A - Akkaravadisal, Avocado and a quote for A

This is my first post as part of the A to Z blogging 2022.

I love to cook and I love to eat...so this year my posts are based on food and some food for thought at the end! 

 Food from home:

A family feast with a wide array of delicacies is part of most festivals across the globe and the ones in South India are no exception. I come from the coastal state of TamilNadu, where a full fledged meal served on a banana leaf is a cultural aspect that can still be seen in weddings and to a great extent in homes on festive days. We were using only these biodegradable use and throw free plates from Mother Nature till modernization gave way to metal  plates in most homes.

Akkara Adisal / Akkaravadisal:

I belong to a vegetarian community and our festive meals would not be complete without a sweet dessert. Akkara Adisal , is one of my favorites and supposedly translates to rice cooked in jaggery.

Rice is cooked with  yellow lentils , milk and sweetened with jaggery.  Flavoring with cardomom and garnishing with nuts and raisins roasted in ghee results in an aroma wafting from the kitchen that can elevate your senses and soul. The below was cooked by yours truly! 

Food from other lands - Avocado:

Avocados don't grow in India and so it was not a very commonly available fruit in my growing up years. My exposure was after I travelled outside of India.   In many of the juice shops here in Singapore I have tasted milkshakes made with Avocado and honey and they taste out of the world. I am a huge fan of Guacamole too. 

Quote and food for thought :

As i had mentioned in my theme reveal post,  am trying to find a quote in my mothertongue Tamil for every post. For A, it would be 

Aanaikkum Adi Sarukkum.

Aanai means elephant. It literally translates to Even an elephant could stumble or trip while walking.

No matter how strong a person is or how perfect a person is he may have his own weak moments when he fumbles or falters a bit. Basically a word of caution for overconfidence.

A to Z Blogging theme reveal

April is around the corner and its time for the annual A to Z blogging challenge.

My theme for this year is 

Food for me and food for thought! 

I would be taking each letter and writing about  food items  and some quotes that i love.  

I love to cook and love to eat and so , a part of the post would be straight from taste buds to key board. I love exploring different cuisines though i am a vegetarian. 

These quotes could be from movies , proverbs , literature and I am planning to stick as much as possible to my mothertongue Tamil which is supposed to be one of the oldest languages spoken by man. Only the quote would be Tamil but the translation , explanation and my views would be all in English. For some letters the quotes could be from English as well. 

I never learnt Tamil in school but i love the language. There are some quotes in English that have gotten me deeply thinking as well.

This is the plan for now...Lets see how it goes...

Looking forward to interacting with all the wonderful bloggers and writing more

 

Voltage drop and Load Shedding

Some mornings our thoughts move from one random thought to another albeit in a rhythmic fashion.  One set of my grey cells were busy communicating with my olfactory nerves about the fresh flavors of my herbal toothpaste. Their comrades were busy meandering into some nostalgic memories.

What was I thinking about ? Being blessed to have water as well as electricity running 24 hours!

We were lucky residing in the state of Kerala with plenty of rain, and a well within our premises that was always full and sufficient for our needs. But during my vacation trips to some of my relatives' places, I have been exposed to water scarcity. Water supply restricted to a few hours per day, or in worst cases, few hours on alternate days! There would be huge drums or barrels that would be filled up to be used till the next scheduled hour for the taps to start working again . My aunt lived in one such place, and was so skilled at the art of operating a kitchen with minimum water . Imagine washing a load of vessels with  just a pail of water.  Mind you, this person was adept at and particular about keeping things spic and span !

Though water was not a concern, we used to have voltage fluctuations and fixed periods of power interruptions for load shedding. As a 7 or 8 year old I had no clue what "load shedding" or "voltage drop" meant though they were added to my vocabulary and were used quite often in daily conversations. To me the former meant that all lights and fans went off while the latter caused fans to rotate slowly and tube lights to keep flickering in an annoying manner.

Electric appliances would usually be fitted with a voltage stabilizer then and one such brand was V Guard( I think they are still around). The 80s and 90s kids would be familiar with the catchy jingle that used to be played in the advertisement . It depicts a lady trying to set jelly in a mould in her refrigerator.  The jelly sets properly only after she fits the V guard stabilizer.

