Happy New Year

As the clock ticks signalling the end of the year 2007 and the beginning of 2008, I wish everyone, joy, peace and prosperity.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008.

DECEMBER 31, 2007

So here we are–technically and non-technically the last day of the year 2007. It is around 7:00 A.M. in the morning. Yesterday was frightening, a neighbour-Meenakshi Aunt's mother died. She was eighty years old and had been living as an invalid for the past five years.

I was about seven years old when my grandfather died and nine years old when my grandmother died. I do not recollect much about the incidents except that there was hectic activity in the household; relatives from various parts of the country had come and I met lots of cousins whom I had never met before.

The two women Meenakshi Aunt and her mother lived alone and their relatives were in Chennai. I returned home at about 10:20 A.M. after finishing my night shift. At 10:45 A.M. I got a call from Aunt, she asked me to come immediately to her house. I rushed to her house, Aunty's mother was lying on a mat, I knelt down and felt for her pulse and heartbeat-no response. She had died in her sleep, suffering for so long living like a vegetable, she had passed into the other world. I gave her a few drops of Ganga water, the water trickled into her throat.

Then it was time to find a priest who would conduct the cremation services. I took an auto and travelled across the town to find a priest, unfortunately all the priests had gone to Chennai to attend a "yagna." Finally I received a call from Aunt saying that her brother had arranged for a priest and I need not worry. Then we went to the funeral ground where the mortician(vettiyan) made a list of items needed.

The priest reached at 2:30 P.M. Eventually all rituals were completed and the cremation was completed at 5:15 P.M. No one cried as everyone knew how much pain the old lady had endured. They just prayed that her soul rest in peace.

Indian Paper Tigers Perish Before Aussie Attack

The so called best Indian team sent to Australia crumbled like a pack of cards as the batsmen failed to capitalise on the decent beginning that Kumble and Zaheer provided in the first innings. Set a daunting target of 499 runs for victory by Ricky Ponting India lost the plot as all the players went into defensive mode, perhaps they thought they could tire the bowlers out. All said and done Dada showed some toughness and got another 40 odd runs. Dhoni and Yuvraj must be cursing themselves for the rash shots they played and gifting their wickets to the opposition. I think Sehwag will figure in the next match and Karthik will also play the match.

New Year Test match in Sydney–Hope the team starts the year 2008 with a victory. Pick up your socks guys, give me a reason to take a Tata Sky or Dish TV connection. I don't want to waste hard earned money on seeing you lose.

Come on India jeetho.

A few lines about love....

The following is a paragraph that I found on a blog, it is taken from Tom Robbins' novel "Even Cowgirls get the Blues."-

Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need. Perhaps there are times when the contradictions of love are so intermingled that the only way to see the truth of love is to pit it against the irreducible reality of lust. Of course, love can never be stripped bare of illusion, but simply to arrive at an awareness of illusion is to hold hands with the truth -- and sometimes the hard light of lust affords just such an awareness.

Don't know what to say kept reading the paragraph for about four times.

God help me.....

Evano Oruvan

Madhavan has convincingly remade Nishikant Kamath's Marathi film Dombivili Fast in Tamil as EVANO ORUVAN. The Tamil version is also directed by Nishikant. The movie stars Madhavan as a lower middle class bank employee a soft spoken man commuting from Nanganallur to the Beach station everyday to reach his bank. His wife is played by Sangita a mother of two who is constantly bickering Madhavan saying-"Indha pathu varshthla naan yenna sugatha kanden."-"In these ten years what comfort/luxury have I seen."

Director Seeman plays a police officer who is caught in his personal turmoil of doing the right thing and listening to his conscience. A series of incidents make Madhavan lose his cool and he takes the law in his own hands and becomes a vigilante of the truth and the rightful. If I go into the details of each episode it would be committing sacrilege, please go and watch this movie, it deserves credit.

Listen to the dialogues specially Madhavan's frustration that pours out towards the climax. His anguish at the system, his expressions, his helplessness when his wife questions him are all brilliantly portrayed. Sangita is OK in her role and Seeman has done a good job too.

My rating 3.5/5.

Go watch this movie.

Boxing Day Test-Melbourne

When the Indian team left for Australia, it was billed as the strongest Indian team to ever travel Down Under. At the end of play on day 1 the Indians were on top with Kumble taking 5 wickets and Australia on 337/9. Day 2 saw Australia losing the last wicket for a few more runs. Then the Indian paper tigers, no connection to the LTTE came, saw, and were conquered by the pace of Bret Lee and Stuart Clark. The team was bundled out for 196 runs.

