Malpua and Murukku makes it a Sunday evening…

The weekend was unusually moving in a sluggish pace and apart from my dance class and few errands; I very much seemed to relish being at home…with the regular cleaning and washing tasks. A few other activities were, trying out whether old traditional skirts (pattu paavaadai) still fit me , clicking buckets and mugs (innovation!!??), revising on music lessons and start a long procrastinated task of tanjore glass painting.

It was almost Sunday noon when mom reminded me of a paper cutting of   “Malpua” recipe which we had collected earlier. It’s a popular sweet dish of North India – has many versions, the one we choose had khoya and flour combination with the fritters dipped in sugar syrup after they were fried . I quickly shopped for khoya and the rest were items available in our storage. Now, the fact is neither I am a born chef nor did I spend time in the kitchen anytime (other than sitting on the slab and tasting food….fresh from the pan). My favorite place of hangout used to be the huge balcony, grandpa’s hand made swing…or our farm. 

My first attempts of wondering how something like “Sambhar” would so colorfully evolve and how  “Pooris” would blow up artistically like small balloons started when I was 20….and already busy(?!!) with my business management(so called..) studies. I was rather forced to enter what’s defined as the girl’s arena (because mom was in complete rest) where the initial few episodes of wonder, adventure, accidents and failures happened. I certainly don’t remember the exact point where I transformed into a comfortable cook who loves her work - anyway glad I did manage….serves my crunch for variety and taste in food (plus smart ingredients).

Oops...ignoring the topic diversion, lets go back to the beautifully named “Malpua”. The most important part of the preparation was the consistency of batter which I hardly had any idea about. After all, what are mobiles for? After a little browsing for names, remembered my workplace buddy who is from Mangalore and called her up. She took enormous efforts to get me the recipe details (along with her mom-in-law who was rather sure I was going to spoil the dish and hence, displayed a stern tone).

Finally we realized that was something called “Malpuri” which was a famous sweet dish from Mangalore, very different from Malpua. Still, I convinced myself that I got to know a bonus recipe to try out next weekend and got back to action. The grand first round of Malpua turned out to be a hilarious scene with the batter spreading out like a football team in the pan (in the oil) and I had to struggle to get them all together. Past experiences warned me that perhaps the batter needed some flour and I bravely went ahead for the modification ( meanwhile, the chef got a few curses from me for mentioning wrong measurements in his article). 

It’s kind of a ritual that I follow, to have any good genre of music on…whilst cooking. These would be English…country music/Ilayaraja/Classical etc.. and this time, it was Yesudas, creating enough of nice impact through his melodic singing of”Muttathettum thennale...” in Malayalam. As I hummed the song…to my surprise….golden brown round cakes tastefully floated up in the pan getting a broad smile to my face. I delicately took them to add to the syrup and finished frying the rest of rounds happily.

The idea of preparing “Murukkus”(a south Indian snack) popped in from the economical thinking that we could use up the oil, plus have a spicy item too. The simple version of the dough comprises of rice flour and gram flour (4:1 ratio), sesame seeds (fried), asafoetida, chilly powder, fresh butter and salt in addition, of course water too. Again, it’s a wonderful snack less in cholesterol and fat, if prepared in the right consistency – thereby absorbing minimal oil and quickly fried.

 With the metal “Achu” (shape), one could easily explore varieties like Ribbon murukku, Thatta murukku and so on. I was tempted to have quick bites before the fourth round and climbed up on the kitchen slab for a few mobile clicks too, as mom reminded me it was already 10pm. The very update of time tickled my stomach and I suddenly felt too hungry. With a sympathetic look, I left place for mom – not to miss the hot rotis that filled my plate  and appetite for the night.



Cooking Results:  Malpua got 4 stars(out of 5) from brother and murukku was already known, no surprise..

These cold nights...

Flashing pictures on the screen,
music filling the air, from the radio next door..

Feels tired to rest, it disturbs the silent mind at times..
  I grab my coat to get out,
     for a walk which i know would be long...

A walk along the almost empty streets,
 through the yellow tinted lights and shadows!

Flipping songs on my hand phone..
until something makes sense for the moment..

I picture myself, the shadow of a young lady,
   the scene of her rambling across the lane..
       numerous thoughts crawling within !



