FURORE SCRIBENDI

A case of Over Display of Emotions

2012-02-07T12:35:00.002+05:30

This Sunday gave a shocker to many watching the news for the first time it was reported Indian Cricketer Yuvraj Singh is suffering from a malignant form of cancer. Definitely, a real shocker, Yuvraj is a batsman of great caliber with great titles like Player of the Tournament in 2010 ICC World Cup, only one to hit 6 sixes in an over in a T20 format game, he has led the Indian side to victory in many crucial games, fields well despite odds of a huge beer guzzler tummy, bowls magical spells that leave all spellbound and hits like a rocket in steadfast attempts to damage the opponent.

The Times of India newspaper on Monday Feb 6 quoted that in India his initial reports were stolen - now that is highly ridiculous. Not sure who wanted to auction these reports and earn money. Also, another hospital (unnamed) in India failed to detect the cancer last year. So in clinical diagnosis of the disease the nation has not been of any avail. But in arenas of displaying emotions and support - we stand second to none. Since Sunday evening, there have been scores of people coming on TV and talking about how Yuvraj is a great player and an even bigger fighter. These people encompass a group of cricket commentators, fellow players from IPL and other formats of the game, self declared cricket enthusiasts and some time pass souls who get a daily wage to appear in one of the windows of the news channel, whatever be the topic. Fans from all over the country are being questioned on news channels on questions like - when do you think Yuvi will return to cricket, do you think he can churn the same magic when he returns, how big a fan of Yuvi are you?

The news channels are already on their way paying homage (Shraddanjali) to a person who is very much alive, battling the disease which has been discovered at the earliest stages, thanks to medical expertise of a Russian doc.

Today's news article in TOI describes the form of cancer that Yuvi is suffering from, its symptoms and treatment methods. The first line of this article reads - Yuvraj Singh is happy he is in Boston for his cancer treatment and not in India where unwarranted and sentimental attention could have dampened his mood. Very well said ! Full blown accolades to Yuvi for taking the decision of undergoing chemotherapy treatment in Boston away from homeland, may be this is the most crucial and well taken decision of his lifetime. If he had been treated in India, his parents would have had to spend more time giving interviews to news channels than be by the side of their ailing son. Journalists would shed their skin and shame to get a sneak peek into the room in which Yuvi is resting. They would not mind climbing skyscraper buildings for this purpose, even break their back in the process, just a picture of Yuvi drinking a glass of mosambi juice in his hospital ward would suffice news mongers for many days.

Crowds would throng the hospital where Yuvi is admitted and create a huge law and order problem. If for a break, Yuvi tuned into a channel other than news channels, he would be feasted to his own advertisement which has been running in an infinite loop mode since Sunday - the ad on BIRLA SUN LIFE INSURANCE - Jab thak balla chal raha hai thaat hai (which literally translates into - as long as batting and career is fine - everything is rosy - when the bat does not work its magic .. then FULL STOP). This completely unwarranted over display of emotions is an inseparable part of fundamental rights of every Indian citizen - something like Sadda Haq, Aithe Rakh. This situation can never be mended, so wiser and wisest to run away from it.

So here's wishing Yuvi a very speedy recovery and issuing strict warnings to stay away from motherland till he is fully fine and completely cured.

The Heart of Ramayana

2012-01-25T21:12:00.002+05:30

Many a times, I have heard my mother mention about the greatness of Sundara Kandam in Ramayana. As a brief prelude, Ramayana - the great epic is divided into seven kandams or portions namely the Bala Kandam, Ayodhya Kandam, Aranya Kandam, Kishkinda Kandam, Sundara Kandam, Yuddha Kandam and Uttara Kandam. But it is often mentioned that even if one has not read Ramayana in entirety, reading Sundara Kandam with utmost devotion can equal reading the epic itself. Sundara Kandam is famously stated as the Heart of Ramayana.

My mother's multiple and casual mention of the power of Sundara Kandam made me look for it on www.flipkart.com - an online book portal. The search landed me at this book - The Hidden Gems in Sundara Kandam by K. Lakshman, the original rendition of this book in Tamil by Amman Sathiyanathan. The book priced at Rs 150 on this site presents Sundara Kandam in easy to understand English with beautiful illustrations, in black and white. In this book, the heart of Ramayana is rendered in a tale like format.

The book begins with a prologue elaborating importance of Sundara Kandam in Ramayana, why it is named so, what portion of the great epic does it span, why it is revered as the Heart of Ramayana. The author explains different versions of Ramayana he has referred to in writing this book. The next portion is the tale itself - Sundara Kandam beginning with Hanuman's crossing the sea in search of Sita, surveying Lanka, meeting Sita in Ashoka vana, setting Lanka ablaze thereafter in a bid to scare Ravana, crossing the sea again to meet Rama and convey the news - "Sighted Sita".

The story telling is not abrupt as chosen/necessary references are taken from previous portions to complete the reader's understanding. The epilogue section sails seamlessly with brief accounts from Yuddha Kandam and Rama Pattabishekham (coronation ceremony after return from forest exile for 14 years) providing the neat end. Many important questions that hit the reader's mind during elaboration of the tale are discussed with authors' opinions and answers in the epilogue section.

No Sanskrit verses in here, no heavy prose, this book is meant for all those who wish to do some devout reading of something godly and spiritual, not merely a one time read and definitely not a "finish in one go" book too.

Cover of the Book

Illustration showing Sita handing over her crest jewel to Hanuman in Ashoka Vana, Lanka

Illustration showing Hanuman setting Lanka on fire, his tail ablaze

Roald Dahl: My Favorite Author

2012-01-25T20:27:00.004+05:30

Enter the colorful, illustrious world of Roald Dahl, you emerge out of it, happy and content like a small child. During childhood days, I immersed myself into books by Enid Blyton - The Magic Faraway Tree, The Enchanted Wood, Malory Towers, Famous Five series, The Secret Seven series and Little Noddy series as well to name a few. These books, along with illustrated classics pocket series of books (titles like David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Black Beauty, Robin Hood, Three Musketeers etc) were never laid to rest until they were completed, even at the cost of a sumptuous meal or good night's sleep.

Years later, the same satisfaction and child-like happiness sprouts from books written by Roald Dahl. In my library lies the author's books - The Phizz Whizzing Collection and The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl and they are my cherished possessions.

The Phizz Whizzing collection is a set of 15 books, heavily illustrated, largely meant for children. But wait, there is nothing stopping us grown ups from having the fun. The collected short stories of Roald Dahl is an amalgamation of his books, an omnibus containing stories from SWITCH BITCH, KISS KISS, OVER TO YOU, SOMEONE LIKE YOU and Eight Further Tales of the Unexpected. This book, though non illustrious, has spine chilling and nerve racking twist in each tale.

My first introduction to Roald Dahl was in school, we had the story Umbrella Man in our English Textbook, I am not sure which grade though. It was a very funny story and I was glad to read it again many years later in the Collected Short Stories book.

The world of Roald Dahl is magical, simple stories that entice people across all ages. A visit to the author's official website will lend an insight into this world - http://www.roalddahl.com/

Trying to get back to heavy reading habit with severe intent - I have completed 10 titles of the 15 books set - Phizz Whizzing collection and two sections in the Collected Short Stories book.

Every book in the Phizz Whizzing collection comes alive with superb illustrations by Quentin Blake. At the end of each book lies some information about Roald Dahl, information on his daily routine, his writing hut where stories used to cook and churn like magic potions, snippets of his childhood and some adventures.

Of the 15 book series, Boy - Tales of Childhood and Going Solo are stories of Roald Dahl's personal life, not a boring autobiography but a very beautifully conceived insight into some memorable moments he experienced as a child and as an adult when serving for the RAF during Second World War times. The other titles in this collection are fun packed, smile assuring, complete in one-go stories.

