I have a dream...

An evening walk for me is all about strolling on the sidewalk, taking in the breezy Chennai air, and having enough road sense while crossing streets or stalling for a quick neighbour talk by the pavement, in order to make enough room for other pedestrians.

While being mindful of common ground is the first step towards dusky (or dusty?) city traffic, being mindlessly drunk and walking in 'full swing' is anywhere but sensible. TASMAC is the lively drunkard's omnipresent trademark. The outlet represents the flowing population that boozes the evening and the night away come what may. The masculine stupor drinks in any feminine sight in view, irrespective of the size or age. Half empty or half full, the 'clink' of bottles drowns the sounds of vehicles, as women like me wait or dodge for the senseless to pass, while our surge of fear for safety goes down the drain.

Feeling secure and safe are a dream for most metro women and feeling unsafe and insecure a living nightmare.
To talk the walk is safer a topic than walk the talk.Here's to having a dream!!

Game for IPL?

I looked out from my drawing room window and found a boy group play 'controlled compound cricket'. They are generally a bashful group of buddies who are in their early and pre teens, swinging mature batting stroke misadventures in the apartment parameters- the tall lamp post adjacent to the parking lot blinked in broken darkness from one such recent hit and run escapedes.

Being placidly playful was a sad sight as they played golf over cricket with a tennis ball!! The submissive play has lasted for a few days now and I see them gear up for compound cricket once again. Indraya Pasanga/Ponnunga League(IPL) is for all seasons :)

Besides this religious activity, the huddling together as 'boys' and 'girls' apart, gossiping small talk, giggling, discussing games and gadgets and any given technical trivia are the things they grow on. Play lesser and win harder is the attitude that works on the field or off it, owing to limitations like space, and getting big on creative freedom for their own  uninfluenced territory and reaching a winner's end at all costs.

Given to the single child phenomenon in many households, its an 'all for one' emotional and financial investment in a single child, who is loved as if he/she is the family's world, whereas outside of such comfort and in the compound, the child is one among the many wannabe hit and run winners. Slowing the kid down with love is not happening anymore, but to gear up towards hastened success is fast becoming a theme for Indraya pullainga league.



        

Women we can't do without!

Admit it or not, maids bring out more efficiency in women.They manage to keep the feminine better half of the house on her toes and even the in-laws take a backseat here.

The chores planned for another day gets sorted out in priority lists that match with the maid's convenience which is done on time or later but usually never earlier. The woman of the house can flex a muscle now and then, but the home needs a regular service that can do well with the domestic help at hand.

Generally maids study the homes and equally the mindsets of the woman of the house in order to make quick judgments on how much they would be paid or how soon any extra perks would come in near future.

The word of mouth reviews from their peers are no less a value addition for the maids who can decide who next to house-hunt for work as their demand is ever present in one housing community or the other.

Love them, hate them, but every working woman, housewife, or the self employed need them. In fact this could be the only compatible and working woman-woman rapport which thrives not just on how much gets paid, but how much they are addressed to as fellow women who have lives of their own and are not bound to slave for anyone just because they  choose to work as domestic help assistance.



  