Looks like she choose to be lonely this cold night..
 its a bliss she thinks...for she is the master of her memories!

Little scenes pass by.. and disappear quickly,
 and everything seems to remind her of something !


She wishes to remember these cold nights
  for all the thoughts she held within...for the wandering fears that touched her soul !!

Feels better to have her hands in the pocket,
  as she crosses her home and still keeps going on..


The freedom of a lonely mind..is all that she enjoys
  these anxious dreams would never exist,
     when she is held, when she has someone to walk along...

Then it slowly transcends...am already back here, out of the vision..

The night gets darker around..and
   i would love to remember these cold nights.. when i plunged into wary thoughts...silly smiles
     these cold nights which filled my page and emptied my heart!!

Life around...

After a few faint efforts to complete my last 3 incomplete blog entries, I totally came out of the perfection mood and felt its better to scribble about the moment. Could hardly feel like a usual Monday this morning - may be because I didn’t want a Monday today and neither do I have the right instinct. I had finished important tasks at work early in the morning and tried to disturb my “just awake” brother when he easily lifted me as if a lamb to almost throw to the sofa. I stole mom's hand made pooris(all of them) from his plate to take revenge later though ;)

Considering to switch over to a safer idea, I got into innocuous discussions on daily news with dad and spent a while watching my favourite pigeons around home. Later, I indulged into serious inspection of my “anything available” wardrobe to pick up mix and match stuff to wear for the day and was more than happy with my white & maroon combined attire with huge earrings dancing along my neck.

One might easily think that i am being crazy….may be my weekend wasn’t too great but that’s not the case. I  went on with my “fancy witch” shopping series which typically includes hunting for new shops with good discounts where we get the same clothes as at the big brand outlets at < half the prices. The outcome was indeed more than satisfactory with some nice colors in our hands and yummy snacks filling our stomach.

And a much happier event was the visit to Makkal Mane – it’s been a while since i made a visit and yet didn’t anticipate the kids to be on such high spirits to see me. I realized these little ones are wealthy relationships one can earn in life, with a little investment of love and sharing. They anyway don’t understand thousands… its just playing, pictures, some good food and words that can get them throw up billion dollar smiles. Thanks to Beens this time or I would have delayed the plan by another 2 weeks. While Ani seemed to completely enjoy the place and the kids, she also made friends with everyone around with her usual smiling tint. Every picture would have her hugging someone or she would manage to grab some kid to pose along.

 A little rewind of the frame takes me back to Friday evening when we could finally execute our long postponed “Girls night out” plan. Since Julie(her baby inside) was vulnerable to loud music, the idea of lounge and DJ stuff got diluted to good music and food(grrrrr I had great ideas to make Rash and Shree dance). We made sudden plans to visit Preethi’s apartment on the way to the restaurant and ended up chatting and dancing, totally enjoying her place when I realized that we had booked a table and it was time.

 We were the noisiest gang around the posh restaurant with rich décor. When i started feeling a little conscious, we observed that the service guys seemed to actually enjoy our spirit and smiles (NOISE..) and the manager went ahead and generously offered with a grin“ Anything here except me, is part of the buffet and you could take it Ma’am”. I am sure he didn’t realize that I was capable of flicking those glittering ceramic spoons and expensive salt & pepper holders.

 After managing to create enough disturbances around, with my mimicry and few other jokes from all to make Julie cry to laughter and Preethi staring in astonishment (she totally mistook me for a matured professional may be ;)), as usual I remembered about petrol and that we missed to fill it in the evening.After a series of adventurous sequences, we still hadn’t filled fuel (bunks were closed by then..) and through my busy thinking about which of the gods would help me the best, it was almost home and I felt glad that all the gods got together to help me out.

 Shree’s call was obviously expected soon after, she has the typical best motherly traits out of us all – I still remember her worried follow up calls during my trip to Delhi, my mom wouldn’t do half of that ;) A little more flashback is about the last two weekends…one of which I travelled to mom’s native place – a small colorful village near Salem.

 The best part was the drive with sister and sis-in-law to the nearby town, leaving the young chaps of the village awestruck and getting them peep into our car to check whether we were some media personalities. The other weekend was the trip to Coimbatore, with the primary reason being Grandpa, to watch him laugh at me making faces and we discussing old funny memories.