So come on, stop being a Bootboggler, pick up Roald Dahl's book before your head get Rotsome with everyday mundane routine. Do not watch Telly Telly Bunkum box , serials aired in it have Chatbags in them, nah no recreation. Put the serious fiction right into the bin, sheer Glubbage it is, savor yourself and rekindle some of those lively, happy go lucky childhood days by grabbing some Scrumdiddlyumptious books by Dahl. Wondering what all this bingo lingo means - take a plunge into this whole new world :)

Book Review: 7 Secrets of Vishnu

2012-01-05T14:05:00.002+05:30

When I received a shipment of this book titled - 7 Secrets of Vishnu written by Devdutta Pattanaik from Flipkart at my office, I had two of my colleagues questioning me my age and if everything was OK with me, why I was reading this book? Devdutta Pattanaik's books are exactly of the sorts that break this notion most have on books on God and Mythology - that they are meant only for elderly and ones in immense trouble.

I came to know of the author when his book titled Jaya (an illustrated retelling of Mahabharata) made it to the top selling book brigade. There are other titles too, written by him - Myth=Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology, 7 Secrets of Hindu Calendar Art, 99 thoughts on Ganesha and 7 Secrets of Shiva that are immensely popular.

7 secrets of Vishnu, as hinted by the title, is split into seven chapters - Mohini's secret, Matsya's secret, Kurma's secret, Trivikrama's secret, Ram's secret, Krishna's secret and Kalki's secret.

The book on each page is marked by illustrations on the left hand side and written information on the right hand side. I captured a few images of the inside of the book -

Devdutta Pattanaik's 7 secrets of Vishnu is meant for all who have missed out on mythological tales, normally handed over by grandparents during one's childhood days, for all who love to know more about their favorite Gods and Goddesses. Tales of purpose and intent of each incarnation of Vishnu are discussed in very simple and easy to understand language. The font is bold and many illustrations with labels explaining them stand to elucidate the seemingly complex divine concepts. These aspects of the book only broadens the audience the book caters to. The book explains quite clearly many of the symbols and figures we see on temple walls, inside the sanctum etc.

The first chapter - Mohini's secret explains mutually exclusive but quintessential spheres of material and spiritual growth. Matsya's secret tells the tale of the avatar and explains how man alone, with a larger brain has the power to imagine, empathise and exploit. Kurma's secret reveals the act of churning of ocean. Trivikrama's secret deals with tales of Varaha, Narasimha and Vamana avatars of Vishnu.

The chapter on Ram's secret deals with understanding dharma based on one's Varna and Ashrama. Here, incarnations of Parashuram marking the end of Krita yuga, Ram marking the end of Treta Yuga, reasons behind their actions are explained in detail.

Krishna's secret emphasizes on thought behind an action. Many complex decisions are taken by this avatar to deal with changing times of Dwapara Yuga. The book ends with Kalki's secret where incarnations like Balarama and Kalki do not take an active course of action like other Vishnu's incarnations to root out injustice and evil but recede passively, allow things to wane to complete the Kalpa or world cycle so that a new one can begin.

The book will provide answers on why Brahma is never worshipped, explain how Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu were once the gate keepers Jaya and Vijaya of Vaikunta, why Lakshmi has an owl along with her in most pictures, why Narada triggers trouble wherever he goes, how Bhagavatha Purana came into being and many interesting aspects.

If you want to take a break from routine fiction and non-fiction related to travel/history - here is a good read. I am not rating this book on a scale of 5 or 10, I will just say, I enjoyed reading it thoroughly. The book is meant to be read slowly and details assimilated carefully. It is not a one time read, I would love to get back to few chapters time and again to refresh some details. I also procured a copy of 7 secrets of Shiva by the same author, I am sure I can unravel few more secrets by reading it.

I could not find a better day than today (Vaikunta Ekadeshi - Jan 5, 2012) to write about this book. Well written, adequately illustrated and highly informative, 7 secrets of Vishnu helps one to gain better understanding of one's faith.

Ultimate Urge to KILL ....

2011-12-30T16:03:00.001+05:30

Peculiar things snowball into a PHENOMENON ...lesson learnt from year 2011, right on time when it is about to end.

I had, for long, refrained from writing down a post on this topic - quite consciously. I did not want to give it my share of attention. The topic barely required it as it had garnered copious and unimaginable proportions of interest from many quarters - far and near, known and unknown.

Why this KOLAVERI DI? Precisely, this post hovers around the new found national rage.

To start with, it all seemed rather peculiar when I found a video on Facebook liked multiple (better said innumerable) times over a span of week. The feeling was reaffirmed when a fellow colleague at work, hailing from North India, requested me to explain the word "kolaveri" . I summed it up as an uncontrollable rage to KILL. The feeling lingered on with Times of India blog featuring 5-6 articles using Kolaveri Di theme that week. The theme was funnily extended to the release of Kanimozhi (2G spectrum scam case) from Tihar jail, an article quoted Stalin, her brother wondering "Why this Kanimozhi Di"?

Over the next few weeks, I felt very peculiar when I received an IT (Information Tech industry) version of this song as an email forward. Then, I saw the original version sung by Dhanush and felt the IT version of the song fit IT folks' bill well. Sonu Nigam's very young son sang the song throwing in his "apt for kids" modifications. Kids in my street assembled and sang this song like an anthem, once (at least) every evening before they commenced playing. They ensured they emulated the minor nuances and naughty expressions of the song well - Kaila Glass .. only English .. , Mama notes eduthukko, Papapa Papapa etc .. They appeared thoroughly enthralled while singing.

Recently, I found it fantastically peculiar when I saw a snippet of Dhanush's LIVE performance of the song in a New Year Celebration show hosted by Salman Khan, arranged by BIG Entertainment. The show is expected to be aired on Star Plus channel on New year's eve. Abhishek Bachchan tweets - Dhanush is his great friend and is extremely talented, Dhanush is seen singing a special Kolveri version for his friends' daddy dear - Big B on stage, talks are doing rounds on how Dhanush is planning to roll out a HINGLISH (Hindi + English) version of Kolaveri Di song, all by himself.

Going a step further, it becomes fantabulously peculiar when the Indian PM invites Dhanush to render this song in front of Japanese PM who is on a visit to India to sell nuclear technology and sign deals for bullet trains. Looks like Dhanush's Why this Kolaveri Di? will oil the deal well and ensure smooth completion of work for our Indian government which is already tired of Lokpal and like hurdles. The Indian Government is quite like the soup boys who have no choice who figure in Dhanush's song.

The Japanese PM, I guess, will demand from Dhanush, a Japanese version of his song so that back in their country, they can sing the song in face of an impending Tsunami and many a typhoon, try to reduce the rage of such calamitous forces. The Indian cricket team too, I hear, loves Dhanush's song. Apparently, they believe, the music director of the song - Anirudh resembles their fellow team mate Ishant Sharma too very closely.

Now, the sense of peculiarity attached with Dhanush's song, its lyrics, the song's rendition and music has ended, become all too familiar for me. My 2 and 1/2 year old nephew sings the song on phone specially for me - very cutely, with the whiteu whiteu blacku blacku extensions rendered correctly. At this age, he asserts that white skin girlu girlu has heart that is blacku blacku :) I can do nothing but LOL and ROFL.

I do not intend to analyse here what worked with the song and why it is such a huge hit. I am sure we would have read articles of the likes - "10 reasons why Kolaveri Di works". I also do not want to debate if the mammoth attention the song and its artist have received is in place or out of place. I am sure Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghosh and Arnab Goswami will do and would have done the needful in this aspect.

My blog is titled - Furore Scribendi, furore means a rage, not kolaveri but veri (folks with Tamil background can understand this well, but thanks to Dhanush now, I am sure even rest of the nation will make an effort to understand). Furore Scribendi refers to an urge, madness or a frenzy to write. Therefore, not writing in this space about something that has whirl winded into becoming a national rage will be an unforgivable mistake.

New Year ... around the corner

2011-12-28T12:37:00.001+05:30

2011 is quickly coming to an end ... a new year is about to begin soon ... very soon :)

I have, in recent past, gained this practice of buying copies of Manorama Year Book or say any other compilation that grasps details of all major events in India and world around new year time. In fact, on New Year's day, I buy a copy of the newspaper - The Hindu (the one I grew up reading) and carefully preserve the 4-6 page section/segment that covers events of 2011.