In fact the ad has three parts. I recollected the scenes of the lady with the fridge and the group of dancers whose music system gets interrupted. But I could not remember the first part. Anyways there's nothing that's not there on YouTube and I found it ! 

Had no idea that the jingle was composed by our  musical legend and Oscar Winner AR Rahman. 

Todays tune on my lips is " we got it right with the V Guard...."

Z for Zoo

 There are not many Harry Potter terms with Z. I had to google for the Potter Index. ( I have begun to observe that to google is a universally accepted  verb nowadays).

In the very first few pages of Book 1 we see him going to the zoo and realizing that a snake could understand him. In other words he speaks "Parseltongue". There is this scene with the sand boa that escapes after talking to him.

My son is a big animal aficionado and hence we have done innumerable trips to the zoo so much so that I declare sometimes " if I am left blindfolded at the entrance I will know how to get out"

I somehow do not like the idea of animals being deprived of their freedom and being confined to cages. If the enclosures are big enough and they have enough space to move about its better. 

One thing I learnt from my son during one of our expeditions is that tigers do not hunt zebras . The latter belongs to Africa and there are no tigers there. But if tigers were released in a place with zebras would they consider them as food or friends I wonder !  Not in a wicked sense but wondering how animal brains are wired ! 

One of the animals here at the Singapore zoo which was a revelation to me when I encountered it for the first time is the "Tapir". 

Image source: Wikipedia 

It is a black and white creature that looks like a pig with an elephant's  trunk. Baby tapirs apparently look like a watermelon with similar stripes.  A zoo visit can fill us with awe at the wonderful designs and patterns of natural flora and fauna! Have you seen a Tapir before ? 

This reminds me of a joke we used to laugh about as kids. In Tamil the word "eli" means rat. " what happens if a rat wore pants- it becomes an Eli-phant " ha ha

If one visits the zoo here, a message that is conveyed as much as possible is to "Follow the 3 Rs , Reduce Reuse and Recycle" . In this post I would like to emphasise the same. We have a responsibility towards our planet and let's try to follow these 3 R s as much as possible.

Image credit: Noah Buscher on Unsplash.com

This is the concluding post of the A to Z challenge and for the first time I have been able to stick to the schedule and diligently publish a post every single day.  

Thanks to all the bloggers who visited ,commented or simply accompanied me on this month long journey  .

I have enjoyed this exercise and kudos to every other participant. 

I somehow feel like Reese Witherspoon s character in the last scene of Legally Blonde movie where she screams " We Did It!"

Gif images are like the ones in Harry Potter, aren't they ? They move. We muggles are not entirely different:) 

"May you all have a great May "

Y for Yule Ball

The first time I came across the word ball may have been when my father got me the quintessential striped plastic ball with blue, red and yellow colours. Then came along Cinderella and I knew there is a ball which is an event which people attend dressed fabulously and dance. I am still trying to fathom how on earth one can dance wearing glass slippers. Super Durable Glass I must say and they would have been quite heavy wouldn't they ? 

The Yule ball is an event that happens during the Triwizarding tournament in the Goblet of Fire book of Harry Potter series. The participants are supposed to bring partners and there are some happenings around who dances with who and who ends up sabotaging all hopes of a good time.I thought Emma Watson looked ravishing in that scene in the movie. 

Dancing in pairs like this is a concept we Indians came to know from the West. During the days of the British Raj it was common for the English residing in India to have events where the English gentlemen waltzed with their ladies. But the Indians mostly did not have access nor were culturally inclined towards it.   It is not a common practise in India to have Prom nights or other similar events in high school.   I came to know of them mainly from Hollywood movies and TV series. In college though, we had a dance workshop where I learnt ones like Tango, Waltz and Jive for fun and put up a show just for fun.

We do have our own share of community  dancing.Visit an Indian wedding and you would know. If you have watched Indian movies you would be accustomed to the fact that music and dance play important roles.Music direction and Choreography are significant departments in movie making. This sort of dancing has a huge influence on the masses especially kids and the youth. We have dance festivals, dance competitions, TV shows based on dancing and simple just-enjoy party dancing. During my teens , a Philips tape recorder was my constant companion and I loved dancing in my room ignoring my mother's pleas to reduce the volume ( oh yes I was a rebel!)

