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

Mommy and Sonny Visit the BirdPark

Last Sunday my husband was  not in station and it was just me and sonny at home.

My whole family truly believes that the most heinous crime that can be committed against me is asking me to sit all day within the confines of the four walls of the house.

V was actually busy and content.You simply do not get bored when you are three and a half and you just dont need a reason to be happy. An ant on the floor can give as much pleasure as a visit to Disney Land.

Hence though I declared to the big bad world that I was taking him out as he was getting bored, it was actually my own boredom I was escaping from.

Anyways, I have mentioned in some of my earlier posts about my son's addiction, craze or whatever you may call it to fauna. If there is anything that fills him with absolute glee its the sight of birds or animals.

With due consideration to the above fact, bird park was the choice as its close to my place and I decided to take on the herculean task!(Herculean? If you are wondering why, you need to take care of my little fellow for a day. Or for that matter any kiddo in the 3 to 4 yr range.Believe me, it sounds a lot more easier than it is!)

The weather-God smiled upon my quest to spend some quality time with my little boy and made sure that there were no irritating and troublesome downpours.It was bright and sunny throughout.

I just let the day go, moving in the directions he wanted to the tune of his childish pleasures.Whatever he wanted to see, however long it took!

The way his face lit up on seeing the penguin swim, the squeal he gave on seeing the pink flamingoes, it was bliss.

I realized that a simple thing like a hornbill flying from one branch to another could be the source of innocent pristine exuberance.

Every now and then he excitedly pointed at little things that he observed which were huge in his world...."Amma, the feather of the Pelican fell into the water. We need to stick". Luckily he did not insist that I had to stick it back immediately!

He spent almost three quarters of an hour simply watching the storks as they kept wading in the pool trying to find some fish while I sat on a bench nearby observing him. I doubt if any of us adults can get so much joy out of a simple scene as that!

Sometimes, its imperative that we take some time out and be with kids as kids. Just let them be themselves and relish in those little moments.Laugh when they laugh, run when they run and share a cone of icecream .They deserve it and trust me , the happiness it gives can be equated by nothing on earth.

There is a place called Lory Loft in the Singapore Bird Park. Its an enclosure for a flock of very colorful birds called lorries and visitors can feed some porridge-like substance to the birds which can be bought nearby. The last time we went , he was hardly two years. Then I was carrying him and he watched with curiosity as we adults fed the birds. This time he declared 'Vidyut give mum-mum(rice) to the birds' and he took the bowl from me and proceeded to feed his feathered friends. There are some subtle moments in life when the realization dawns on us that 'Boy, he is growing up!' . And I beamed in pride as I watched him carefully feeding the lorries without getting scared or spilling one drop.

The icing of the cake was the Parrot Paradise. For one, I was amazed by the varieties of parrots. Name a color and there was one in it- Purple, Blue, Red and even Black! As we wandered amongst their cages, I heard a familiar note amongst the cacaphony of their screeches. I went in the direction it was coming from and tried to concentrate. A yellow and green parrot was singing some rhyme that was very familiar. I moved closer and listened carefully. 'Haa-ppp-yyy B-urrr-ttt-daay' sang the bird.  I have seen them do in some shows, but on a hot afternoon, this parrot in a cage was happily singing away to glory. Leave alone V, I myself was terribly excited. Both of us pitched in. In the tranquillity of the greenery all around it was mother, son and a parrot singing 'happy birthday to you' without any care about who was listening to us. Actually we seemed to be the only tourists in that enclosure. 

The caged bird seemed to be preaching  "Happiness is the state of your mind, not of your surroundings"

After around five hours, I said to V that we needed to get going. I had been pushing his stroller and was a little exhausted. As I wearily headed to the taxi stand he turned  to me and declared without even an iota of tiredness..."Shall we go to the elephant park ?" I should have thought twice before giving him a name that translated to energy!

Caste Differences..Are we eliminating? Or promoting?

Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra –there were the four main caste subdivisions that existed in Vedic times. A division primarily based on the occupation of these men – The priests, the rulers, the businessmen and the labourers or the cleaners doing the menial jobs.


This got divided and sub divided into further sects and today we have innumerable divisions in our society termed ‘CASTE’. With time, the practices related to this classification started taking ugly forms in alarming proportions fuelled by man’s yearning for superiority.

Various reforms were brought about by some leaders and today’s India has a lot more equality to boast about than a few centuries ago.