The problem I faced with Manorama Year Books is that these are bulky, drab and small fonted; a stockpile of details - apt for a civil services exam aspirer, in my opinion. I have their entries for 2009 and 2010 but managed to turn only a few pages, barely 20%. For the year 2011, I bought a pocket yearbook - much thinner, released by IIPM publishing house, more like a general knowledge info bank.

Casual browsing through new collections in a Reliance Time out, close to my office, brought me to a very colorful book - Hachette Children's Yearbook and Infopedia 2012. This colorful book with vital information in it of many events of the year comes along with a free CD - full of famous quotes and quotations on varied topics. I purchased a copy of this book from www.crossword.in - online shopping portal. This book marked for sale at Rs 275 in stores is available at crossword online portal for Rs 207.

The contents of this book suffices my interests. There is no excess information and the way facts are presented is awesome. Bold lettering, different colors, the scheme of presentation is perfect for a casual summation of news of year 2011. Below are the sections into which the book is divided -

News : India
News: World
ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 Recap
Awards and Award winners
The year ahead - peek at 2012 Olympics
Countries of the world (A-Z)
Know your Planet
History section
India : States and Union Territories
Literature
Movies
Science
Space
Sports
Diary - 2012 Calendar and Year Planner for you

Each of the sections numbered 6-14 has a brief quiz session at its end with answers provided at the end of the book. The topics organization and extent of details are good for adults who are not so serious about every iota of detail in 2011. I prefer this colorful summation of 2011 by Hachette to Manorama series of which I have , now, got terribly bored. Though the title reads "for children", the book has many a detail that can fill in empty pockets of our heads too.

Happy Reading and Happy 2012 :)

Damn...this Dam issue

2011-12-12T21:57:00.001+05:30

What started as a ban on the movie - Dam 999 moved to a more condemnable act - an attack on pilgrims from Tamil Nadu at Sabarimala Ayyappa temple. The insanity rages on with attacks on shops owned by Keralites in Salem, Erode, Coimbatore and Chennai. The movie directed by Sohan Roy met the ban because it purportedly depicts the collapse of Mullaiperiyar dam from which sprouts the currently raging controversy between Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

While the former state wants to raise water level in the dam from 136 to 142 feet as per a verdict issued by Supreme Court, it is also working in every direction to allay fear psychosis of its neighbors claiming it has done everything timely to strengthen the masonry gravity dam originally built in 1887. The latter - state of Kerala is afraid if the seismically active zone of Idukki might see the dam crumbling soon with the slightest tremor, the breach in the dam observed by an experts committee presents a grim condition, foretelling a disaster of unfathomable proportions on environment, downstream dams - Idukki, Cheruthoni and Kulamavu and life. Kerala wants a new dam in place of the current Mullaiperiyar dam and definitely does not want the water level to be raised. The wants of the neighbors are in stark contrast when juxtaposed. While Tamil Nadu has been focusing on how the Supreme Court verdict passed a little back must be heeded to, Kerala is placing the magnifying glass on the damage in the masonry dam in upstream portions - 95 to 106 feet from the base of the dam.

Insanity due to fear psychosis and intolerance has already risen over the last few days and there is widespread unrest in bordering areas and blockade of highway traffic. The Union Government sits at Delhi with its back turned to the South, not enough clamor until now in these two states to garner their attention or turn their heads.

The Centre is busy rolling back decisions announced by it last week and fighting out the warrior in Anna Hazare. It is the Supreme Court of India that looks into all issues of national and state level importance. It has set up an experts committee to study the extent of damage in Mullaiperiyar dam and effectiveness of its earlier announced verdict. Top TV news channels do not consider this issue important enough to cover it for even a span of 5 minutes. Anything related to Kudankulam nuclear power plant or Mullaiperiyar dam appears as trailing meta data displayed at the lowermost portion of our TV screen.

The nature and magnitude of damage as predicted by M. Sasidharan, a member of the Inter State Water Advisory Committee, in event of collapse of the dam can be read from the link below -

This quite probable event of collapse is completely overlooked by Tamil Nadu state. The states are behaving like two sides of a coin.

Human chains are formed and processions underway in Madurai, Theni and Ramanathapuram districts that benefit from water of Periyar river demanding the execution of Supreme Court order at the earliest possible. There was a one page appeal by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister in Times of India newspaper, Bangalore edition on Saturday - Dec 10, 2011 stating the history of the dam, repair works undertaken by the state and remarking fears and worries as a complete and needless misplacement.

Water sharing and dam disputes are not new in the Southern states, that man made structures erected have a lifetime and are not free from error and prone to destruction by natural, calamitous forces is also a well established fact with various instances from different parts of the world, including the far more developed West.

What is incomprehensible is the way in which these two states are not being brought to the discussion table by a supposedly bigger and more respectable force - the Centre, be made to talk out all aspects of the problem and arrive at a plausible solution after scanning reports by fair and well informed committees. Looks like that honorable stature goes only to the Supreme Court in our country and not the Legislature we people elected. Irrespective of who comes to table a solution, the sooner the better it will be, before peace and amity wanes between the neighbors who have already begun to unscrupulously mix business, religion and spirituality, entertainment with this damned DAM issue.

Hypermetropic Cooks

2011-12-05T21:48:00.001+05:30

Another update on my blog ... may be a post that can fit in here and my other blog on cooking - Foodies' Sphere.

A thought struck me as I was watching an episode of Master Chef India 2 on Sunday - Dec 4, 2011. Four contestants were fighting out an elimination round. I have noted, be it Master Chef India - the first or second season, top contestants are experts in Awadhi, Gujarati, Rajasthani cuisines, they have toiled with the extremely hot Bhut Jolokia chilly from north eastern states, tossed many fishes in kasundi (mustard paste) much in Bengali style, rolled out sheek kababs and patiently cooked flavorful biriyani.

In the arena of desserts and baked goodies, they are kings and queens. Adept at making mousse, artfully using mascarpone cheese, baking pies, tarts, quiches, meringue cookies and macroons, they also churn out desi sweets like Ghewar, intricately shaped Jalebis and Rasagulla cake in remarkable style even when provided very little time. Simply stating, they know it all.

The contestants of Master Chef India are unparalleled experts in international cuisine - Risotto, Ravioli, Lasagna, Tortilla, Quesadilla - from Italy to Mexico to China, name it and they present them matching international standards. Be it Galangal ginger, Pad thai, Sushi or other tongue twisting names, these are no surprises to them. The thought process and creativity these people put in, their knowledge of ingredients, quality and taste of end products they create have always startled the three judges on the show and many lucky ones who have had a chance to taste their platter.

This Sunday, however, I realised, they are all what I can call Hypermetropic Cooks, a new term I have coined to describe at least those who were fighting out the elimination challenge. These hypermetropic cooks have abnormally above average, in fact, supreme distant vision, in this context, technical know how of recipes made in regions of the globe, miles away from India. When a banana tree came bang in front of them - more precisely, its various parts - banana stem, raw and ripe banana, banana flower were presented as the core ingredient to be used, they were all flabbergasted. If it had been only an expression of shock, I could quite understand it.Their expressions were like all hell broke loose on them on Sunday.

The four contestants had to prepare a complete platter using raw banana, banana leaf and ripe banana in the first round. The second round involved usage of banana flower and the last one required contestants to prepare a starter using banana stem.

Raw bananas make yummy dry curry, especially when mixed with grated coconut. Ripe bananas could be steamed with honey laced water to provide a simple, delectable dessert. Steaming in banana leaves added an extraordinary flavor to any dish. Ample knowledge can be derived on how to use all of the above elements of a banana plant from Canara coast, states of Kerala and Tamil nadu (as far as I know). Banana flower beats the rest when it comes to taste factor though it is quite meticulous to clean it. Finely chopped banana flower could be mashed with potato and used to make cutlets or mixed with channa dal to make vadas. Banana stem is a miracle ingredient, rich in roughage, yielding tasty dry and yoghurt based curry. The core ingredient is quite common place in the southern states of India and very vital in nutritive aspects too. People who cared to know about global cuisines could have had an easy take that day had they turned a few pages of any South Indian cook book.

