Adopting Western Culture - The Dont's

If you are watching the recent happenings around the world you will notice that not a day goes by without a horrifying news. A civilian killed by cop, cops killed by civilians, riots, bombing on a festive day, bombing in airport, mad shooting on streets and airports. What is the common thread? Well it is all happening beyond the Asian borders. It is not from India or China. It is on the west, the culture we most certainly adore and want to copy everyday.

I feel we should never copy certain things Guns, Transport, Racism, Suburbia, Encroaching Nature, Debt etc,. from America. Without the guns we already have quite a bit of protests and riots that are set of by politicians in the name of caste. We have enough deadly weapons at our disposal that we do hear about many fights and killings. If we add guns to the mix no one can save us from the dreadful doom.

Second the transportation. Let's actually learn from the mistakes of US on this and  if we absolutely need to copy, lets copy from Europe. When the Europeans went to the US, they introduced railroads there too. Used it for passenger and goods transport, but somewhere along those lines they forgot the importance of it when they got the highway system. The cars and planes boomed, but railways for passenger transport deteriorated.

Today in the US it will take more time for you to get from point A to Point B with railways or bus than with your car. Cities like New York and Boston are some exceptions. But majority of the cities do not even have a local bus transport. They don't have taxies or autos like we do. So this makes it hard for people in suburbs to travel for work. Cities like LA have the reputation of worst traffic congestion as everyone took to the car. Some states do not even encourage car pooling.  In India on the other hand we have very good public transportation system.  But nowadays people use cars more than the city buses, trains and company vans. This leads to congestions of the roads and heavy air pollution. Lets take a step back and start Using public Transport. Lets not adopt the western ways here, especially when it is proving detrimental.

Racism in India comes out as casteism. Luckily we did not have African slaves, instead we made some of our own. This was way in the past and we may claim it is not there today. But look closely. We should respect every position people play. From a janitor to a professor, it is just that person's job.  Also we do know politicians pit us against each other using this, so lets be mindful of that. We can be proud of our heritage but no need to put it on display, the moment you do that you loose the respect for that heritage and yourself. There should be no more mention of "tolerance", it should be coexistence after all we are a secular country. There can be bosses and CEOs and political leaders from any caste or religion. If you hear anyone generalizing a caste or sect there, right there is the racist behavior. We should curb that and not encourage.

Suburbia is a phenomenon where the cities become just work sites and people flock to live in the outskirts close to the malls and shopping centers. This creates a void in the city streets and they never develop leading to homeless settle there and thugs to occupy it. In India this has not been a problem at all. But there is a different type of problem creeping up. We have IT giants occupy the city outskirts and they have big complexes built on marsh lands and natural preserves. US did a similar destruction of wildlife and forests to build suburbs and highway systems. Now they are screaming about global warming. Lets skip that step. Lets stop the companies from doing this and give back the land to the birds it belongs to. So many housing constructions and road projects in Chennai is making life a nightmare for long time residents and pollutes the environment. Infact we should think of developing towns. The manufacturing boom developed small towns all over the state. Similar to that IT companies should be dispersed across the state instead of just major cities. This will reduce everyone moving to Chennai and clog the roads. The entire state can see an uplift and share the load and wealth. 

Last but not the least is Debt. When I was 6 my mom got me a piggy bank. Anytime I ask for something big like a cycle or stereo set my parents always asked me if I saved for it. Savings and money management seem to be at the center of our culture. Even our financial systems are based on that. But off late i hear youngsters in India getting lured into the web of credit cards. Credit card purchase is not fancy, it is debt, same as borrowing. If you default a payment the interest goes up and the peace of mind goes down. You start owing more  to the bank. If we think we are being cool by spending more on frivolities think again. Only now countries like US are realizing this mistake and are trying hard to change that behavior. Once you get into a habit, it is hard to recover. So start planning your finances, do a budget based spending and teach your kids about savings. Do not let India go through a financial crisis.

