When you want to go Left,

the World seems to like Right. What this means here is...

• When you are waiting for 25G in the bus stop you keep seeing it go in the opposite direction and on your side only M49s are showing up.
• When you are waiting to catch a Taxi in New York City, every one of them has a passenger already, and when you decided to take a walk then you see empty ones zooming past :P  
• Also just when you are late for the meeting and driving fast, you are stopped at every traffic light with a RED, and when you want RED so much so that you can turn and grab that water bottle from the back seat its all bright GREEN.  
• When you call a whole gang for dinner at a wonderful restaurant they make you wait for ever or the food is unpalatable.
• Just when you are so bored and finally beat your laziness and get off the couch and make it to the DVD shop with 2 movies in mind both will be out (!$*!).
• Or may be when you want to eat your most favorite dish and go to the only restaurant that sells it, it is closed for renovation and you decide to try another one at home instead and drive back to find that the main ingredient needed is over. 
• Even better, when you are hungry and late for a 1:00 pm meeting and hurry down to get lunch at 12:55 pm and when you try to get back all the 6 elevators are going in the opposite direction (what are the odds!!!)

Though some of these might sound implausible, only people who have experienced it would know how it feels...like the world is trying to pull a prank on you, Murphy chose you to be his toy for the day... But then there would also be days you get on to 25G with no wait, catch the NYC Taxi with one hand wave, pass through all green lights and make it to the meeting, enjoy a delicious dinner with friends, watch just that movie you want, eat what you craved to your heart's fill, infact make it to the 1:00 pm in the elevator :) and even wonder if Murphy is out sick ;)

Have you faced any of these or similar ones ever? I have.

When all at once I saw a crowd...

... A host of golden daffodils. These lines came to my mind last Monday when the daffodils at my desk were smiling brilliantly at me. Suddenly it struck me it is the same daffodils that my teacher taught me about in school!!!

Let’s do some time travel here... Back in school I love the poem by Wordsworth on Daffodils, especially because it would give me an unexplainable happiness and peace every time I recite it in my mind. I also remember some competition on reciting this poem with expressions; it was my favorite among others. Being impressed so much by the poets metaphors like "stars that shine","Sprightly dance", "jocund company" etc., I wanted to know how this flower would look like. There were no pictures in any of the books. So I asked my teacher about it and she said it is nothing but the Tridax procumbens (thatha thala vetti poo) that we see on the road sides. All the joy that filled me till then was sucked in a minute, I felt like an airless balloon... Somehow it did not make sense. Not that I have any dislike for this flower, but then for me it did not measure up to the descriptions given by the poet. I even went home and asked my dad and he said he is not sure if that is the flower. But those were the days, when kids respect their teachers above everything and whatever the teacher says is right so I decided to take her word for it, nevertheless the liking for the poem did not reduce even a bit.

Now back to the present....I love flowers, and since its spring there are flowers all over the place. I wanted to keep some at my desk and bought a pot of daffodil bulbs in a local farmer's shop on Friday. I was not expecting them to bloom for a while but they all bloomed on Monday (ofcourse with all fertilizers and other enhancer's no wonder!). Also I never thought about the "Daffodil" itself so much until this day, other than the fact that I enjoyed seeing them every spring blooming under the trees.

And here is the connection... This daffodil (Narcisseae) looks nothing like the Tridax (Asteraceae). Ofcourse both have golden/yellow color but otherwise they are not even related :) when I realized that my appreciation and love for the poem increased multi fold, I just could not stop that smile and the "Duh!" in my head that meant no wonder he wrote about this flower. It’s a stunning beauty! I felt so glad that after ages I finally got my answer. Definitely not blaming my teacher because her sources could be wrong and she may not even know it. I decided to put the pictures here so every one out there would know what it is (Looks yellow because of lighting it is golden see the other pic). Thanks to the internet nowadays children know more (sometimes more than needed :) ).., by the way if you are interested Google the poem and pictures :).

Is man really at the top of the food chain?

Wondering with man eating from a grain of rice to even tiger meat why would someone even doubt if this species that has made its appearance recently on the face of earth, be the top of the food chain? This thought did not come to me out of the blue.

