Janmashtami Celebration - Kutti Kal Kolam and Uppu Seedai

On Saturday Sep 8^th, it was Janmashtami a.k.a Sri Jayanthi i.e Lord Krishna’s birthday.

‘Saturday? Was it not over a month ago?’ I can almost see all those eyebrows going up dubiously.

Well, it was celebrated in most parts of India a month ago and Facebook was teeming with pictures of little ones dressed up in dhotis and peacock feathers with tilaks on their foreheads. But for a selected few sects in India, including mine, Janmashtami was on Saturday. Now how can the same deity have his birthday on two different days that too a month apart? Well, I guess  only the deity Himself can answer that perplexing question. Anyways it was celebrated at my place on Saturday, period.

As soon as V got up in the morning, I told him , ‘Hey its Krishnar umaachi(God in toddler’s dictionary)’s birthday today.’ He thought for a second and responded ‘Birthday?Cake,Candles?’ Hmm, not a bad idea!

With a lot of enthusiasm I started my preparations for the evening pooja.

Task One I assigned to myself was a herculean and a very arduous and dangerous one. ‘The making of the Seedai’,  a savoury made of rice and urad dhall flour. Basically small balls of dough deep fried in oil.

Even experienced hands of twenty to thirty years can goof up when it comes to seedai.  On one hand, for various reasons, there is a high probability of it bursting while frying. The kitchen(it belongs to my landlord anyways) and my face (now that’s more personal) were at risk. Every recipe for the same would be accompanied by various tips for avoiding this explosion. On the other hand, if improperly cooked they can become so hard, that without a second thought they could be shipped to dentists all over the world. Tooth Extraction Made Easy!

Anyways I belong to the group that gets inspiration from Vijay films …’Once I decide, I don’t listen even to myself’ (Wanted has a similar dialogue I suppose).

After doing some research for the recipe(my maiden attempt), I prepared the dough strictly as per instructions.

Rolling the dough into small balls....Boy!  That was tiring….It seemed like an endless task which I somehow managed to complete. Someone please invent a machine for that!

Anyways, some sweet soul on the internet had mentioned that, if your pierce the dough balls with a needle they would not burst.

There is a section of the brain called ‘Stupid Idea Zone’. This section has the habit of disguising itself as the ‘Eureka Zone’ and ends up giving really dumb ideas which the remaining grey cells accept after a standing ovation. This section suddenly said ‘Hey, Y needle? You are the symbol of East-West fusion. Use a fork to prick them’. I took out this huge fork and pricked the balls making sure that three four proper holes had been made.

I said a small prayer ‘Look, I am making them for you. So please don’t let it burst!’

Then I started frying them and Wow! They were a darling bunch of seedais that came out perfectly. A beautiful golden brown in color and the lovely smells that came while frying made me nostalgic.  

The thing about the festival is that you get to taste what you have made only after the pooja got over in the evening.

I could not wait that long to display and telecast my pride and so wasting no time, I showed them to my husband with a perfect display of bragging and informed my mother-in-law back home that my seedais came out perfectly without any untoward occurrences.

It was soon evening and pertaining to the tradition I started drawing small feet patterns with rice flour paste on the floor (ezhai Kolam)starting  from the entrance and culminating at the pooja area. This is a tradition that symbolizes Krishna visiting our homes.

As I was doing so, V went to the kitchen, carried the mop much bigger than himself to the hall with all his strength and started vigorously rubbing off the kutti kaal(tiny feet).

’One is not supposed to dirty the floors and should clean it up in case something spills!’ After listening to this innumerable number of times, he could not reason out why mommy was bent upon making the floors untidy.

Finally it was pooja time and once done, I could hardly wait to taste the seedai of my success. 

My husband being an ardent fan of this savoury , quickly popped a few into his mouth.

I waited with an eager expression on my face like those participants of Master Chef awaiting the judges remarks. ‘Hmm, its nice and tasty but not very crispy or kara-kara’ was the verdict. ‘ Ideal for people without teeth’ he added with a wink.  I put a few in my mouth and they tasted like pakodas and vadas that had fallen into water…No crispness at all…and it required an imitation of the cud-chewing of cows and buffalos  to mince them before sending them down the food pipe!