Sachin scored 64 and Ganguly scored 43 runs, meanwhile Laxman scored 26, Yuvraj and Dhoni scored ducks, Dravid laboured for more than 60 balls to reach 6 runs.

The Australian second innings was mixed and Harbhajan took crucial wickets, good knocks by Michael Clarke and Symonds ensured that India have been set a target of 499 runs.

India ended day three on 6 for no loss.

Let us see what happens.

Benazir's Assassination.......the end of Musharraf?

Benazir was assassinated yesterday when she was leaving after addressing a political rally in Rawalpindi. She was shot on the head and the back of her neck. Instantaneously a suicide bomber detonated himself/herself and mayhem followed. Close to 14 people were killed in the explosion. Benazir was declared dead at 6:16 PM in the hospital. Ironically her father was hanged at a ground close to the place where she was assassinated.

Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the killing, the quest for democracy in Pakistan has received a serious jolt, Pervez has another opportunity to declare emergency and postpone the elections.

It is a sad day for Pakistan as well as India and the rest of the world. Her assassination was a chilling reminder of the assassination of Indira Gandhi. It is high time the American government took stern steps against it's obedient puppy Pervy or chaos will lead to a civil war and massacres of alarming proportions.

God save Pakistan.

Prayers for everyone who died in the tsunami. May God never unleash such fury on us ever again. May the souls of the dead rest in peace, and may God give strength to the survivors of the tsunami.

WISHING EVERYONE A MERRY CHRISTMAS

South India's Gift to the World

South India has produced some of the finest luminaries in the fields of arts, science, literature, theatre, etc...

As far as I am concerned the simple 'idly' is the biggest contribution of South Indian culture to the world.

Just think soft steaming white idlies with piping hot onion, ladies finger, pumpkin, and tomato sambar, accompanied with tender white coconut chutney, and crispy golden vadas, all washed down with a cup of Madras filter coffee. A heavenly experience, nothing can beat the taste of idly with sambar and chutney.

No one knows when they were prepared for the first time. References to the idly are made in works that are more that a thousand years old. Surprisingly the addition of rice as the primary ingredient is a custom that just evloved in the early seventeenth century(wikipedia).

Nowadays one can find different varieties of idlies - rava idly, mixed vegetable idly, mini idly(14 idlies floating in a bowl of steaming hot sambar), chili idly, fried idly, idly uppuma, the list is endless as one can substitute ingredients to satisfy one's taste and palate.

A simple recipe for soft fluffy idlies:

Ingredients

Idly rice 2 cups (Ponni rice if possible)
Urud dal 1 cup
cooked rice 1/2 cup
Fenugreek seeds(Methi) 1/4 tsp
Salt as per taste


Method:

• Soak Idly rice and Methi together in water for about 5-6 hours.
• Soak urud dal in water for 3 1/2 hours.
• Drain the water from urud dal and grind it in mixie with little water.
• Fine grind it until the mixture is frothy. Keep aside
• Now drain water from soaked rice and methi.
• Grind these along with cooked rice and little water in mixie.
• Now mix the ground items and add salt.
• Allow it to ferment for 16 - 18 hours. Then make idlys in the idly steamer. Steam the idlys on high for 10 minutes.
• Serve hot with sambar and chutney.

Images of different types of idlies



Vegetable Idly Channa Idly Fried Idly Special Rava Idly

Happy eating....:)

The Chottanikkara Bhagavathy Temple

I visited the Chottanikkara Bhagavathy Temple during my short trip to Thrissur. The temple has seen lot of improvement, with the entire complex getting a fresh coat of paint. The devaswom board has provided computers to issue archana tickets and tokens. The queue is also being managed efficiently. I completed the darshan of the main temple and the Keezhkavu Bhagavathy in about 45 minutes.

The presiding deity of the temple is Goddess Adhiparasakthi who depicts her powers and blessings in the form of Saraswathy, Lakshmi and Durga in early morning, morning to noon and evening respectively.

Eastern View of the temple.

The keezhukavu goddess is extremely powerful. People suffering from mental ailments especially schizophrenia visit the temple to get cured of their illnesses. Attending the Guruthy puja during the evenings is beneficial for such people.

The picture of the Goddess

Do visit the temple if you visit Kerala.

The trip to Thrisuur was short and sweet. By the grace of God the weather was good and my health was fine too, I managed to visit Guruvayur, Chottanikara, Mannur Kaavu, Triprayar, and a lot of temples in Thrissur.

