but are Americans a satisfied lot ? Closer home, are people in Bangalore more happy because there are more IT professionals here than in any other city in India ? Are people in Bombay more happy because the city is home to Bollywood ?

Nope.
And the beauty of it all is that the average Joe knows it too and yet can't do a single thing about it - not a single damn thing.
Reduce, reuse, recycle. That's the secret to happiness.

IPL moving out of India

There were concerns untill a week back that the IPL would not be held this year. The BCCI appears to have used its financial clout to get the venue shifted to either England or South Africa. The media joined hands with the BCCI to make it look as if it has pulled off a major coup. That may be so, but what kind of message are we sending out ?
We are in effect telling the entire world that India is not a safe enough place to hold a sporting extravaganza like the IPL.
We are in effect conceding a victory to the terror mongers.

India should have done one of two things. They should have waited for the general elections to get over before hosting the IPL in India. Or they should have ensured adequate security so that the tournament can happen alongside the elections.
The BCCI may have made the sponsors and the franchisees happy.

But at what cost ?

The balance of power is shifting

The Australians have dominated world cricket for the last 15 years or so. But the equations of power are shifting. And not a day too soon, if you ask me. First India beat the Aussies 2-0 and then the Proteas beat them 2-0. And that too down under ! Graeme Smith is looking like the cat that got the cream. And I'm pretty satisfied too. And so are a lot of cricket enthusiasts around the world, I suspect.

You tended to associate an unmistakable aura of arrogance with the Aussies when they were beating teams left, right and center. Remember the incident involving Sharad Pawar on the victory podium ?The West Indies ruled the cricket world too for a pretty long time too but it wasn't like this with them. They were graceful winners. A world of difference between the Lloyds, the Richards and Ricky Ponting.

Like I said, I'm glad the incredible run of the Australians is coming to an end. India and South Africa are now the teams to beat.