After a fun filled spring weekend I was watching the series "Life" on discovery. I loved it as it covered a lot of physiology of animals, their social behavior and their evolutionary adaptation techniques. At one point they showed an amphibian in a desert like mountainous terrain being the food of an Arachnid... hey wait a minute that is strange, mmm Arachnids are spiders and pre-dates Amphibians (like frogs) with respect to evolution. A komodo dragon eating a mammal - pigs, buffalo etc., bizarre again atleast to my head.

After watching more of lower evolved animals eating higher evolved ones, I was thinking what it takes to be the top of all, Say like Simba of Lion King, It should be the collective cognitive skills of Homo sapiens isn't it? It is almost impossible to overpower carnivores like Lions, Tigers etc., and even herbivores like Rhinos, wild yaks etc by a single man, I have even seen some of the documentary on how ice age men brought down mammals for food, how they stored food to last longer and how they invented farming and have enough brain power to "create" their own food! From the evolutionary perspective that is mind boggling and that’s what makes us the kings :) mmm Just a wild thought, if dinosaurs were still roaming on earth would it have been possible for us to have born and come this far? Will there be anything in futue to bring us down? Has evolution met a saturation point? Would we adapt to even global warming? Have you ever wondered on such lines?

Happy Tamil New Year and Vishu!

.. to all out there. Here is an intro to the festival...

Tamil New Year and Vishu(Malayalam New Year) fall on the same day April 14. Even Punjab celebrates New Year on this day(Baisakhi). In Kerala they do "Vishukani" on this day, "Kani", meaning the first thing that you see, ofcourse on "Vishu", hence the term. Because of the Kerala origin and Tamil Nadu influence back home we celebrated both. On this day early in the morning we will go straight to the puja room and see the arrangement of all things like - money, holy text, gold, new clothes, fruits and flowers. Then we will have oil bath (hair wash with a pre application of oil on the head), dress up in new clothes and do all the prayers. Later we will get to eat nice payasam, vada and other delicious home made multi-course meal :). It is a Holiday so no school!!!

I was not planning on making anything grand for this day, with all the project issues and my lack of sleep I did not even get a chance to do my grocery shopping for this week. But then 2 days back I was thinking about the Pongal celebration in January and all the other festivals that I enjoyed last year and so wanted to have nice vada and payasam, for these I had the necessary ingredients at home. So in the night I kept all the above said "Kani" items in the puja table. I woke up early in the morning and did the "Kani", with that enthusiasm I made ulundhu vadai (urad dal), Kadalai paruppu payasam (channa dal kheer), Paruppu (Toor Dal tadka), Vendakai Mor Kuzhambu (okra- buttermilk curry), sakarai valli kizhangu poriyal (steamed sweet potato). It is not much but I loved it all :), took some to office as well.

Hope you had a wonderful day as well :)

The First Step to Long Miles...

We all have dreams that we are eager to achieve, not the ones at work, the ones outside in our personal lives. Like starting a business, learning Music, getting a degree, achieving excellence in some field of art, qualifying for Olympics, making it to Indian cricket team etc., Or it could even be a habby based one... like finishing 1 book per week, finishing 100 blogs in 6 months, cooking 30 new recipes in a month and so on... In the beginning of this year I set one such goal - to run a 5K. Other than some occasional gym visits and running on the treadmill , I never got to practice much. But I did all the "Google" I can and even bought a book on it!. I did not think about this until 2 weeks back when I was casually browsing and stumbled upon a news on the 5K in my town. I was interested and passed on this message to others too. After all kinds of debates and NOs I finally decided I should try it just to see if I can make it.

After a few initial treadmill runs, with only 2 days to the race I was running down the actual trail for a test run. If you love nature this is one of the best places... the terrain was slightly hilly, with the first mile up hill into the woods and an almost flat second mile into more woods and around a reservoir and third was back to the main road through the woods gently sloping up and then down. I just walked/jogged 3 times around the reservoir totaling 3Km and was already huffing and puffing. That night I even lacked the confidence that I would be able to finish the race, nevertheless I registered online with 5 mins to the deadline. I said to myself - I will take it one step at a time and will finish it by 45 mins atelast.