Soul food

With Pongal having come and gone, the rising sense of emotional sentiments, festive rituals and soul food from the past came back...a pongal kolam to mark the beginning of thai maasam, a grouped together, hands-on-earth experience-I drew designs that I thought fit well into the expanding mesh of flowers and butterflies, of a sunny chariot, held high by a sun god motif on a high flying soggy flag, run over by kids(or kite runners) running all over the compound early the next morning. The eldest of the(sister) girl bandwagon, Uma, captained this dusk-dawn colourful beginning. The D day starts with a spiritual dose of thiruvempaavai, eye half shut and winter morning mist air biting into our paavadais and skirts, to sing praise of the three eyed Lord Siva. The high praise that beckons the deep in sleep (or ignorant)village belles or paavais to rise and sing like the raag bhupala, the sweet nectar of pure faith, runs hoarse and pitched off the octave by us sisters. The venn pongal (with coconut chutney and gotsu) and sarkarai pongal eaten religiously, hand sticky with pure ghee smells all day divine! As few showed any real inch of interest in flying kites that day evening(from the terrace), the fun was in observing diamond-cut kites get bound in shard like thread, spool unwinding, the flying kite anchored, higher above the rest.Being happy for your home team or for the neighbours didn't matter.The take off, the let go, the dip, the spin and the cut off its back up, dis joint and flying homeless to reach another territory was all very moving. The kite looked more liberated and lonely than ever. On kanu pongal, we got weary of the rituals by now, waiting for out turn on the early morning hours of pre sunrise to feed the sparrows and crows leftover pongal, diced sugarcane pieces, berry fruit and some other colourful rice, rolled in palms like mini golf balls, spread in linear patterns on a plaintain leaf. I looked around and checked to see if our singing a song to mark the end of the pongal festivities, attracted any attention from morning walkers and joggers.Being on the terrace didn't feel like the top of the world experience always. And another round of kalandha saadam-this time, coconut rice, lemon rice, curd rice, fried papad, sambar, fresh curd and payasam (with vadai at times). We sisters from this joint family grew as we ate, different tastes of home food, year after year and being married to different home cultures, are now far from this inviting flavours of pongal, kanu pongal and the likes. Like the kites we've come far away from our native land, soaring and disjoint and the common spool of roots reduced in people size- soul food, a delectable memory.

What's cooking??

Multi-culture cooking is happening in many T.V. shows across the country.The getting together of many culinary artisans who blend their art of cooking on a palette of aroma and colours is sure shot appetizing! Iam a hard core vegetarian, but the dressing of the dishes cooked(veg/non-veg), seasoning, blending in of the global flavours, adrenalin pumping pressure tests to bring out the best of the best chefs across the continent is food culture redefined. The passion of the food in the making, the prize money for the numero uno chef amongst competitors and the title to take home are rewarding and feel full for the aspiring cooks. The state of the art culinary techniques and finesse in their applying raises steadily higher and tougher in the ranks of select judges, adding steam to the whole process of becoming the deserved one. This journey, this experience is celebrated in the amateur being prepared to the next best level of master multi-culture chef.

Resting unrest

A sense of restlessness becomes part of a growing, professional mind.The day seems to end a new, tired beginning for the sunshine to follow. I write less and edit more now - quite the opposite to what I used to do! Being mindful of a measured sense of flow of words is what is the working flow all about. I enjoy the dim lighted darkness at the work foodcourt. It seems to be agreeing to the dark clouds hanging in my head owing to ignorance; exhaustion and the likes are passing clouds that look pale a moment and seem full of silver lining the next. The endless stream of employees trying to make life look larger, trendier, more informal, somewhat serious and a whole lot more than what one is needed for and asked to do is largely obvious. Iam one of those faces.A consciously corporate tight fit in, who takes time out to feel the real life and live simply as a free thinking and writing soul. Today is a day off from the maddening traffic mayhem, suffocating pollution and tight time schedule. My day of restimg my restlessness is quite the break to begin the next week ahead.

Chutnification!

Several ingredients that went into making us the way we are today-our cat fights with our siblings, our make believe play world, running and catching, kite flying, assisting grandma in making pickles, vadams(savory item like appalam/papad) during summers; pocketing sweet sour elandha vadams, badams (Almonds) and juicy maavadu (Tender mango), washed and dried and licking like hungry street urchins, squinting eye and rolling them, while clicking tongue in noisy, tasteful agreement, thayir saadam in placid company.A full moon above our heads on a breezy summer night, as Talat Mehmood sung pathos from the Philips tape recorder... Decades later, juicy nostalgia does find its way into my apartment kitchen, a full moon atop a neighbouring beauty salon and moist breeze that trickles down my sweaty forehead. Although chutney and thuvayal pastes are available in all leading super markets and stores in home food clonish Chennai, the true taste of originality was diligently practised on a groaning mixie, while coriander leaves were slightly sauteed in an oil pan, with til, urad dal and other ingredients, until the leaves were removed of their raw smell. With tamarind juice, red chillies and salt for an addition, the chutney looked a lovely green, for what it was worth.

Idlis sitting comfortably next to this chutney was the happily ever after ending to this chutnification.