There are moments in life when the memory section of the brain starts flashing proverbs and sayings. ‘Appearances are deceptive, Appearances are deceptive.’ A voice like that of Superstar Rajinikanth repeated in a punch dialogue fashion in my head.

My poor husband tried pacifying me saying that except for that the taste and smell were close to perfection. Anyways, lessons learnt.

1)      Don’t keep referring to the internet for tips

2)      If you do, follow them religiously. Don’t tweak them with your own ideas

3)      If you do that as well, don’t blow your horn, unless you are absolutely sure of the outcome.

Jai Shri Krishna! J

The Lost Word!

This is one of the posts I wrote in my initial days of blogging, Thought I will publish again!

I am sure that quite a few of you might be residing in cities where you don’t know the ABC or Ae-Be-Che or rather whichever way the script goes of the local language. People in such circumstances would have a lot of stories to share.

This becomes most problematic when you travel, or go shopping, and in case of vegetarians like me when you hunt for food. During my initial few days in Kuala Lumpur, there were instances when I would walk into a restaurant and ask if there was something veggie. Malaysian food is full of fish, meat and if nothing else anchovies for the flavor. People like me asking for vegetarian were a totally rare sight for them. The lady servicing this mad customer would give a blank look.

Okay! You did not understand, is it? Fine! Here I go again! Do-you-have-anything-veggie? I would stress each word to try to make her understand. She would give me a “Where-on-earth-have-you-come-from?” look and say “Don’t-have” with a wave of her hand. “I have better customers to attend to. Good riddance” I can almost hear the words in her mind.


Now the above belong to the “I know some English” cadre. The experience is best when you have someone for whom English sounds the way a tribal language in the deep jungles of Africa would sound to you and me. One such fellow was sent to do some general repairs in my home by the landlord.

I was alone at home with my three month old son. This guy rings the bell and comes inside and says Hi.

“Obang?” he says.

Now it was my turn to give a blank look.

“I am sorry I don’t know Malay”

“Obang! Obang!”

Well, repeating it twice will not make me a Nobel Laureate in Malay Literature.

“Ladder?” I ask trying to help.


“Obang! Obang!” and he starts walking around the house and exploring

“Bathroom? Yes the heater is not working” I say slowly and firmly trying to make the best imitation of the lady who used to come on Doordarshan at 1:15 on Sundays. News for the hearing impaired.


“Obang” and he shows me his hands with three fingers open and the thumb and index finger closed.


“Yes there are three fixes to be done”
“O-baaa-nnn-ggg” now putting so much stress on each syllable is not going to drill any amount of Malay vocabulary into my head.
He puts his hands on his hips and looks to the left and then to the right.


I stand like a school student whose teacher has just asked her “now what is fourteen times twenty-three”. Not those prodigies who have the answers stored somewhere or the other in their brain.

There is a minute of awkward silence.

Now he looks at me with a “Lets try it again” expression and says “Obang” moving his hands backwards and forwards showing three again and again.


Is he telling me that the interiors are superb? I wonder. Naaaah.Why would he repeat it so many times?

“Obang Obang” and he peruses the walls.


Luckily my neighbor is at home and I rush to seek their help.

“There is a guy out there speaking only Malay and I can’t make heads or tails out of it.”

My neighbor’s son, a fifteen year old gives me a 'Not Again' look and comes with me.

“Obang!” our man in question repeats with a relieved tone.

“Obang means hole. Is there a hole on the wall to be sealed?” the boy asks me.

Oh dear! All this while he was showing a hole with his thumb and finger and I was looking at the three shown by the other fingers.

Now that was a fix that was not there in our initial list and I had not remembered it. Even if I did remember, it would not have made any difference. I would have still been the non-Malay-speaking-idiot-who-has-landed-from-God-knows-Where.

With the help of my fifteen year old translator I managed to get things done.