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.

Chennai Mahabalipuram trip 25 26 April 2008

24/Apr

We left bangalore by KSRTC volvo bus at around 1145 pm. The bus was originally scheduled to depart at 1030. We had a painful wait at the bus stand for over 90 minutes.Earlier in the evening, I left office at around 7:30 by celcabs taxi. This taxi broke down midway. No autos were available and I had to walk till Indian Express Office near Shivajinagar. Caught a bus there, got down at Udaya TV office, got an auto there and came home finally.

25/Apr
Well, the bus reached Poonamalee high road bus stop at around 6:30 am. We took an auto from there and reached the choultry (Ramasamy Kalyani Tirumana Mahal , #47 Mount Poonamallee High Road , Kattupakkam, Chennai – 600056) which is near Kumanan Chavadi bus stop. This choultry is a new one. At least that's what the auto driver told us.Jayathi's sister and brother in law received us and we got an AC room all for ourselves. The wedding ceremony was over by the time we reached the mandapam. We had a bath and went upstairs for breakfast. This choultry looked really posh. Couple of floors and lot of rooms. It even had a lift ! The entire hall was air conditioned.

After having lunch at around 1130, we made a move. We left by auto to Anchana's dad's house in West Mambalam. It is very near Ayodhya Mandapam on AryaGowda street. We took directions from mama and we found his place pretty easily. Going around in circles looking for the house in that weather wouldn't have been fun; that's for sure !

After a cup of coffee, we left for Mahabalipuram at around 2:30 in a taxi that mama had arranged for us. One needs to head towards Chengelpet (past the Vandalur zoo) for MBpuram. It takes around 2 hours to get there.We spent some time looking at the nice rock sculptures. Unfortunately, we had'nt taken a camera along. So we had to make do with the cameras on our cell phones. We did not visit the Sthala Shaya temple there.

We headed towards the beach and spent a lot of time there. The water was clean and refreshing. We started from there by around 6:30.We stopped at the Adyar Anand Bhavan at Pondy Bazaar and bought some carrot halwa. Reached home by around 9.Chappatti and sabji for dinner.

26/Apr

After breakfast of idli and coffee, we started from home towards the famous Ranganathan Street. Though I had been to this placebefore, never had I got into any of the shops therein. One word comes to mind - unbelievable.We visited Nalli, Pothy's Kumaran Silks and Saravana Stores. The variety of dresses and other apparel on viewwas mind boggling. We purchased a couple of sarees and a couple of trousers.Lunch at Pondy Bazaar Saravana Bhavan. The food was ok. The ambience was good. The service was bad and theprice was astronomical. Swathi south Indian meals cost 160 bucks. Almost not worth it.Some more shopping and then home by around 3 pm.After a cup of coffee, we started towards Velassery where Priya's friend Sunita lives. Cost us 90 to get there.Sunita lives with her husband Bijoy and kid Alwyn. Alwyn apparently gets along very well even with strangers !5 minutes is all it took for him to become friends with us ;)He was ready to come with us when we got ready to leave ! 80 bucks more to get back home. We must have spent close to 500 just on auto fare on this trip.

After dinner, we left for Koimbedu bus stand. The bus started more or less on time. Reached bangalore at around 5 am the next day.

Shravanabelagola Trip 20/Jan/2008

The plan was to leave Bangalore pretty early for Shravanabelagola. But we overslept and we were able to leave for Majestic only by around 7:30 am.

We took lemon rice and curd rice along with us for the journey.We boarded a bus bound to Hassan. A co-passenger advised us to get off at Chennarayapatna from where he said several buses would be available to reach SVB.

We reached Chennarayapatna in just under 3 hours. As we were entering the CRP bus stand, we spotted a bus leaving for SVB. SVB is around 10-12 kms from CRP. There were lush green fields on either side of the good road connecting CRP and SVB.We could see the giant statue of Gomateshwara atop a hill even as we were a fair distance from the bus stand.

The town of SVB is a small, rather tidy one. We passed a pretty garden on our way up the hill.Leaving our slippers, we began our trudge up the hill. We soon realised how out of shape we were ! Gasping for breath, and legs paining, we finally managed to reach the top. The view from up there was pretty good.It did not take us very long up there. The rock sculpture of Gomateshwara was pretty impressive, although I must admit, I had expected it to be much bigger.The temple surrounding Gomateshwara was pretty impressive too, as temples go. There was a lot of rock up there ! It was just as well that it wasn't too hot that day !

Contrary to our expectations, we found that climbing down was not very easy ! We were thankful when we eventually reached the bottom.

Raghu Hotel appears to be the biggest restaurant in SVB. We had lunch there. The food was pretty ordinary but the service was excellent. The staff were extremely courteous asking repeatedly if we wanted second helpings !

There appears to be a good shuttle service between CRP and SVB. We had to wait for just over 10 minutes before we got a bus back to CRP.But we had to wait for a pretty long time at CRP to get a bus for Bangalore. Most of the buses were full.I had a tea at the bus stand hotel while we were waiting.We finally did get a bus which was relatively empty and we boarded it.

We reached Bangalore by around 7 pm.