These are only a few things I thought of, but there may be more. In short lets be smart and avoid whats not suitable for us and adopt only good things. Easier said I suppose! ☺

Adopting Western Culture - Status Quo

Since ancient times Indians have been curious to the way of the world and quiet open. I believe our ancestors thought we are grow our knowledge by sharing and learning from other cultures. So we started copying or rather incorporating some of the customs, religion and food right from our early invaders the Persians.

I am not against adopting western ways, like jeans, t-shirts, dresses, sometimes I even feel they are a lot comfortable. We got our salwars from elsewhere too. I even see that saree has taken on in a fashion trend which is cool.  Even food for that matter we always put an Indian spin on whatever we take from outside like Biriyani, pasta and noodles. We even adopted vegetables beans, carrots, tomatoes, chillies. Today we cannot imagine cooking without them.

Festivals are whole another game. The culture we came from is the one where peace is chosen instead of war, we only go for war when the very livelihood of people are threatened, we went to war to save poor neighboring countries. We respect parents everyday not just on mother's day. We take pride on the endless parade of festivals like Diwali, Holi and  Sankaranthi (pongal).

Recently I heard that there were Halloween celebrations in India in addition to Valentine's day and mother's day and the like. As long as we only choose to see the fairy land of princess and places across the ocean we will be tempted to copy them. Let's peel that screen off remove the cartoon glasses we have on and open our real eyes and see the matrix. Yes the truth is really scary.

The education system, banking and whole list of societal practices as well we took from outside and modified to suit our country. I think that is bold and creative. Is there a boundary line for this?

(Part 2 and Part 3 will cover do's and don't s)

Taking a hit at Technology is not the solution!

If you are part of any social networking group then you probably know what this is about. Either you received such a post or sent one :), Which post you ask? The one about the benefits if using a bucket of water to wash Vs. Using a washing machine, or a shower vs bucket bathing and the usage of machinery vs. manual labor for agriculture. Well you get the picture.
Now what is wrong with such posts? We all know what is right in them though :). It is a negative propaganda about "Technology". Like many things technology evolves and there is a generation gap in accepting this technology. I will explain it a little more. We did everything by hand the hard way, only then we discovered the stone tools.. evolved to iron age and then to the industrial revolution. This took eons not 2-3 generations... more like 2000 or more generations. There is no agriculture if not for tools, which was the new technology for its time. Technology made things cheaper and easier. What was once a luxury was made available for the masses.
But it does come at a price. Any new technology needs moulding, like a baby. It takes time but making it better will yield a greater good than avoiding it.  You want an example... instead of avoiding cars, make battery cars cheaper. Instead of blaming manmade plastic make organic plastic that is environmentally friendly. Use nature to build the technology and make it better.
The forwards themselves are not bad, but in addition to awareness it spreads negativeness. Instead we should be forwarding messages on the success stories..like coffee cups that are fully paper and how CA cities curbed plastic from its shops etc.  Happy networking!!

Kids Snacks! Ofcourse Fried !!

I recently saw an add for a new snack parlour near a school in Chennai. Their advertisement prompted me to write this. I wish they change their menu to have some good food instead of what I feel as 'junk' food. When the world is screaming to be organic, use less water, plastic and fertilizers and grow own plants on roof garden, conserve water and not to use plastic, the norm seems to be different. Other than the crazy few who seem to have a ton of time on their hands to clean up beaches and talk about saving the planet and the harmful nature of using refined oil and frying food in it twice, some parents seem to turn a blind eye to all this and let their kids consume food that's really unfit.