Yet it’s a fact that there still exist insane practices followed in our nation in the name of caste, predominantly in the rural sections.


Dalits not being allowed to enjoy certain priveleges. Dalits not allowed entry in some places. Dalit people being harassed. Dalits being punished when they ventured into the avenues ‘prohibitted’ for them.

Absolutely Shameful. Many a time I have read of incidents where the ruling Panchayat engages in such atrocious actions

Whatever happened to the ‘equality irrespective of caste, creed, religion’ taught across schools to the children?

These incidents scream at us with vehemence that despite all the economic and social development we have undergone, we still have a very long way to go.

In some parts of India, especially in cities and some towns we seem to have done away with this social evil to a great extent. Atleast people mind their own businesses and live together in harmony. Intercaste marriages are becoming more common. I am positive and confident that with the passage of time the rest of the country will follow suit.

Unfortunately these differences are further magnified instead of getting eliminated by the respected governing Netas of our country. The fanatism for their caste held by various groups is exploited and directed towards achieveing political gains.

Electoral parties get formed everyday for a specific ethnic group or caste.

A ploy used by every other politician to gain votes is that he would fight for the interests of a specific group. SO what about the rest?

If one is interested only in the upliftment of a specific caste, then politics or the assembly is a wrong place to be.

Is any of this directed at doing away with the difference?

In fact in the name of upliftment of the downtrodden castes, I have come across speeches throwing insults at certain other castes in the community for no reason at all.

I was born in a Brahmin family, classified as 'Forward/Upper Caste'. This is not explicitly stated or declared but when it comes to getting a seat in an educational institute, or a job in the public sector , we would be put into the Open Category.

Today when students clear their Boards, in addition to their marks, their parentage i.e. the CASTE they belong to would decide their fate.

 Every student who passes out of school would need to get a ‘Caste Classification’ certificate in addition to his Board Exam marksheet.

30% - BC (Backward Caste), 30% MBC (Most Backward Caste) 35% OC(Open Category) and 5% SC/ST

These percentages may be inaccurate but this is to give an idea.As the name declares OC is for all irrespective of their caste. For the rest there is a quota. The BC,MBC and SC/ST students can get a seat in the Open Category when the seats in their quotas get occupied. But the reverse does not happen.
Today a student in the OC category needs 99% to get a specific seat. For the same seat it would suffice if a student in BC secures 95% and an MBC student would need only 92%. So a student aspiring for a particular institute needs to set his target depending upon the caste he belongs to. Also there is a very good chance that he gets enrolled in a lower rank institute compared to his classmates even though he scored more than them.  Where is fairness here?


Most of the people belonging to castes classified as BC or MBC today are socially well developed and are in respectable vocations some of them lawyers,doctors etc . I mean to say that these competing students are similar in terms of the socio-economic background of their families.
So Why this difference?

This discrimination in a way promotes the exodus of a lot of good talent towards greener pastures outside the country where the competition they face does not have anything to do with their caste.


I am speaking out LOUD here because I know the impact.


Every other day we have one community or the other with a demonstration raising flags demanding a quota for their wards.


If it has to be fair, do away with all these differences. Let the allotment be purely on the basis of merit.


There are specific communities like the tribal folks in some forests etc which need to be uplifted. It may be impossible for these people to compete on par with the rest. There could be a panel of selected members from the society who can allot seats for these students.

For the rest I do not see a reason why there should be a difference based on caste.

 I truly believe that irrespective of caste and creed all men and women need to be treated as humans first and all oppression in the name of caste should be wiped out from the face of the nation. At the same time let us stop glorifying the differences in the name of elimination.

Let there be EQUALITY in the true sense of the word irrespective of caste creed and religion.

Then my India will shine.


Bikramjit Mann's post based on Stayamev Jayate triggered me to write this one.

On our way to our vacation!! A tensed Start!!!

Vacation – One of my favorite words and something that I have been nagging my poor hubby about for quite some time. The last one we had was to Penang in Malaysia in the second trimester of my pregnancy. Now my little one is a few months away from his third birthday and a vacation was long overdue. Somehow we could not plan one earlier due to some reason or the other.

This time we had a long weekend and so we decided to go somewhere, any good place where we could get tickets to. We decided upon the Phuket one of South East Asia’s most preferred tourist destinations. This post is not about my trip. Its just about making it to that trip.