If time permits I will go to Thrissur to view the Thrissurpuram.

Hopefully I should be able to go.

As God wills....

Take care folks am not in a mood to write now.

Detailed inputs on the temples that I visited will follow.

The Wandering Soul

Life completes another circle as yet another year comes to a close. I am leaving for Kerala tonight. Hope to visit a lot of temples and do some serious introspection on how life has shaped out. Like Frank in-"The Postman Always Rings Twice," the spirit of the wanderer in me continues to search for another place. Life goes on as a journey with the destination being unknown. In the process of transiting to complete this journey, one undergoes many experiences, meets a multitude of people, faces and overcomes hurdles, makes and breaks promises, laughs and cries, makes compromises, all for that one goal to find one's destination and reach there.

I do not know if I will ever find my destination–let alone reach it; but one thing I am sure of-I shall never give up on my quest. One dream that everyone has is to find that one true love and settle in life. Perhaps I will never find that one true love, perhaps I might encounter that special person in the next hour or two; who knows!

Life is an endless list of possibilities and opportunities, all it takes for the culmination of our dreams is a combination of the following-Faith in ourselves and our dreams, hard work and perseverance, and as usual a bit of Lady Luck.

Let us see what happens....

The three match Indo-Pak test series goes into the final test to be played in Bangalore on Saturday, with both sides plagued with injuries the match will be interesting, but the rain gods might dampen the proceedings as Kumble tries for a series win.

The ICL is working fine although the crowds are not coming in, most probably the next round will draw more crowds. Lara's lacklustre form has been a big disappointment, though Inzamam, Marvan Attapattu, and the other foreign imports have shined with the bat and ball.

The Indian cricket team that will play in Australia from this December will be selected on December 12. Gary Kirsten has been appointed coach and will act as a consultant for the Australian tour and assume full coaching responsibilities in March 2008.

Lets hope India succeeds.

Thinking of you.....

With each passing day,

I wish could be near you.

See you smile

Listen to your voice.

Across boundaries of time and space

We stand separated from each other.

Wish I could close my eyes.

And travel with the sunbeam

To land at your doorsteps.

Open my eyes

And see you in front of me.

Missing you a lot Honey.

Will you ever be mine.

Thinking of you...

For you forever.....

It is been 25 years since I was born, from a foetus in my mother's womb to an adult in today's fast paced world, I have spent a sizable period of time in this world. What is the purpose of life in this world? Why were we born in the form that we are? Is there a definite purpose for everything that happens to us and everything that we do?

This is the query that has haunted sages and philosophers for ages.

I have tried to find my purpose in this world, my first step was to find God. I was always a devout and religious kid, being brought up in an orthodox Palakkad Brahmin family, I grew up listening to stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Every morning and evening the lighting of the lamp in the puja room and the chanting of prayers was a practice that I was inculcated in at the age of four or five years.

When I was sixteen I entered the most important phase of my life–the Upanayanam ceremony was conducted and I became the proud bearer of the sacred thread. The moment I wore it and the sacred verses of the Gayathri mantra were introduced to me, I felt a strange sense of calm and a feeling of power envelop me.

I performed the Sandhyavandanam judiciously but the pressures of the board exams and juggling Calculus, Physics, Chemistry and Biology classes took its toll and the rituals were limited to holidays alone. As the years passed and I slowly read the works of Swami Vivekananda, Paramahansa Yogananda and J.K. Krishnamurti I found a strange sense of joy as if I had experienced the very incidents that the writers had undergone.

Realization came in the second year of college. I had to undergo a major operation and everyone was worried. For the first time in my life I felt that I was going to die. Right before the surgery when the doctors anesthetized me and I was slowly drifting into that dream world I saw my whole life flash past me in fast forward frame. When the surgery was going on I saw a powerful white light emanating from a red source. The source was shaped like a prism, and then I had a vision of a snowcapped mountain, on top of it there was a tree which bore golden fruits. In the shade of the tree was the powerful white light again. I could hear a powerful humming noise and some words too, but I just can't remember the words that I heard. That was the day I met God. The surgery was completed and I survived to write this post on my blog.

Swami Vivekananda, said-"Religion is the manifestation of the divinity already present in man."

Similarly since that day I have no longer searched for God and have found the force of the all pervading truth in my heart.

The quest continues as I continue to find my role, the tasks that I have been chosen to perform, and to merge myself in the all pervading ether.

The quest continues as the path meanders and the destination of my journey nears with each passing day......