I felt a strange sense of ignorance looming in them and I have seen this in most cookery shows aired in India. There is much more in South Indian cooking than only idli, vada and dosa.Whilst the whole nation has adopted the tandoor, naan, kulcha, paneer butter masala, concepts of weaving magic with a wet grinder and simple fermentation techniques have gone amiss. It is very appreciable people put in sincere efforts to master things that are cooked and served in far off corners of the world, but why some take a huge leap before they are even aware of indigenous lessons is not clear.

I realized that day - to be a key contender in Master Chef India, it is mandatory one excels in North Indian cooking and be a clone of Nigella Lawson in baking. Churn out a 1000 recipes with olive oil but remain blissfully ignorant of the fact that even till oil can be used for cooking. Be crafty with the pasta maker even if you haven't (even once) skillfully squeezed out murukkus and chakalis. With an overdose of enthusiasm, there are takers for the far fetched Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Thai and Japanese, but even indirect references and simple awareness of completeness and diversity in Indian cuisine strangely goes for a toss.

Eight Minutes

2011-12-05T13:16:00.001+05:30

Here I come, hitting my blog after a brief gap, to write about nothing like Paulo Coelho's Eleven Minutes. Busy days at work kept me away from jotting down my thoughts. The month of November was exceptionally cold in Bangalore. Cyclonic storm and rains in Chennai sent mercury dipping in Bangalore too. Getting the morning cab on time and reaching work at 8 has become next to impossible. So I have been doing this exercise of taking Bangalore Metro, better known as, Namma Metro to work!

I stay in New Tippasandra, about 2 km from Indira Nagar Metro station and work at Cunningham Road, about 2.5 km from Mahatma Gandhi Road Metro station. There are buses that ply from close to my house (Indira Nagar 80 feet road) to Shivaji Nagar (314, 314A/P/N, 139) and these buses ply via Indira Nagar CMH Road- Ulsoor- Dickenson Road- Cubbon road. A hop from Shivaji Nagar (a prominent bus terminus) onto any bus going towards Hebbal/Yelahanka/Yeshwantpur will take me to Cunningham road and a brief walk of 10 minutes to my office.

Leaving home post 9 in the morning to reach office is a killer decision in Bangalore. To commute the distance of 11 km from my home to office, time taken ranges between 50-70 minutes due to heavy traffic congestion. Those who reside in Bangalore can definitely relate to copious time one spends in Ulsoor to reach MG Road, the most decisive bottle neck. MG Road itself has 6 signals over a stretch of 2.5 km, some of them marking "GO" Green signal at 120 or even worse 140 seconds interval. The more one slips from
9am departure from home, hits close to 9.30am or thereafter due to reasons - planned or unplanned, the more he/she will face the ire of Bangalore traffic. Traffic is TERRIFIC.

Two weeks back, I decided to give this "two-buses" journey scheme a break. Of course, what is stated below might appear little tedious but it saved a lot of time and energises me in the morning despite the slumber that creeps into this city's environs during winter months.

I take a brisk walk for 8 minutes to reach Indira Nagar 80ft road bus stop, board a bus to Indira Nagar Metro station, then board the Metro train and reach Mahatma Gandhi Road - my and Metro's destination. I then take a G-9 bus, right outside MG Road Metro Station to Cunningham road, again walk for 10 minutes and reach office. The total travel time despite many hops and ups-downs comes down from 60/65 min to 30/35 minutes.

Reason - Namma Metro, however slow it wriggles on tracks laid between buildings, covers the deadly bottle neck in 8 minutes - ON DOT.

The metro train is punctual, no question of congestion up there on the tracks, seats in train during office hours are full but there is ample space to stand and standing for 8 minutes is not a pain. There is no pollution and no squeezing of fellow passengers against the ticket collector. As the metro chugs past Ulsoor, crosses Trinity circle and reaches its final stop at MG road in 8 minutes, one only thinks - WOW! ... the race against time is completed in style.

A trip from Indiranagar to MG road by Metro costs Rs 12 per person, for now it is tad costly but I am sure that with future expansions and route completion, Metro will draw more crowd and lessen the fare. Commuters in weekdays rush hour are office goers, many who work in banks and other offices on MG road and Trinity circle. On weekends, there are all sorts of people on board, those who want to go shopping, catch a movie, enjoy a trial ride, kids who want to want to cling onto the holders inside train, swing using them as if they were Roman Rings and catch a view of the city from a height.

The current route plies from Byappanahalli to MG Road, a short stretch I must admit, well supported by feeder buses. This eight minutes journey by Metro from Indira nagar to MG Road has helped me avoid head aches and migraines. But there is a big, nagging question I have, not one, but many ...

Bangalore has multiple railway stations at Byappanahalli, KR Puram, Bangalore East, Bangalore Cantonment, Bangalore City (Majestic), Malleshwaram, Yeshwantpur, Banaswadi and Yelahanka and more which I may not know. Why the thought of leaving Electric Multiple Units (EMU trains) on these tracks with stops at these stations never occurred to the state government? I had written twice to the decision making body when Namma Metro was planned but no avail. BEML (Bharat Earth Mowers Limited) factory located in Bangalore makes coaches for electric trains running in Chennai and Mumbai, then why does this workshop not churn out coaches for Bangalore local trains? Feeder buses now used to connect Metro could well have been used to connect all the above railway stations to prominent city centers. If there are AC electric lines already running above tracks in place, why lay a third DC rail, build many pillars, lay tracks, fell tress, dig and scoop earth out, make potholes on roads of Bangalore which are already crushed under the weight of incessant traffic during the day and heavy metro-work related machinery during night? This cannot be a case of simple overlooking or a careless flaw in planning. It only seems an orchestrated effort to start something anew as this alone brings forth fresh contracts, more money and thereby more SCAMS.

Questions remain and concerns grow on the change of scape of a city I have always loved since the day I landed. But as I even reckon them .. eight minutes are over and I prepare to get down at MG Road station.

For you, a thousand times over ..

2011-11-27T16:39:00.001+05:30

Back in 2008, I grabbed this book titled - The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini at a Crossword (book shop) outlet, Bangalore. I read about 3 chapters from it and loved the narration style used. Every discussion, thereafter, of the book with peers, yielded only positive reviews. There were many who were willing to offer me their copy so that I could read and return. I refrained, for two reasons. One - somewhere back then, I had many activities at hand and made no efforts to organize time for my interests and second, if it was such a glorious book, I preferred to buy a copy of it for my own book shelf, retain it with me for life.

Finally ... springing up from my memory's long lost corners, I purchased this book on a Friday in Nov 2011 ... and I was very glad! The weekend gave me ample time to finish the book midst many piled up household chores. In fact, the book offered such an awesome read I finished it early Saturday itself, starting Friday night.

The Kite Runner is all about human emotions, relations, the minor nuances involved that define them and that complicate them. But there is no overdose of it at all, no verbose descriptions, no purple prose. Just purely simple and powerful expressions and phrases which each one of us can relate to. The backdrop of the story is set in Afghanistan, pre and post Russian invasion times unto the recent, destructive Taliban regime. So this is not a story of Afghanistan - no historical narrative, but purely a fiction piece that uses the Afghan and Pakistan towns and villages as its fabric for life.

There is servile loyalty in one character, there is confusion mixed with cowardice in another. There are expectations, the burden that results from it, some moments of happiness and many of disappointment in a father-son relation, mixed feelings of betrayal, anger and guilt that choke a young but strong and intense friendship.

The book opens with profound depth when it states - I became what I am today at the age of twelve. It says - Its' wrong what people say about past; I have learned, how to bury it, because the past claws its way out each time. In my opinion, this is very true, who we are at a much older age is all moulded in many "apparently insignificant" years of childhood.