On the race day, the sunshine was beautiful, perfect start of Spring, but my stomach was churning as if I am going to face an entrance exam. The atheletic crowd intimidated me so much - kids, young adults, even 55+ people were all geared and warming up for the race. I was praying that I should make it. The race started exactly @ 10 am, I slowly ran the first up hill mile into the woods, even walked sometimes to avoid tripping, It felt like forever, I was soon tired and people were moving farther away from me. The second was better, just seeing the reservoir with clean water and duck and geese happily swimming in it gave me a comfort feeling and I jogged fine. I hit the woods again in the third mile, a small kid came in the opposite direction and said "You are doing great!, Almost done just around the corner..." That was like a shot of glucose; Thanks to him, I picked up speed and saw the finish line.... I briskly crossed it.

My timing was not the best, It was not worse either, I did not win, but I was not the last too :). I was well within my own goal limits, Now I know where I stand and how much to practice. If you are one of those who is scared of trying just because you think you cannot handle the failure, just throw the fear away and do it, the first step is all that matters, even if you do not make it atleast you will know what is needed to make it! My next target is in next month to finish it < 30 mins!!!

Low Post Density

mmm... I just saw my post count for Feb which is way low compared to Jan. But I did manage to keep up with the works of others, my usual visits :). So in the interest of finding what was wrong in Feb I did some causal analysis and came up with these reasons.

1. Could be because of the shorter days, well 2 more days could have added 2 more posts :).
2. Or could be the mere end of winter that was pushing me to hibernate enough and avoid doing any real work.
3. May be the unexpected workload that has made my mind too tired to indulge in any kind of activities.
4. The unlikely guests and lots of cooking could also be blamed.

Whatever be it I guess the arrival of Spring has broken my silence!

Lion King - Off the Broadway!

With the onset of movies and DVDs theaterical performance appears to be a lost art. But in Broadway New York City, it’s a whole different story. A lot of crews still put on that make up, speak dialogue without a retake, and the loyal audience always pay a visit to these performing arts. I have been part of some stage - dramas in my school days but never had a chance to see one though! Ever since I came here I always wanted to go to one of those Broadway shows. That chance came by on Friday.

Disney's famous Lion King Cartoon has been performed on stage in Broadway theatres often. For a few days the crew is performing it in Hartford's Bushnell theatres. Since it is winter and there was no other good stuff to do and it was less than 10 mins drive when my friend suggested this idea I was all in. We made advance booking with the box office, infact they were kind enough to give us adjacent seats, even when we did not book them at the same time :) As planned we had our dinner and drove down to the theatre (I was excited to dress up in a long skirt and formal tops :)). The overflowing crowd, some formally dressed, some on a lighter note, some really dressed for a show and a few in usual jeans (the CT style ;)) was enchanting enough that we did not complain much about the weather or the parking :).

An elderly lady gave us our tickets and guided us to the balcony seats. The show promptly started at 8:00 pm. Have you watched the Lion King 1, 2 & 3 cartoon movies? If you have, then remember the faces of those lions and lionesses - Simba, Nala, Mufasa, his wife, uncle Scar, the way they move around, and all the other characters, Pumba, Timon, the Monkey, Giraffes, Hyena's, the Birds, and those lovely landscapes of the African jungle. All those were not very tough to achieve in a movie, but imagine those being achieved on the stage.

Two people with really long sticks for legs walked to the introduction African song (one of my favorite's in the movie) as giraffe's. The artists looked exactly like giraffe's, the movements, the legs. Amazing... and the monkey character was remarkable. She had painted her face and walked so much like the one in the movie, and her voice, the laugh... If I had a chance I would have gone behind the screens and asked for her autograph. The lions though did not paint themselves but wore yellow color robes and had a big lion faced hat on their heads. They turned and moved like a lion, in certain angle when they bend their face; it was exactly like a lion! The others however did more like a puppet show... they had a Pumba, Timon and bird puppets with them tied to their hands and legs and they moved the strings and talked like that animal. The hyenas, giraffes though were people disguised in the animal's clothes.

The background changed so much, they used lights, paintings and lots and lots of creativity in making the geyser's come on stage, the high skull mountains for Scar and the night sky, stars, farm lands, trees... everything was made and it was absolutely stunning to watch. It was all flawless, the actors infact sang most of the songs themselves... circle of life, the morning report, Hakuna Matada, I just cant wait to be king, Can you feel the Love tonight?, He lives in you etc.,

The drama is still reverberating in my ears, nothing else could have made the otherwise slow and easy weekend into an exciting one. The 2 hrs and 45 mins was well spent. No photography was legally allowed, so had to Google them. My favourite artists were the ones who performed the Monkey and (ofcourse) Timon!