We have hundreds of traditional classical dance forms in India that takes years of practise to master with their own rules and methods and practises. They need to be learnt from trained teachers and is done with piety and reverence. A few examples are the Bharatnatyam,  Kuchipudi, Kathak and Kathakali. 

Below is a link to a youtube video giving a glimpse into one such dance form the Bharatnatyam.

https://youtu.be/qA0pT6_zkCI

Movies, as I mentioned earlier have their own contributions to the art of dancing. Below is a song from a Tamil movie , and I really love the dancing in this one. A song I enjoy dancing to with my little girl.

https://youtu.be/x6Q7c9RyMzk

The traditional and movie based modern dance forms are both encouraged in society and peacefully coexist and sometimes influence one another too . 

What is your favourite dance form ? 

X for BellatriX and Helena Bonham Carter

 It was so hard finding a word starting with X and that too from the Potter series! I was wavering between Horcrux and Bellatrix and finalized the latter. 

Bellatrix Lestrange! One of the most evil characters in the whole of the Potter series! She is sort of a sadistic maniac who literally worships Lord Voldemort and rejoices inflicting pain and suffering. The point where she kills Sirius Black was an absolute shock.

 That is one character or aspect rather wherein I felt that the movies did a better job than the books! Helena Bonham Carter had sort of magically breathed in so much life into her portrayal. You cannot help feeling absolute loathe and disgust at Bellatrix. Her menacing cackle , the way she whimpers with a mix of fear and excitement when Lord Voldemort addresses her and how she kind of creepily speaks to someone almost crawling behind their backs...the actress nailed it !

Another role by Carter that was pretty amusing was the one of the Queen of Hearts in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.  Her "Off With the Head" at the drop of a hat was so amusing. That was the first movie we took our son to at the cinemas.

One role which she handled with absolute dignity and elegance was her award winning portrayal of Queen Elizabeth(King George VI s wife) in "The Kings Speech".  That one was a movie I really enjoyed and I am a Colin Firth fan.

Recently I saw Oceans Eight and she plays this not so confident dress designer and that was pretty impressive as well. 

Have you watched the Harry Potter movies ? Which actor or actress did you like the best ? 

W for Wand

 One object that makes an appearance in almost every page of the Potter Series and has a significant role to play in the climax is the humble wand. "The wand chooses its owner" as Rowling puts it.

If only I could repair a broken pair of spectacles or for that matter broken bones with a stick! Wands have a unique constituent at their core like a phoenix feather or a dragon heart string or a unicorn tail hair as in Harry's case. 

I think the first time I heard about a wand was in the Cinderella story as a little girl. The whole concept of getting a carriage and a pretty dress and glass slippers at the swish of a wand!!! Its a Oooh! How magical! feeling and quite a girly thing I believe . 

A couple of years ago for Halloween(its catching up here as well) my little girl was a garden fairy. She wore a green dress and it was easy to make a wand with cardboard and glittery paper. Five year old girls atleast in this part of the world love tiara s and wands! 

I think holding an object like this in ones hand gives a sense of power or authority. Perhaps that is the reason monarchs and kings carried a sceptre in the good old days.( I hope I spelt that one right, the English language and its Cs after the S do confound me). I seriously wonder what exactly is the use of a sceptre other than looking majestic in pictures ( considering the fact that there was no photography at that time)

These poor guys already had clothes that were overflowing and super heavy. Combine the heavy jewellery and crown and on top of that something to hold aloft! Life was not easy for a king! 

Another hand held stick I can think of is the mace carried by the leader of the military band. During the band formation, there are some maneuvers done using that including throwing it up in the air. It's apparently called a mace (Had to google that one) .  It kind of adds a finishing touch to the band though it plays no part in the music getting played. Does it help in conducting the show similar to what a conductor does for an orchestra? Oh yes he carries a stick too and that is called a baton, I believe. 

The mace I knew was the English translation of the Gadha a huge solid iron weapon depicted in Indian mythology stories as a a kind of iron ball with a long handle. The warriors in our stories had their own speciality in weaponry. Some were skilled archers as Arjuna and there were those like Bhima or Hanuman who yielded the Gadha. And most of our deities are represented with a Gadha symbolizing protection. 

Perhaps a judge is given a gavel for the same reasons. Why not a bell ? A stick in hand portrays authority! 

What are your thoughts?