When you were young do you remember, when you had the luxury of eating sweets or savories? I remember eating them for Diwali mainly and may be for one or two other minor ethnic festivals like 'Krishna Jayanthi', 'New Year' and 'Pongal' if you really press it. So 4-5 times a year. And what were they? Home made ghee and sugar or jaggery based sweets which was done in limited quantity per person, shared with friends and neighbors and I got to taste a little bit of everything. It will not last longer than 2-3 days. If anything is left for after school I will have it but otherwise mostly after school snack was limited to idlis, boost, bonda, dosas, upma and all kinds of fruits, sathu maavu kanji etc., Sweets from shops was even rare 2-3 times a year, when someone comes to visit or you go to a new place.

A few generations back this was even different. My parents tell me the 'muruku' their parents made was from solam and kambu. Since 'refining' was not all that famous, most of the oil used was unrefined and home made. For sometime in my young age too I remember making coconut oil from the few coconut trees in our house. That was used in food and for hair mixed with herbs. They have had puttu and appam again made at home for their snacks.

Now to the present - What do kids have today? Let me guess kurkure, chips, potato wedges, cutlet, somosa, fried pakora, aloo bonda, pani poori and to top it all Maggie!!??!!. It is not wrong to indulge in invigorating the taste buds, but if we say using technology is not bad, lets use it to make our food even healthier and better than before. Make 'Kuzhi paniyaram with grated veggies' - grate the veggies before hand and freeze it. How about a little whole grain burger patties toasted in oven or on stove top. Chopped up fruits with honey on top and grated dark chocolate. If your kid just loves fried why not bake some veggies in the oven, the basic counter top ones are not very expensive. It is the crispiness they prefer not the oil. Homemade granola bars, nuts and dried fruit laddu, sesame seed balls, even some of those old time groundnut balls pack in lot of energy and health.

Yogurt parfait, soy milk mixed in with dark chocolate, mixed nuts, sundal are other possibilities that do not need a lot of preparation. For drinks definitely try the good old lemonade with a dash of mint/sabja, throw in some sabja seeds in their tender coconut water, watermelon juice with lemon/orange squeezed in, buttermilk (my favourite), chilled milk with some kumkum, Gulkand in milk, dates/apple milk shake, chilled green tea with lemon with tulsi leaves made at home,  You can even pack some for the next trip for the whole family!!!

The Time and Date Conundrum

A few days back when I had to face a mysterious problem at work. For some reason a birthday was shifting by 1 when it was getting printed. Now if you are jumping up and down with your hands up in the air screaming I know! I know!, wait and hold that thought.

I was looking for all possible rational explanations of which day light savings seemed most reasonable. A coworker suggested difference in server times due to day light savings. Well guess what? the servers are in that one state AZ where there is no day light savings. So what else... What seems to be a simple issue in time became complex. After much pondering it happened in a single machine with the same date. No it is not an issue with leap year. It is 11th Oct 1942. What happened on that day you ask, well the world was at war. It was world war II period and for a few years in US they had only a 'war time' throughout the year. This was not the only occurrence of such meddling, there were others before and after this as well. And the software was brilliantly telling that the time component associated with the date was forcing it to believe it was 10th Oct and not 11th.

I was curious after this discovery and went to research more. It appears not just once but many times through out history man has changed the clocks and dates by months to align with calendars and religious dates. He has moved time around as if it were a pawn on the chess board. 

We think we understand Time and we have a feeling it is this one single continuous flow since the big bang. Turns out that is not true. For the way man has meddled with it, who knows we may very well be in 2018 already.

Food and Delivery Bikes

Do you remember the gas man pedaling down the street delivering gas cylinders to every house down the road ? It takes about 10 minutes per house, he delivers them, checks them and takes back the empty cylinder. You sign and pay him with a tip and sometimes tea or coffee or a diwali bonus.

If you grew in South India, you would have heard this every morning when you woke up in the  native language of the place " thakkali, vengayam, ara keerai, mulai keerai..." a repeated poetic sound of the vegetable monger. So many other street vendors also do the same for fruits, candies, ice cream, and any more.. driven in a tri cycle or a four wheeled push cart or some workable version of it.