Well, our flight was at 6:30 on Fri evening. I had to go to work and my husband was working from home that day. Somehow the days you have to leave on vacation would be the busiest at work. Mine was no exception. To add to it I ended up late at work and also missed an important last-minute meeting as I had not checked my mails or messages. So it was work, work and more work. My husband had warned me to somehow be back at home at 3:30. I had a critical meeting at 3! What was I supposed to do! Somehow I wrapped up the meeting fast, caught the next available cab and rushed home. I checked my wallet and I had some change which would not be enough for a bus ride back home leave alone a cab one! I called up my husband and asked him to wait for me in the lobby with some cash.

After all this when we entered home together it was almost 3:45. That is when my husband’s colleagues decided on a conference call at 4 and called him up. He did not attend it ofcourse but the explanations ate up some of our time.

In our hurry we forgot to dial a cab and went down to the street , the way we always did if our destination was somewhere local. Most cabs that went by had ‘HIRED’ in red displayed on top. At last , one came with a green ‘TAXI’ sign. That sped past without stopping. We realized that was an old couple on a drive, using a taxi for personal use and had forgotten to switch off the sign. We waited for some more time.

Then another cab came in the opposite direction. It also sped past without stopping. “Damn!! It’s that same old couple! Guess they are trying to figure out their way” my husband exclaimed with exasperation.

Finally one cab guy stopped. When I peered in to tell him Airport I noticed he had a squint in his eye and his expression reminded me of the aliens from ‘Men in Black’. That did not matter then anyways. We waited for him to open the trunk. A whole minute sped by and no reaction! I went back in front to check and our man was slowly counting some change. Twenty, Forty!!! Finally got him to open the trunk, put our luggage in and started on our way to the airport.

I guess this person had a fear of speed whatever phobia that’s called. The road ahead was pretty empty and other cars were way ahead but he drove as slow as he could. After some time ‘Heavy Traffic ahead’ board came looming into our vision and then he could not go faster even if he wanted to.

The road to the airport is a highway and has boards displaying the distance to the airport. At 5:15 we were at 23 and a ½. I decided not to get obsessed with those boards and instructed myself to check again at 5: 20. I listened to myself but at5:20 the board said 22 & a ½ which was not of much solace to me. Soon the traffic cleared and we came to the taxi drop off point at around 5:35.

That’s when my toddler regurgitated his entire afternoon meal in a projectile angle. I was beginning to notice that he was getting a little restless but did not expect this. There was absolutely no sympathy from the cab guy. ‘Oh No! My Car!! That will ruin my business’ was his reaction. Anyways with all the wet tissue that I had , I cleaned it up to the best extent possible and repeated my apology n times . I signaled to my husband that we should pay him something to make up for the mess we had caused. When my husband handed over a 50$ bill he accepted it, did not give us any word of thanks or any other feeling and got back and sped away. Basically he helped himself to the extra money to make up for the mess by not giving us our change back.

We came to the check in counter at around 5:50 and there was a pretty long queue. There were people going back to some cities in India and their flights were much later at 8 or so.

My husband left me and my son in the queue and went to one of the impeccably dressed airline personnel trying to explain to her that our flight was in half an hour and try to push us ahead in the queue.

That is when the lady smiled and uttered one of the best things we had heard the whole day, a statement which would have normally evoked a long groan from us. ‘Sir! Your flight has been delayed to 7:40. You should not have any problem’. We both heaved a huge sigh of relief and proceeded to await our turn to check in. The vomit had cleared all the indigestion in my little one’s tummy and he was now happily playing with the tapes they use to channel the passenger queues.

Look at what they have done to me!!!!

http://www.indusladies.com/forums/blogs/jaishvats/look-what-they-have-done-3694/

The Ideal World of Cartoons

Thanks to my toddler I have started watching cartoon channels more than anything else on television. I never knew they were so good and entertaining. I was of the belief that only kids would enjoy these animated series. To my surprise I found that I was enjoying them even more than my son.

I am not talking about cartoons where you have evil forces and super warriors like Animax channel. I am referring to simple cartoons and our favorite channel is Playhouse Disney. Groups of friends, lots of joy, teeny-weeny problems that they solve and happy endings guaranteed.