Along with that, I managed to go for a drive to the best possible water place nearby. Be it the village visits, be it a vacation…I somehow always like places where there is simplicity, nature around…remembering the line from a Paulo Coelho book which talks about god being closer to shepherds because of their patience and the silence of places where they spend their lives, and why does it feel so good to be around such places. If God is about discovering yourself, feeling happy connecting to the natural world around and getting out of materialistic boundaries. then I agree with his words for sure, such places have a heavy impact on those lines. Though I like to explore all kinds of places, somehow these suit me better than the city flats and crowded hang out areas…..

Am sure i have managed to divert far beyond the topic and guess its better to get back to finish work and relish lunch – I can already smell something really good, let me contribute to garnishing ;)  It’s my friend’s birthday today…considering the distance, I wouldn’t be able to meet up...perhaps I would go for a movie in the evening to complete my “no mood” day and celebrate it a few scoops of butterscotch...hopefully can scribble again soon.

Dreamwalk after a visit to lalbagh....

I somehow knew i was dreaming but in what seemed to be reality then, i was busy walking through the fields… fiddling with my camera and looking around with intense curiosity about the loneliness of the place. I could relate it to my Uncle’s farm but the next moment I tripped off a stone and tumbled down a narrow slope. When I managed to pull up myself and looked ahead…the scene over there was completely unbelievable....

I wanted to pinch…hit…slap...myself to ensure it wasn't real because the huge(.....) rose just inches away from my curious eyes, in pink and white was preceding a widespread field of roses behind....I deliberately avoided any touch in the fear of getting out from the serene mood. As my eyelashes flickered slowly, I looked up to feel the cool breeze and the sight of a million roses, it was a perfect moment of awestruck.

 

There was an enchanted mood around and I anxiously turned around to see a long array of purple flowers and white lilies, i was still doubtful how could all the beauty on earth get together at one place. I forgot about my darling camera which was neatly decorated around my neck..and started ambling along the flower beds whilst my eyes captured every single flower dancing merrily to the breeze….tulips, sunflower, lilac, chrysanthemum, daisies and my walk turned into a happy jog as I started singing aloud and wanted to freeze the moment forever.

The surreal feel was because the flowers actually expressed their happiness to me, answering to me by swaying softly, smiling at me by flowing across my frock, as if the whole eden garden was built for my dream's sake..Then I realized at an avid moment, that I would be a fool to miss clicking the inherent beauty. After all, it was a dream and my camera could have easily worked…ironically and naturally, it didn’t and with all my clumsy efforts, the shutter didn’t like to get opened at all. I got nervous all of a sudden, trying to open the shutter manually  all that I wanted was the camera to click. Well, you know….the next scene is obvious, I woke up startled and took more than a few minutes to  convince myself that I was back to reality and was 7.00am sharp….

 But…something different about this dream was I could still feel my heartbeat when I looked upon the huge rose and the minute when my senses got scared at the real image of all those roses and there were only them…beautiful flowers, natural colors at their best existence and my excited eyes which forgot to blink. I hardly had any interest to get out of the bed and start my day, how ever interesting that was going to be…... nothing could be as gracious as some unknown heaven right? 

 

After a couple of minutes of interrogation with my mind, I derived that the reason behind the dream could be my long chat with mom the previous evening, about my photo walk in Lalbagh recently - how much I had enjoyed the colors, smell and unbelievable sight of  flowers, though I couldn’t click too many good pictures because of the crowd…and that I wished there were not too many people.

 I tried my best to write everything I remembered about the most beautiful dream…but  was sure I won’t be able to convey the frantic rhythms of my heart I felt then. One in a hundred dreams stay clear in your mind and even this minute…if I close my eyes, I literally see myself travelling to serendipity with foot steps which never want to be travel backward again!!

In the Streets of Srirangam...contd

It was a cloudy day which brought huge smiles on my face and i was chirpy, getting ready to visit a place named "Thiruvellarai" which was located near Srirangam at a distance of half an hour's drive. I got so involved in the scenic beauty during the ride that i hardly spoke to Bashu which got him worried (why is the FM not tuned...ha ha!!). Now, our specific choice on visiting this temple was because Bashu's college time friend was a priest there and this temple was older than Srirangam - approximately 6000 years. I felt the count was too far beyond to calculate, by then i was used to 1000's..every temple there seemed to be so old!