In the many cities of India you would have seen street carts filled with vendors selling pani puri, dosa, selective foods, fruits, juices and even cosmetics. These are also a modified push cart with 4 wheels. Most of them will be pushed back or driven back (if it is tricycle) home in the night and brought back to the same or different location in the morning for sales once again.

If you have not read the news here it is  NPR Food Bikes News

Reading the news, all of the above came to my mind and it occurred to me, a concept that was there forever in India and many other Asian countries seems to start flourishing in US now. And when it did they write a huge post analyzing the benefits. These carts and bicycles have been saving so much of energy and pollution all these years. They have made it possible for the vendors to door-deliver goods to their customers. Looks like Asia has been having a sophisticated life style by these standards :).

A Walk (on the Water) to Remember!

On a spring weekend I was driving past a lake right along the freeway. Pictures flashed in front of my eyes on how the lake looked a couple of weeks back. The unbelievable transformation surprised me and the memories of the day came rushing to me.

Past: It was a warm day (around 40 degree F) close to the end of winter. We were driving on the familiar freeway to get to the restaurant for lunch. Seeing the frozen lake and all those people who were fishing we got excited to have a closer look. So after lunch we took a detour and went to the lake. It was a small beautiful lake, 95% frozen with small puddle of water starting to show up and for the fish in that small patch hundreds of sea gulls were flying above. Some of the brave men were ice fishing on it.

After a few skeptical withholds, we let go of the fear and stepped on to the ice sheet. The imaginary ice movement scared us, but we walked forward. We reached a few hundred feet from the shore seeing holes in the ice, trying to judge the depth of the ice, noticing the pecked fish and capturing the sea gulls in the camera.

There we met one of the sporty fishermen. He was all so excited to see us and showed us the ice fishing tactics. Of course he ridiculed the unfit clothing and shoes we had on and warned us to get back to the shore before we freeze. After learning to make a ice fishing hole and sharing his strange adventures which included horror filled ice fishing stories we came back to the shore all safe!

Back to Present, those moments though one might consider as stupidity I still would call it one of my life time experiences. I would have never dared to walk on the water otherwise. Inspite of the sheet of ice that was holding me up I was worried deep in my heart what if it gave way :) Now, I drove past the lake that is brightly shining as a vast blue stretch!

To all you Mac Lovers there...

I am sorry if it upsets you in any way, but just could not stop myself from enjoying this nicely written story on the IPad. I already have one other person pour out his feelings in where's my slate. But this is really nice, it’s true and genuine. If you still have not bought it or thinking about buying it you might want to check out this post in msnbc first :)

Well my personal take on this, Jobs is pretty good with Marketing and Sales. He has carefully suppressed or avoided some features in the initial versions of his products and later introduced them as new versions of the same product, increasing the temptation for people to buy it. But in this case he released iPhone which even non-Mac fans loved & appreciated and then released a simpler, clumsier IPad which even Mac fans hate now. I am not a Mac lover, but I went and had a demo in one of the apple stores on this device. The obvious killers for me were

    1. Lack of proper Bluetooth - the one that is in the device does not support everything.
    2. Lack of inbuilt Camera - come on this is silly, the main use is for browsing and chatting, why would they make it without a camera?
    3. No media card readers - Like SD cards etc.,
    4. Too pricy  for what it offers.
In short I decided against buying it atleast for now, because I get most of the capabilities in my Nokia Smart Phone and HP laptop :), I might consider the next version of iPhone though.

Has the Technology really Advanced?

Today I was contemplating on this. With so much of scientific advancement and technology innovations still only a pocket of the business really uses them all. May be it is still expensive for most businesses or may be they are happy and accustomed to the old way of doing things. Sometimes it could just be the worry on ROI. The following incident is what made me think about it.