Portions of the tale from 1975-81 set in Afghanistan and again in 2001 wrench one's heart, there are so many expressions and dialogues that bring a tear, a smile, some thoughts and severe contemplation. Serious concern of a father like - A boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand upto anything are so commonplace and that's what makes the story so relatable while reading. The tale gets a small slump when it reaches the USA, primarily because it is the past at Kabul that is the bedrock of the tale and is intriguing till the end. There are lot of children in Afghanistan but little childhood, a child's description of a long wait for good things to occur equated as waiting for sour apples to turn sweet present acute lyrical excellence. The kite competition, the slingshot, the Shahnama, a leather bound notebook are few lifeless elements that bring vitality to the story.

For you, a thousand times over! is a simple expression that recurs in the story at crucial junctures. To me, I am glad I own a copy of this book. To summarize, this is a great piece of fiction, not even once overdone in narration, a must-have in one's bookshelf, may be then one can read it a thousand times over!

Redirection to a new space

2011-11-24T14:52:00.001+05:30

Hello All,

Posts in this blog - FURORE SCRIBENDI, under the label - Foodie's Sphere have been moved to a new space in blogger.com. The link pointing to this new space is http://foodiessphere.blogspot.com and is called Foodies' Sphere. From now on posts related to recipe trials in kitchen, good eateries in Bangalore or anywhere else in India, plainly stating, anything related to food, will appear in this blog space.

Reasons for migration: I found posts under the label - Foodie's Sphere quite illustrious plus different in terms of interested audience, thereby decided to keep them apart. I always wanted to have a personal blog space on cooking but had minimal first hand experience back in 2008 when Furore Scribendi began. With about 5 years of experience in kitchen, post wedlock and much learnt from my mother, mother-in-law, trial and error in kitchen and largely from friends on blogger space, the intention to create this dedicated space for food/cooking related posts has found more and better meaning.

The posts under this label - Foodie's Sphere will remain on this blog till end of 2011, these will all be deleted when the new year begins. These, along with more and new ones, from now on, will be available at http://foodiessphere.blogspot.com.

Thanks for reading !! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in advance.

Feasty Yeasty Experiments - 2

2011-11-15T21:01:00.001+05:30

No Knead Focaccia Bread

Another post stating many thanks to Cakes and More blog. I just could not stop playing with yeast and roller pin and flour last weekend. After baking two batches of rolls, I went ahead with confidence and picked up this quick and easy recipe. It is very quick, requires less effort and yields a super tasty flat bread that goes very well with tea.

As already mentioned in my previous post on no knead rolls, Suma's blogposts offer a direct "put-to-practice" recipes. The link leading to the recipe on her blog is given below -

http://sumarowjee.blogspot.com/2011/05/no-knead-focaccia-super-quick-easy-easy.html

Not much I altered in the parent recipe, I followed the ingredients as is. Minor modifications are as below-

I omitted grated fresh coconut. I didn't have any at home.
I used only 1 cup of APF and altered all other ingredients accordingly.
I used a 6' round tin for baking the flat bread.
I fried the finely chopped green chillies and coriander with hing, salt and sugar in oil, added required quantities of water and coconut milk to this. Then I added yeast upon hitting the right luke warm temperature. Into this, I incorporated the flour. We enjoy spicy stuff at home, therefore I added the chillies directly to the batter and mixed it well.
I sprinkled little rosemary, thyme and oregano (mixture) as a final topping before sending the tin into the oven.
I baked in my Samsung microwave convection oven at 180'C for 35 minutes. I didn't use the grill option for more browning. I checked for the hollow sound trick, it worked and I stopped at that.

Nice, tasty flat bread and my weekend went well with fruitful experiments with yeast. My fascination for such yeasty experiments continues ... it is only Tuesday and I am already waiting to get my apron, gloves on and bake more goodies :)

A big note of thanks to Suma and her blog (http://sumarowjee.blogspot.com/2011/05/no-knead-focaccia-super-quick-easy-easy.html) again for all valuable and truly delectable recipes. Many more thanks to you, I get to score many brownie points with friends and family with these recipes.

Feasty Yeasty Experiments - 1

2011-11-14T21:20:00.001+05:30

No Knead Choco Chip Rolls

Come weekend, my head is full of ideas, to cook something special. There are two worlds in cooking, broadly (in my opinion) - one is the routine, daily world, one full of veggies, pulses and spices that drives daily life. The other is this intriguing world of baking which poses interesting challenges and tempts one to keep on trying and improving. I was vehemently pulled into this second world by following the blog - Cakes and More. This blog is authored by Suma Rowjee, frankly and simply stating, my Baking Guru :)

I attribute my entry into the world of baking goodies, the sudden drive to procure an oven and a constant enthusiasm to learn many neat tricks to churn out perfect goodies to her blog. There are many elements that make this blog very special for a reader. From the write up that leads to the recipe, measurements of ingredients (which one can blindly trust and follow), many important tips and clear instructions, out-of-the-world pictures of baked goodies, a supreme baker cum chef like presentation of final products - be it Graham crackers tied with a red ribbon, chocolate ganache spilling out of a cup, olive oil in an Arabian Nights style glass bottle :) - the many brilliant aspects of this blog instilled and maintains my passion for baking.

I was content, for some time, with baking cakes without cream icing/topping. Sponge cakes, marble cakes, mawa cakes and fruit cakes were on my list of well accomplished dishes. I forayed into the yeasty domain, for the first time, with these choco chip rolls (eggless and no knead). I am glad I performed my first experiments with yeast as baking with this elusive ingredient gives a unique sense of satisfaction, an unparalleled one I must say. Along with this smug happiness, comes a sense of fear. You want to outsmart yourself every time you use yeast and churn out consistently delectable and sponge soft goodies. Getting the temperature right, getting the yeast to bubble and froth is a pure adventure, fit enough to give an adrenaline surge in domestic environment itself. But the pretty outcome of baking with yeast is that the house turns into a sweet heaven with the smell of ambrosia from the oven, spreading all over and bringing lots of cheer and devilish hunger too.

Without further ado, I bring forth the link I referred to, the recipe I followed which helped me make these yummilicious, soft choco chip rolls.

http://sumarowjee.blogspot.com/2011/11/no-knead-soft-cinnamon-rolls-eggless.html

I followed the ingredients (their measure) for dough as is in the blog. I used Gloripan yeast 1 1/4 teaspoons. For the filling, I used choco chips I bought from IBCA, Bangalore.

I followed all steps as mentioned in the procedure, no digressions. I divided the dough into two batches - out of one I baked rolls instantly and the other batch, I refrigerated and used to make rolls the next day. I got a total of 12 rolls from this dough and we devored them happily with tea over the weekend.

Here are few pictures of the photogenic rolls I made -

Big smiles on my face and waiting for the coming weekend to make more of these rolls with different filling and many more experiments with yeast.

Thanks (wholeheartedly) to Suma and her efforts :)
Cakes and More !! (http://sumarowjee.blogspot.com/) rocks !!

Weekday Baking : Eggless Mawa Cake

2011-11-03T20:40:00.001+05:30

A quick post on baking - I tried out Eggless Mawa Cake yesterday and it came out super delicious.

I followed the recipe provided in the link below -

http://saffrontrail.blogspot.com/2007/11/diwali-delicacy-eggless-mava-cake.html

I did not attempt too many modifications, just took note of below points -

1) I used only 1/2 cup milk in total. This itself gave me cake batter of the right consistency. I did not require additional 1/4 cup of milk.

2) I added 7-8 strands (pinch of) of saffron, no additional sugar with it. I added the saffron to the batter without pounding it.

3) I baked the cake in a round 8' tin at 160'C for 30 minutes.

The eggless version of this Mawa cake came out very well, nice brown and soft, with delicate taste of saffron, bites interlaced with crunchy cashewnut bits.

Below are some pictures of the cake taken on my mobile phone -

Picture of the cake (in true colors) taken using Nikon DSC

Cake cut - picture taken using Nokia 1.3 MP camera

Thanks to Saffron Trail for providing me such a wonderful recipe. I will surely make this over and over again on many other occasions. Loved the cake completely!

From Sholavaram to Buddh International Circuit

2011-11-01T00:37:00.004+05:30

A shower of memories flooded me on 30/10/2011 as I sat down to watch the inaugural session of Formula One Indian Grand Prix. The elite sport commenced at 3 pm on India's Buddh International Circuit, Greater Noida and the sixty lap race spanning roughly two hours gripped my interest wholly.