 

When we landed at the sight of a very old temple majestically located amidst profound greens and browns...i stood there shocked for a minute, observing the excellent maintenance of the whole place. There were huge streets diagonal to the temple in the "Agraharam" style (name of the locality for a specific community of people with a row of houses) and the atmosphere was very silent, but for the laughter of kids around. Bashu's friend was the smartest looking priest ever, i had come across and he sounded so friendly as if he knew me before. His mom served us with fresh filter coffee of rich aroma which helped me subside my hunger for a while from then. The smart priest gave us a quick intro about the temple and its origin and suggested we could do a photo walk before actually getting into worships and usual prayers.

I couldn't stop my conflicting thoughts about the place, it all appeared like a neat execution of clear pathways with flowers all around, a very old antique styled mantap leading to a huge rock with the view of the main temple. The mysterious mood was due to the inherent refreshing cleanliness, dark shades of green as if it would rain there all the year. The rocky road along the pillars, from the huge rock had some kind of charm, anything we utter would echo in a rhythmic manner and i didn't move from there for sometime, trying to shout and sing what ever flashed through my mind then. Finally Bashu had to drag me along to reach the other side of the temple.

Bashu's friend cum the smart priest was busy attending the temple crowd and elaborating them on the history of the temple and gods in a peculiar flow and style of  Tamil. I sat on the steps wondering about the difference of sculptures and stories between here and Srirangam, there were too many of them and only few manged to stick inside my confused little mind.For my understanding, it was all artistically constructed during the Chola, Pandiya... period of kingdom, strongly based on their taste for fine arts, devotion for epics and belief on spirituality.

I clicked pictures of the place and the guys whilst they were laughing about old memories and  planning on when to meet up with friends next. Back at the priest friend'ss home, we were served with authentic "Ayyangar" food and i spent a while with his mom to listen to her simple stories and she startled me with the fact that the priest had completed his MBA and MFA, and still wanted to work in the temple as a promise for tradition, though his wife was not too happy about it...Must say i was impressed not by his goatee alone.... :)

His mom and the kids around there got close to me quickly, and there were sad bye-bye's from that place with invitations for them to visit me in Bangalore. I was more excited on our way back, remembered to have the camera in my hand to click a few candid shots of  random kids and people on the way, they were more than happy to smile for me naturally.





I insisted we halt near a lotus pond which was a visual treat for eyes...the interesting part were a few localities fishing there. They got all excited thinking i am a photographer from the daily....but nothing changed even when i said i am just a photographer by myself...took a few pictures and they gifted us with a few lotus flowers too - i came home to leave them in water, waiting to watch the pink beauty bloom.

  Evening, Bashu's younger bro Pras took us to his favorite temple and we almost had a running race(becoming a live comedy scene for people at the temple) since we were already late and i couldn't walk up to his speed.On our way back, i reminded about the ice cream treat (as if i could ever forget) and we landed up at a nostalgic outlet - Michael's...it was an authentic hang out which existed there from around 1950's...and the taste was like home made, each cup at Rs.4 - i wouldn't even get a simple stick in Bangalore at that cost :(

Now, Pras tempted on an ice cream bet and after our fights, quick gulps, more orders...i couldn't go beyond 7 or 8 when he had finished up with 11 cups ;) Cursing him, i ended up losing and paying the bill. He also gave wrong ideas to lie to mom at home...and later deceived me by telling her, by then i had sadly consumed 3 dosas with the best of my abilities...Even with my eye shutters waiting to close, i had to walk, run...sit..stand to feel better and fall asleep far later, planning a better trap for him to execute during our next meet. I had to work from home the next day, a re visit to Cauvery to feel the breeze again, some shopping at the temple, thank you notes to bashu, his mom and dad to have bared with me and a rush to the station to catch my train back to Bangalore...the break i had was indeed short and i had already was pondering on taking my next colorful break......... :)

In the streets of Srirangam..