I called the customer service of UPS to hold a package. The Customer Service Representative (CSR) tells me that it’s done and someone from the location that holds the package will call me on the pick up timing with in the hour. After waiting for over an hour I called them back. This time a new CSR picks up, she reads out a note for this package "Unable to contact or leave a message to the pick up location". Then she tells me that she will try to leave a message and they will contact me again and I should be able to pick it up by that day. It was 8:00 pm, I got skeptical and asked her what is the closing time of the location, she tells me 7:00 pm (Ah!!! please commonsense people). After trying every possible way to make her understand that it is not humanly possible that I can pick it up that day because of the timings I gave up! I had to hang the phone and stop myself from screaming at her.

The next day I decided to stick the info notice to my door and on my way to work gave them a call around 8:30 am. Again a new CSR picks up and after listening to the situation for 2 mins she agrees to remove the hold and have it delivered, but tells me it will be delivered only the following day. I was like "What the heck?” Surprisingly she tells me there is no way she could directly contact the location or can give me a phone number and has to leave a message. Also she says in this case they will take one day to process at the minimum. I was like "WOW!!!” no use just told her the whole process totally sucks and she says "Have a nice day!" and hangs up. Would I? Now I have to go to this location and pick up anyways.

This is when I started wondering. UPS is one of the established companies in US, but even they do not communicate properly and do not use the technology in any useful way. So what could have been done... 

1. The CSR who handled it first could have called me back (ofcourse I gave the number) and explained the situation and removed the hold.  
2. The communication between the CSRs and the Location that handles the packages could have been much better - using e-mails, internal messages, even a phone would have worked.
3. More options like canceling the hold would make the package go back into the delivery queue immediately etc.,
4. Each time a new CSR picks up its hard to explain the whole thing again, wouldn't it be easier if the previous person leaves a note? 

Ironically, in my case a company that delivers posts (also a form of communication) has a bad communication network within. Hope they realize it before diminishing in the competitive market!

Spring Romance

It was a beautiful spring evening and I was going down the local streets of my town for some grocery shopping. It was a breezy day and the sun was sinking down into the horizon. In a nearby tree I noticed a small bird hopping close to another one. For a minute there I was perplexed. I was witnessing the mating ritual of one of the bird species which some scientists would be so eager to capture. As nature has it, these things are little weird in human perception.

The male bird was taking cautious steps pecking her, then on the bark, and then heading closer. The female finally noticed him and edged for a beak peck. After a few she moved back. He pursued. She hopped on to the nearest branch, he proceeded as well. After showing a few more signs of rejection she flew of from the tree. Poor guy he pecked the bark a few times and then headed his own way... The whole drama would not have lasted for more than 2 minutes, but it unfolded a romantic story with a twist. Such a wonderful event to see.

Is Partial Truth a Lie?

Have you ever wondered on this simple thing? Let me start by explaining what I mean here as partial truth. It’s more like omitting part of the truth or let’s says misstating the truth with the twist of words. Here is an example.

Girl: "Hey why you are not at the stadium with your friends, isn't your favorite team playing today?"

Guy: "Yes, they are. But I would rather be with the girl of my dreams." (Fact: I did not get tickets!!)

It might sound romantic in this context, so where is it bad? Mmm... lets analyze further. The public rely on media to get the news around the world, which includes everything happening on earth from science & technology to business & politics (yes they pair!). Big businesses also depend on the media for their advertisement and marketing.

Now the Media as we expect should act as a good liaison and bring us the quality information, but then the media itself needs to propagate its sales. Now comes the act of the tricky devil - media exaggerates, modifies, twists and omits the truth based on its likes for and cash flows from the "party" involved creating hot news and a selling point for them. Party could be political, company, business establishment or even an individual. Everyone knows this on the back of their minds but have you ever wondered how much of an effect it has on the society? How many things are decided just because the papers said so? How many companies lost their share values on this? The more we analyze the more unethical it sounds. Of course it is!! When we were kids we were taught Truth is just Truth any other form of it is plain cold lie. But when it comes to the business world, somehow they succumb to the market politics and deep played economics and alter the definition of Truth itself to suit their needs.