Sitting in front of the television, I recollected some of my father's conversations on motor cycle racing, the magic this sport weaved back in 1980s in Sholavaram circuit, near Chennai. The Indian Grand Prix commenced and Vroom Vroommmed the super machines. My father remained an avid fan of bikes and motor cycle racing in 1980s, his young days. During a span of 8 years, from his age 25-33, he owned two Royal Enfield Bullet bikes and two YEZDI. As a kid, I could figure out my dad arrived home by picking up the majestic DUD..DUD..DUD notes of his bike. I proudly occupied a place on his bike's fuel tank. As per his accounts, the first race I saw was the last race held at Sholavaram circuit in 1988. However, I do not carry memories of this racing circuit, once an air strip during World War II times. The Madras Motor Sports Club, thereafter, changed the venue of racing from Sholavaram to Irungattukottai, near Sriperumbadur, off Chennai.

Passionate about racing, powerful bikes and cars, rallies - few of which he has been a part himself, my father took me to many races held at Irungattukottai. Images of this race track remain clearly etched in my memory - a gigantic MRF tyre arch at the head of the circuit, stands made of wooden planks for audience and few special stands/glass towers for the rich class.

Come February every year, my father would take us all - me, my mother, my cousins, aunts and uncles who visited us at that time, to the Formula 3 races at this venue. This was an era of glorious names like Karivaradhan, J. Anand, Vicky Chandok, Akbar Ebrahim and Vijay Mallaya.

Anyone with an iota of interest in motor sports in 1990s could not afford to feign ignorance when the name Sundaram Karivaradhan was mentioned. This legend hailed from a wealthy business family of Coimbatore (Lakshmi Mills), remained reticent in social spheres and highly committed to the advent and steady progress of motor racing in India. The impetus he provided inspired and sprung forth the current heroes - Narain Karthikeyan, Karun Chandok and Armaan Ebrahim. Formula India Single Seater Maruti Engine was Kari's brain child and with it began the first and complete tryst of India with this sport, a sport that does not stop with flushing gallons of adrenaline in its drivers but instills a huge rush of this hormone in its audience too. Cars would zoom and whroom past, lap after lap, fast, faster and fastest each time. Whizz men were unfazed by the deadly turns and corners, they cracked it all in a fiery fashion. Speed meant absolute power!

The constant buzz of the Formula One cars - Ferrari, Renault and Mc Laren Mercedes etc on Buddh International Circuit gave me a quiet sense of satisfaction and happiness, I was lucky to have witnessed Formula 3 races at Irungattukottai at least over 4 years during my childhood times. Probably, this introduction to motor sports, in my home town, at a young age inspired me to follow Formula One intently.

Come lap 24 of the Indian Grand Prix; a fiery battle ensued between Felipe Massa of Ferrari team and Lewis Hamilton of McLaren Mercedes, their cars cut across and collided for the fifth time this season. The feud on television, quite reminded me of rivalry between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna in 1989-91. I followed rivalry between these two drivers much more intently than the on-field battles between India and Pakistan in cricket. Ayrton Senna's death in 1994 San Marino Grand Prix pained me terribly. His death evoked a sense of fear and overshadowed the sense of awe I had for the sport. The period of abysmal interest towards Formula One halted with the entry of iconic Michael Schumacher. His unbeaten championships from 2000-2004 pumped up zeal. He and Ferrari made an indomitable combination, his prowess at the wheel was and remains unsurpassable. People knew results of the race he participated in before they began.

Path was paved for few greenhorns in the sport with Michael Schumacher's retirement announced in 2006.His return to Formula One with Mercedes GP team in 2010 assured the king cannot stay away from his empire and subjects for long. At the age of 42, he churned out a rank 5 in the Indian Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel, the young gun (a double champion now) led every lap, right from start to finish, turned the apple of eye of every Indian who watched the race that Sunday. Vettel equalled Michael Schumachers' record of 11 wins in a season yet leaving most critics admit that the former had a long way to go before being placed at par with the Messiah.

The Buddh International circuit looked fantastic with its cynical combination of turns - thanks to its architect - Hermann Tilke. Champagne poured lavishly on the podium, smiles shone on faces of Sebastian Vettel (1), Jenson Button (2) and Fernando Alonso(3). The opulence that evaded India for long, arrived in a weekend in October 2011at the cost of farmers' land, humongous funds during economic downturn times and many more factors that are busily analysed by media. I am not sure if we deserve to and will be able to play host to this splendid power packed sport. All I can say is that - the two hours long event on Oct 30, 2011 helped me revive some lost interest in Formula One and I snugly relished the memorable journey from Sholavaram times to F1 Indian Grand Prix at Buddh International Circuit.

Wish you all a very HAPPY DIWALI :)

2011-10-24T20:33:00.001+05:30

Diwali 2011 (26/10/2011)was spent in Bangalore. Simple celebrations marked the day, I made a flower Rangoli using marigold flowers (both orange and yellow), adorned it with a set of four decorative diyas/lamps. We had pretty noiseless fun with just two box of sparklers. I made a traditional sweet called Okkarai for the festival. This one is my favorite and my mother-in-law prepares it without fail during Diwali.

Thanks to Saffron Trail for sharing the recipe of Okkarai on blogosphere - http://saffrontrail.blogspot.com/2010/11/recipe-for-diwali-okkarai.html

I followed the recipe specified in the link mentioned above barring a few modifications specified below which I made after appropriate discussion with my mother-in-law.

1) Instead of using 1 cup channa dal, I used equal measures of channa dal and moong dal (yellow) - 1/2 cup channa dal + 1/2 cup moong dal were used.

2) I did not make a syrup out of jaggery, the vella paagu as mentioned in the recipe on saffron trail. Instead, I add grated/powdered jaggery (measurement same as specified in the blog) directly to the wok in step 6. I mashed the crumbled dal and powdered jaggery in the wok on low flame and ensured they mixed well. Then I moved directly to step 9 - addition of roasted coconut, fried raisins and cashews and completed the recipe.

3) I used little less than 1/2 cup (mentioned of Saffron Trail) of grated coconut for the recipe.

The Okkarai smelt and tasted divine and had a nice, flaky texture. As mentioned in the blog, this recipe requires only 2-3 table spoons oil and 1 spoon ghee in total. I must admit it is quite minimal and with wholesome goodness of steamed dal, jaggery to add to taste, this traditional recipe is a safe bet and has become a huge hit in my list of favorites.

With one cup dal or measurements as stated in Saffron Trail, much more than adequate quantity for two is prepared. The sweet can be stored for 2-3 days with appropriate refrigeration in an air tight container.

Thanks to Saffron Trail!

I did surprise my mother-in-law when I said I was going to prepare Okkarai for Diwali :)

Okkarai made at home

A Peek into Royalty

2011-10-20T22:31:00.001+05:30

Travelogue Entry of Padmanabhapuram Palace, Thucalay, Kanyakumari

About the palace:

Padmanabhapuram palace is a grand remnant of the glory of Travancore kings/Venad dynasty. Thirunal Marthandavarma who ruled Travancore from 1729-58 rebuilt this palace in 1750, originally built in early 17th century by IraviVarma Kulasekhara Perumal. Located 37 km away from Kanyakumari, en route Trivandrum and about 65 km from it, the palace reflecting the best example of traditional Kerala architecture is administered by Government of Kerala. Padmanabhapuram housed the kings of Travancore and remained the seat of power until 1790 when the capital shifted from here to Trivandrum. The place derives its name from Lord Padmanabha, a reclining form of Lord Vishnu, the presiding deity of Travancore kings.

The palace stands inside an old granite fort complex, with the fort boundary intact only in few places now. A tourist should spare time to visit this palace recorded as world's largest wooden palace by Guinness Books of Records. The palace is made entirely of teak and rosewood and has exquisite flooring of granite and a rare ayurvedic mixture with secret extracts to keep it cool in summer and warm during rains.