Even the slightest thought of Srirangam would remind any passionate reader about Sujatha, the legendary tamil writer who captured all our minds through his "Srirangathu devadhaigal" (Angels of Srirangam). He talks about his childhood and teen days spent in one of the most beautiful temple destinations of Tamilnadu in his own style of humour in that. Srirangam sounds right to be called an island..not in lines with Maldives or Andaman but the small town is surrounded by water on all four sides and can be reached only via the bridge from Trichy. The panoramic view of river Cauvery from the bridge is itself breath taking, making us wonder what more would be on the other side of it.

My good friend alias photographer Bashu's home is beautifully located on the banks of river Cauvery, and my first visit to their place last year was spent in usual family introductions, quick visits to famous tourist places and get together fun times. I had firmly told myself that this time, I would spend time exploring places and doing photography than anything else. Our first day started well with a quick visit to Cauvery... …there was not much water at this time of the year but he wind was so furious as if it would blow us away. Happy to have seen greenly landscape and watching Bashu’s funny feeling about my way of talking and jumping, we headed home to plan an eventful day. But it was much more humid than expected, and i almost got paranoid  of heat and decided to stay indoors, discussing photography and not to miss, sleeping.

Later in the noon, i suggested to bet on a game of badminton (for ice creams). After my successfully managed efforts to divert Bashu a little by talks to win over that, we felt the climate was just good enough to jump into the chill water of Cauvery. Srirangam is said to be the home of the river goddess herself and she returns back home happily ending her long journey originating from Thalakaveri in Coorg, Karnataka. I had seen the water so fierce and gushy last time and was actually suprised to see it mild now, we could easily cross the river to walk(swim??!!) across the maize crops on the other side,  because the depth was maximum 5 feet.  

I got busy peeping into the clear water to collect shells and trying to float along the water stream. Bashu was trying hard to control his laughter at my funny expressions for tiny fishes biting my feet beneath. There were so many interesting scenes around not to miss...variety and mix of people, the old grandpa filled with soap all over him, group of young ladies chattering as they wash clothes, kids with obvious city looks playing with their father…probably an IT guy who has come home with his kids to visit their parents and home and this scene reminded me so much of my childhood days when dad would drive us down to water places, pretend to throw us in while we play on the shore...and my brother and myself would scream on the top of our voices. It took us long to know how careful he should have been, not to leave his grip on us.

The most awaited feature of the trip, at least from my point of view was...visiting the main Ranganatha swamy temple which celebrates on gaining ownership for the name Srirangam, to the place. Though i always felt a sense of devotion and peace at few crowd less  temples, what attracted me more was the creativity of sculptures which rendered complex stories and epics through fine art, the huge elevated "prahaarams"(pathway to the main temple and others) , few mystical powerful things existing within the 4500 year old temple whose beautiful architecture and inscriptions were done during the Chola Dynasty, who were ruling the geography. It was one of the largest temples which they had established then.

The “Aayiram kaal mandapam” there (thousand pillars arena) was considered to be the highlighted wealth of the temple for which the doors would open only once in a year for a specific occasion – “Vaikunda ekadesi” . The very look of it meant a lot with the sharp neat work across the pillars  which we could peep into, from outside the gate. It was surrounded by huge Mantaps with lot of stories and frames on gods, goddesses and epics. The huge horses as if ready to barge across, placed along the pillars left me speechless and i got engrossed in trying to read the oldest form of tamil script (which i could hardly figure out) . I can definitely say i was tempted to just dance around with the few classical steps that i knew, to feel the serenity around, getting back to an old scene which would have happened there , thousand of years ago...my inclination towards fantasy, you see !!

Bashu had made the necessary arrangements for us to watch the most incredible visual treat there, when the god is being made to sleep after the final "Mangal Harathi". There were very few of us allowed to sit there, to listen to the veena as the priest beautifully sung lullabies with classical rhythms before the main doors got closed, and i was very convinced that music had the power to take any of us to a dreamless calm sleep. Something better was the "prasadam" which was made of crisp rice mixed with jaggery and ghee - called "Aravanai", i was already so hungry and it tasted like the best at that minute. I was told later that it was the most special make of the temple. Not to forget, that during our long wait for this magical moment, the lawyer uncle and his friend who had extended their efforts to help us on all this narrated nostalgic stories about themselves in the temple and our lawyer uncle's friend was a voracious reader on history, epics etc. That made me quickly hang on him to get to hear too many interesting stories about kingdoms, gods etc...my favorite being the underground path from the temple to Trichy was constructed for emergency purposes during times of War.