What I have seen happen around the globe is that the media slowly become a marketing portal for the firms that they support (indirectly supported by the firm - is this highly skilled version of symbiosis). It is now Mardi gras season for the media world, chewing in the quarter results, promotion and pay hike announcements from many companies. Use caution and try to get the first hand information when you read these instead of believing what you see in papers. Like Valluvar says:

“Whatever your hear from whomever,To analyze the truth is wisdom’s fair”

“Knowledge is to find the truth of things, Of whatever nature and kind it may be”

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!

The Winter, the Beach and the Stars!

It’s not the title of a new thriller novel, but it’s about a weird beach experience I had. After a week's good weather again winter took its toll and came with its favorite single digits mid last week. Weekend was no different. After spending the whole of Saturday at home (eating, sleeping, reading) I could not muster the courage to do that on Sunday too. So woke up early, had breakfast outside and went shopping. The winter weather was not very ideal for that either and soon lost interest. Without much option left decided to drive down to the shore point.

Here's some History. I am not a frequent beach visitor back at home or in California or here, for one thing beach was always an hour's drive from wherever I stayed. But I like going there occasionally on sunny summer days. Other than that once I visited the beach at Long Beach, CA on a Thanks Giving evening. My friends and I was the only people there :). Now back to present...

The beautiful hue of sunset invited me warmly against all the cold wind blowing there. I walked to the rail nearby and bent over to look at the water below and beyond... sheets of ice was crashing on to each other and washing away furiously into the Atlantic Ocean. It reminded me of watching the arctic ice melt down in the Discovery Channel. The lighthouse in the far end was standing majestically, and the yapping sea gulls were missing... Infact there was not even a living soul to be found in sight. When I could not take anymore of the freezing air I had to turn back to my car. But curiosity kept me going to the beach.

I was flabbergasted to see a girl in her bathing suit walk away with a surf board (Are you kidding me???) Pushing aside the thought of that competing idiocy I walked to the beach battling the harsh winter winds of -7F(-21C), crossing the beach soil frozen in ice with a pattern hard set on it buy the waves and then a plain stretch of snow that must have piled up from Wednesday's snow fall. The beach itself was calm, dark blue, spooky in low tides with a deep red sky for the backdrop!! I felt I could not get enough of it. As the sun went down, had a nice dinner at a local Indian restaurant (never been there before). While I was driving back saw that big, yellow moon smiling broadly at me. Eagerness to see a starry sky flushed me with new energy. Most of the beaches and parks were closed in the vicinity by then, so took some exit and got to an open land. It was a boat landing site with frozen river. When I switched off my headlights and got down WOW!! Never seen so many stars in my life... It was so heavenly that I could not tell if my heart was pounding in joy or in fear of the coyote’s howl. Stood there for some time taking in that celestial scene.

After some getting lost and hour's drive I got back home. Still thinking about the vivid day went to sleep. That surf board appeared again and the stars twinkled before my eyes!

Subtle Beauty!

On a lazy Saturday evening when I was sipping my rich flavored tea, reading one of the Michael Crichton’s my taste buds were searching for the dry ginger (sukku) I put in the tea. The ginger flavor was mild, relishing that I looked over to find the pretty little pink carnations just blooming on their green stalks on my dinner table. How simple!

The beauty of both hit me! It was like watching a polite girl in a meeting, almost invisible until she speaks that one word which would turn everything around. Most certainly comparable to that hidden king-rook pair which would be lurking unnoticeable in the chess board until the opponent makes a castling.. The very calm ocean… with nothing but the rushing waves to décor it, sometimes that very simpleness in a guy who hides in the crowd and acknowledges with not more than a smile when his name is announced for the success of the project. I am anything but subtle. But to me it feels soothing and natural when you see subtleness, in any and every form. Beautiful flowers, my mobile phone camera did not do enough justice to it though!