Timings/When to visit:

Open on all days except Monday, from 9 am to 5 pm. I could not see any official guides around, the tourist can take a self guided tour of the palace as “This Way” boards at regular intervals lead one correctly around from entry to exit. Inside rooms of the palace, there are officials from the archaeology department who give snippets of information in addition to display boards erected.

Virtual tour of the palace:

The first glimpse of the palace from ticket counter presents a simple, house-like structure, with a clock tower, quite different from the glorious, larger-than-life palaces I have seen in Mysore and Bangalore or those in Rajasthan seen on TV. The architecture of this palace is such that the grandeur lies in use of rosewood and teakwood lavishly for ceilings and pillars and in sheer expanse of the building, its labyrinth of rooms and corridors. Therefore, for a common man who visits this palace, it appears a very live able structure and not an overdose of opulence.

As we enter, we first reach the Poomukham, this room serves as a reception area where king entertained special guests. One can see the big Onavillu (a bow) at display here. The ceiling has 90 floral motifs in wood, also on display is a brass hanging lamp and a Chinese chair. A flight of wooden stairs leads one to king’s council chamber. There are lattice windows called – Kilivaathal that provide a view of the outside. The king’s chair centrally placed with additional chairs for council members can be seen here at display in this hall (Mantrashaala) that adorns a shining and smooth floor. Intricately carved wooden brackets connect windows to the roof made of red tiles, both in interior and exterior parts. From here, one proceeds to a large dining hall that can house 2000 people, the Oottupura where free meals were served by the king. Leaving this hall, we go out to the courtyard and enter Thai Kottaram, the residential quarters of King’s mother, believed to be the oldest part of the palace. There is a small room here called Ekantha Mantapam with spectacular wooden carvings on the ceiling and a pillar exquisitely carved out of jackfruit tree wood called Kannithoonu.

From here we walk up to the Raja’s quarters, housed in the tallest building of the palace complex (4 storied). We enter a room that has a huge cot made from 64 medicinal herbs. The ceiling here bears more elaborate and rich designs in wood. Going along directions provided, we enter the Queen’s dressing room that has a huge swing and big Belgian mirrors hung on two opposite walls. The side walls have many lattice windows giving a view of the outside. Narrow passageways connecting rooms run to form a maze. Walking further, we reach the king’s mother’s bedroom which bears a simple, polished stone cot. Walking further, we enter the Armoury. From here on, watching carved ceilings, lattice windows and rounded pillars at regular intervals, we hit Ambhari Mukhappu. Built in the shape of an Ambhari – a seat put on elephants, this chamber with a huge window was used by the king to view chariot races and temple car festival.

Long corridors with paintings of kings, murals depicting tales of Lord Krishna lead one to the next portion of the palace and we hit Indra Vilas – the guest quarters in the palace. Built to house foreign dignitaries, this is the only portion of the palace complex that deviates from traditional Kerala style and infuses elements of European architecture. This deviation in style is evident from design of doors and windows in Indra Vilas. The columns in this hall also appear different. Walking out in the courtyard, catching a glimpse of buildings we have seen in the palace complex, we now enter the kitchen area, marked by storage shelves and stone grinders. There is a pond at the end of the kitchen.

Walking out of the kitchen quarters, one enters the Navarathri Mantapa, a big hall meant for dance performances or any such cultural extravaganza during the Navarathri festival. The mantapam has shining floor (Kannadi Thara – mirror floor effect) and houses magnificent stone pillars carved with supreme intricacy. This is the only part of the palace that is made entirely out of solid rock. There is a private viewing room for the royal members with wooden flap like windows. The dance hall at one ends opens to the Saraswati temple. The deity in the temple is taken out on a procession to Trivandrum for ceremonies during Navarathri. Reaching the last part of this royal splendour, we hit at the museum, a building inside the palace complex dedicated to showcasing stone figures, artifacts and weapons used by the kings. One requires 2 hours for complete tour of the palace.

Just a mention:

Many Malayalam movies have been filmed inside the Padmanabhapuram palace, most famous one being His Highness Abdullah.
There are few refreshment shops outside the palace complex that can save you from hunger and thirst.
The palace can be reached from Thucalay bus stand by auto for Rs 30.
Thucalay can be reached from Kanyakumari/Nagercoil by bus; all buses plying to Trivandrum, Kayalikaaval and Marthandam go past Thucalay.
There is a sign board showing direction to Udayagiri fort just outside the palace complex on the right side. The battle of Colachel in the year 1741 marked victory of King Marthanda Varma of Padmanabhapuram over the Dutch Admiral – De Lannoy. The vanquished De Lannoy served as chief of Travancore Army under guidance of ruler Marthanda Varma. The tomb/graves of De Lannoy and that of his family members lies inside the precincts of this fort, now upgraded from a mere fort to ranks of a bio reserve with vast expanse of rare species of woods, some birds and animals. This bio-diversity park is run by Tamil Nadu forest department. The fort is also believed to have held captive prisoners during Tippu’s times.

Picture Gallery:

As one enters the palace complex

Intricately carved wooden ceiling , a common sight in most rooms of the palace

Indra Vilas, the foreign dignitaries/guests quarters

Navarathri Mantapam, pillars of solid rock and mirror finish flooring

A Tryst with Sun, Sea and Sand

2011-10-07T10:57:00.002+05:30

Travelogue entry of Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin), Tamil Nadu, India

About Kanyakumari: Located at the southernmost tip of Indian peninsula, marking the georgraphical end of Indian Mainland, this coastal town in state of Tamil Nadu is a popular tourist destination. Located at the confluence of three major seas - Arabian sea, Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, this is the only town in India where one is bestowed with the gift of view of sunrise and sunset over sea.

The place teems with its share of tales, history left by Cheras, Cholas, Pandyas and Nayak kings, but the most important imprint, that influences the local culture till day, is that of the Venad/Travancore kingdom. The town presents a conspicuous amalgam of Malayalam and Tamil cultures, the former being more dominant. However, few agitations held during linguistic reorganisation of states in 1956 removed this town from the frame of Cochin-Travancore state and incorporated it into Tamil Nadu state.

Travel Mode and duration of Stay: Kanyakumari can be reached from Bangalore directly by a daily train. We headed to this place from Rameshwaram by CAPE-Rameshwaram express that plies thrice a week.
We left Rameshwaram on Sep 26, 2011 - 8.45 pm and reached Kanyakumari - Sep 27, 2011 - 4 am. We headed from Kanyakumari to Trivandrum at 6 am by bus on Sep 28, 2011, thus completing a two days stay.

Hotel Details: Kanyakumari is a very popular tourist destination and therefore there is no dearth of hotels. The seaside boasts of innumerable hotels though these buildings and concrete pavements constructed around have quite avariciously swallowed the beachfront.

We stayed in Hotel Maadhini - at the seaside, phone contact - 04652 246787. A non ac room for two here costs Rs 800/day and it was super neat and offered true value for money paid. The hotel has a decent restaurant, courteous staff who wake you up for a view of sunrise from the hotel's terrace. I personally enjoyed the stay in the hotel. I would safely recommend it to all and choose to stay here myself if I visited Kanyakumari again.

Places to eat: In my opinion, gone are the super yummy idlis, dosas, sambar and chutney with the inner heartland of Tamil Nadu and island of Rameshwaram. The same breakfast dishes lose quality and taste quite noticeably and fail to impress against delectable versions I have had in Madurai, Trichy, Tirunelveli and proximal regions. From past experiences, I have understood that the chances of getting delicious, pure vegetarian fare reduces exponentially as one moves close to the state of Kerala. At Kanyakumari, we ate at few places durign the course of our stay and felt Hotel Maadhini's restaurant was a decent option among them all. I am sorry I cannot prove to be of any use when it comes to reviewing on non-vegetarian food options.

Tourist's Itinerary:
Kanyakumari Amman temple: The main deity in this temple is Goddess Parvathy who manifested herself as a virgin - Kanyakumari and did penance to slay the demon, Banasura. It is believed that Lord Shiva from Suchindram wished to marry Kanyakumari but the marriage stood cancelled due to clever theatrics by Narada. The goddess, in dismay, discarded sandal, turmeric and kumkum kept aside for the wedding into the seas explaining different colors of the waters of three seas that meet here.