These days the producers are making great attempts to make them educative as well. There is Mickey Mouse Club House where Mickey and Friends achieve some feat using Mouse-ka-tools. It portrays how simple things that we have can be put to efficient use. Every now and then Mickey would do some counting and numbers. There is Higgly Town Heroes where every episode concentrates on some profession and the people in those portrayed as heroes. It explains what bakers, doctors, firemen, policemen and even marine biologists do. There is Handy Manny where tools talk and its explained how simple repairs are done.

There is no violence and no vulgarity. It’s an ideal world where everyone is sweet, kind and nice and there is no poverty, crime, grief, war, difference in ideologies, etc.

After seeing these channels I am unable to watch any news channel. What a marked difference exists. The former is full of fun, frolic, happiness and joy; the latter full of violence, hatred, atrocities and crime. I’d rather watch Timmy the lamb go to school rather than listen to reports of terrorists, snipers, corrupt men and politics.

If only by magic we could enter into that world of cartoons how nice it would it be, I wonder. The world of kids has no complexities that we human beings have created on this planet. It’s simple and beautiful.

The mad rush for respect

‘Respect’ is a beautiful word. It means a positive feeling of esteem for a person or other entity. Respect is something that has to emanate from the heart. In India respect is demanded, quarreled over, fought about and enveloped in falsehood.

Statues, garlands and posters top the list of means to show ones respect. Every other day it’s the birthday of some leader – freedom fighter, or political leader or a literary genius. We would have politicians thronging the places where their statues are kept. Huge garlands would be put around the statue and there would be big news coverage. Party followers would be shouting slogans in favor the person garlanding. I don’t think statues are given this much hype in any other part of the world. If you really respect the person do something to spread his ideology, start some program to create some awareness about him.

Even Raja Raja Chozhan would not have had so many ‘respectful’ terms behind his name. The posters we see struck everywhere in the city carry so many honorary titles for our ministers. The lower ranked members of the party try to get themselves in the good books of the ministers and in turn a seat in the Assembly by uttering these titles at every possible opportunity and adding a few if possible.

We have the culture of the ministers falling at other minister’s feet. Ask them to give one reason why they are doing it and they would reply that he is a great man. Are we living in a democracy or not? They are just elected members of the community. Why make Gods out of them?

Even doctorate degrees have fallen prey to this game of giving respect. Universities try to get funds and popularity by giving honorary doctorate titles to the most underserved of the lot.

Actors are no exception. In Tamil film industry, an actor who has completed three movies expects a ‘sir’ after his name whenever somebody refers to him. In the Western world actors are treated just as actors and referred to by their first name. I have not seen any actress being referred to as ‘madam’ here. These actors are also crazy after titles. I think we have contenders for almost all the titles in an infantry in our Tamil film industry.


Respect problems start from the family. There are parts of Tamilnadu where the way the banana leaf is folded after a meal indicates respect or the lack of it.
There are families where a marriage invitation carries a thousand names on the ‘With Best Compliments’ list and family feuds result when some name of an nth relative gets missed out. Of all things on earth coffee can be told to cause lack of respect. So often we hear ‘The girl’s side did not even offer proper coffee. They had no respect for the guy’s side.’

In this mad rush for respect so many people who actually deserve respect are forgotten. But they neither ask for it or feel having been denied it. Aged people deserve respect. They are called as ‘perusu’(literally translates to big). People in buses don’t offer them seats. Their age is not given any importance in government offices where they go for something or the other and are still made to undergo torturous hours of waiting and begging. People who do social service without any political motives need respect. The labourers who toil day and night to provide us with all our luxuries need respect. Recently in Singapore in one of the papers I saw that the Govt inspected public toilets and gave away awards to the workers for the best kept public rest rooms.

I feel that we need to respect every individual who ignores society’s ways and gives respect to the deserved in a deserving manner.

Feline Memories

http://www.indusladies.com/forums/blogs/jaishvats/feline-memories-2-3414/

A Fate's Game Of Hide And Seek

http://www.indusladies.com/forums/blogs/jaishvats/a-fates-game-hide-seek-3362/

no White Chutney! How dare you?

http://www.indusladies.com/forums/blogs/jaishvats/no-white-chutney-how-dare-3338/

AutoDrivers-2

My post on Indus Ladies - http://www.indusladies.com/forums/blogs/jaishvats/autodriver-a-thinker-3247/

AutoDriver-1

http://www.indusladies.com/forums/blogs/jaishvats/another-autodriver-senseless-thoughtless-though-3249/