 From the temple, we went around along with them, to roam on the streets of Srirangam and finally reached the bridge to catch a glimpse of the river view at night. I seriously didn't want to move from there - for 2 reasons, first being the place and second, lawyer uncle and his friend who gave us wonderful company throughout the drive with their crazy stories including my silly wish to have biscuits from the small tea shop along with tea, guess i was pampered enough to grab anything i wanted from Srirangam. 

Getting a little sad about my postponed ice ream treat, i went to sleep thinking of our travel to a nearby village, the next day. I hardly realized when i slept and when i woke up....it was for the aroma of his mom's morning tea.....

Hostess of a Girls Party!!

An other weekend arrived...with a total funky party planned, with only girls at my place on Friday evening. We were 7 of us , with one of them not able to join, ended up being 6...Shooting videos and stuff started right from the minute their vehicle reached the parking space and continued till we went home and started munching some yummy stuff ...Julie tried to manage her original cool girl look while Shree and Rash had dressed up in reds and maroons...Anitha had a perfect pub outfit and not to miss that Sara and me changed over to our ("not much used") new party dresses.

Julie hardly had patience to hold on munching the salads and extras whilst i was busy decorating the place and room..Sara was still shooting all of us, same time posing along with Rash for my clicks too....the cozy hugs you see!! Shree and myself started the dance and everyone joined the floor soon... Now, when it comes to dance, each of these pretty girls had their lovely style of dancing..For ex...Julie would look at one of us and exclaim "Hey, that is a good step ya" and get into the similar action... Rash was always focused on trying out new kind of hip moves with her hands ringing bells in the air no matter what kind of music...Sree was someone who would quickly adapt to any style of music and dance with flair, from the "Kuthu" (fast) steps for Tamil genre "Apadi podu" to 80's rhythmic style for "Dum maro Dum"..Anitha was so very used to pubbing and dancing, her style was of free flow and inherent...the extraordinary of the lot was the girl in pink..the barbie doll kinds...Sara has a very peculiar method of dancing and adapting the steps to the tune, her expression would first be thoughtful, then changes to observation and finally ends up in jumping and waving her hands with close-up smiles.The best of it was Shakira's "hips don't lie" where we gave our best efforts to get the steps right...one after the another..



Julie and Shree - my in-house models posed for me as they wore the huge Orange flowers behind their ears while Sara was helping out Rash with her first drink. Finally when we were done with the ample number of photos, videos..and dancing to all kinds, genres of songs possible...we sat down to chat - best part when girls get together...right!!


It started with every possible unrelated topic and instance possible and flowed along with funny smiles and follow-up phone calls to the married ones in between...I started getting hungry may be because i had been along for cooking the yummy biriyani and i proposed the idea of having dinner to everyone...hoping everyone should agree(or i had plans to sneak out to the kitchen to taste some;)) The stories continued and continued along...with us, Shree had her regular ringing bells laughter while Julie was giving all the possible cartoon expressions.Rash was diving into deep happiness with Sara talking on some intelligent topic for the commercial breaks.Sara is someone who would go on with her talks for hours, jumping from one subject to another...completely disconnected , but still narrating some weird experience or an intelligent concept. She would even have some kind of quotes, sayings..findings added on top of that and i was sure the girls were lost in that along with taste of food.


Sara and myself then walked up to the main road to drop the rest of them for their husbands who came to pick them up...quick introductions and i am sure the guys didn't exactly figure out who was who, in the dim road light but still, had to shake hands and throw friendly smiles. I proposed for  a walk but considering the flip side, Sara insisted that we reach home back safe...hold on, it doesn't end there, she wanted to watch a movie and i gave her some tamil movie i had, she watched just one scene and went on narrating some part of her life...an other 2 scenes and another story would come from her..i was wandering my thoughts between the story in the film and her life, finally she got tired of the movie(my expressions!!??) and fell asleep...We had much better plans for Saturday and i went ahead trying to get some sleep even while thinking of driving the next day.