I was visiting Kanyakumari for the first time but I learnt from my husband who visited the town as a kid that the three different colors of the seas were clearly noticeable earlier. Also, back then, there was a sizeable beach strip in front of the temple. I saw no beach strip, there were marked pavements with benches laid out in front of the temple and water all around me shone in azure blue mixed with a verdi green.

The deity is highly beautiful and her nose ring that glistens vibrantly catches your attention as you step into the sanctum. Mobiles and digital cameras ought to be deposited at the entrance of the temple and this draws a fee of Rs 10. And yes, we get close to Kerala, therefore to the mandatory practice of guys removing their shirts and vests before entering the temple premises. The temple is open till 12 noon and opens again from 5-9 pm.

Suchindram temple: Located in the town of Suchindram, 12 km from Kanyakumari, is the temple of Thanumalayan. The presiding deity is an incarnation of the trinity of gods - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva with the name interpreted as Thanu - meaning Shiva, Mal - meaning Vishnu and Ayan meaning Brahma. The deity in the sanctum is a lingam adorned with golden metal covering that bears a face at the base(representing Brahma), then 14 curvilinear moons in a vertical arrangement (representing Shiva) and a snake hood at top (representing Vishnu).

There is a self manifested lingam too in the temple that represents the trinity of gods. This exists at the foot of a tree known as Kondrai maram in Tamil. The temple is unique for it speaks of tales of Atri, a sage and Anusuya, his devout wife, the penance the three goddesses did in this region known as Gnyanaranyam, immense sculptural wealth, the four sets of musical pillars, unique deities like Vigneshwari (female form of Lord Ganesha), 18 feet high Hanuman, very intricately sculpted gopuram (main temple tower) and navagrahas (nine planets with the sun) on the ceiling rather than on ground which we usually come across.

The temple gains its name on the pretext that Indra was cursed with an evil skin disease for his wrong doing. He broke the curse and shed the disease after immense devotion and strict penance to trinty of gods here. This temple is open from 4 am to 11.30 am and again from 5 to 8 pm.

Buses from Kanyakumari to Nagercoil (Vadassery - is the name of the central bus stand at Nagercoil) that ply at very frequent intervals stop at Suchindram, journey one-way lasts about 40 minutes and presents pleasant visuals of lily-lotuses ponds, fields marked with coconut trees, plantains and paddy arranged in a three tiered layout against the backdrop of Mahendragiri hills.

Vivekananda Rock Memorial and Tiruvalluvar Statue: After visiting Suchindram, we headed back to Kanyakumari town, to the jetty from where boats ply to Vivekananda rock memorial and memorial of Tamil poet, Thiruvalluvar.

Two rocks in the sea, about 500 metres from the mainland bear twin attractions of this town. It is stated that Vivekananada visited Kanyakumari in the year 1892, meditated deeply and sought enlightment on this rock. One can see the impression of feet on this rock, supposed to belong to Devi Kanyakumari thereby imparting the name - Shri Pada paarai to the rock, the site where it is believed the goddess herself performed penance before killing Banasura.

The Vivekananda rock memorial consists of a big meditation hall at an elevation that is reached by flights of stairs and corridors in periphery that provide an awesome view of the seas around. This grand monument of national importance, completed in 1970 was envisioned by Eknath Ranade, a disciple of Swami Vivekananda. From here, one can get a view of many windmills stretching out at a distance, in a place called Anjugramam. The shoreline in view from the rock memorial, ends at a dome like structure peeking into the sea - the Koodankulam nuclear power plant, the commencement of operations of which is under dispute. Fishermen at Koodankulam (near Tuticorin) have complained that the release of water from the plant will raise temperature of local waters by about 5'C, harm aquatic life at large and hamper their catch and their daily earnings. Environmentalists have further bolstered the cause of fishermen, expressing concern over ill effects this nuclear power plant will have on marine eco system - the coral reefs, unique aquatic species, pearl cultivation and severe, irreparable damage to human life drawing example from havoc caused by Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan post earthquake and tsunami.

No further ado, atop another rock, about 200 feet away from Vivekananda rock memorial, stands a tall statue of Tamil poet - Thiruvalluvar, an iconic figure in the state of Tamil Nadu, the author of the famous work - Thirukkural. The pedestal that bears the statue is 38 feet high indicative of 38 chapters of virtue in Thirukkural and the statue itself made of granite - stands 95 feet tall indicative of the remaining 95 chapters in the work. This memorial, inaugurated in year 2000, is a recent addition to the sky/sealine of Kanyakumari and quite awkwardly masks the serenity of Vivekananda rock memorial when seen from the western seaside. From the high pedestal here, Koodankulam nuclear reactor catches one's attention again, leaving one in deep thought of possible and inevitable dangers of man's constant messing with nature.

Sunset Point: The boat from mainland completes a tour of Vivekananda rock memorial and Thiruvalluvar statue, leaves us back at the mainland jetty for a fee of Rs 20 per person. The ferry timings are from 10 am to 4 pm. A walk along the shore crossing the temple, takes us to Gandhi mantapam, Kamaraj memorial onto a wide and clean road with well marked pavement. Along this we walk to reach a thin strip of beach and the sunset point. Here, we reach the waters of the Arabian sea and can catch a glimpse of weary sun as it sinks down the horizon leaving orange-purple streaks over azure sky.

Sunrise View: If one stays at a hotel close to seaside, then an early morning call by the staff of hotel for a view of the sunrise on waters of Bay of Bengal is sure. Many boats quite sleepily rock in the waters anchored to the shore, spires of the Lady of Ransom church tower into the sky as the orange-red plum shaped sun peeks out of it sending ripples of light far and wide.

Padmanabhapuram palace: Kanyakumari has a heavy imprint of Venad dynasty which once was centred around the capital at Padmanabhapuram under the reign of Marthanda Varma. About 37 kms away from Kanyakumari via Nagercoil, the palace, now managed by Kerala State government, is closest to Thucalay town (3km). Buses to Trivandrum, Kayalikaaval and Marthandam from Kanyakumari stop at Thucalay. An auto can be hired from Thucalay for Rs 30 to reach the palace. It is better not to rely entirely on direct buses from Kanyakumari but save time by going to Nagercoil (18 km from Kanyakumari) and then change over to reach Thucalay. The palace is a marvellous creation and calls for lucid description than a mere mention. So I decide to keep aside an exclusive post on it.

Nagercoil (Nagraj temple): After visiting the palace, we reached Nagercoil, grabbed a mini tiffin and visited Nagraj temple in the town. The Nagraj temple, initially a Jain shrine with figures of Parswanath and Jain thirthankaras (still seen on the temple pillars), was later converted into a Hindu temple with Nagraj (five hooded serpent) and Lord Ananthkrishnan as the main deities. A quick 15-minute worship completed and we headed back to Kanyakumari by bus.

Our tryst with sun, sea and sand continued on the second evening at the shores of Cape Comorin. "ENCORE", I felt !!

Picture Gallery:

Vivekananda Rock Memorial and Thiruvalluvar statue, Kanyakumari

Post sunset sky, Kanyakumari

Sunrise at Bay of Bengal, Kanyakumari

A Big Slice of Ramayana

2011-10-03T21:09:00.002+05:30

Travelogue entry of Rameshwaram and Dhanushkodi, Tamil Nadu, India

About Rameshwaram and Dhanushkodi: Rameshwaram is a town in Ramanathapuram district in Tamil Nadu, India; an island separated from the main land by Pamban Channel. Situated in Gulf of Mannar, just 50 km away from Sri Lankan main land, the town housing the famous Ramanathaswamy temple is a bustling and prominent centre of pilgrimage. Considered tantamount to Kashi/Varanasi in religious and spiritual significance, this town enshrines stories from the famous epic Ramayana in every quarter. Dhanushkodi is a town located in the southernmost tip of Rameshwaram island. Devastated completely in a 1964 cyclone, the ghost town declared unfit for living since then, projects a topography seen nowehere in South India - saline sand flats, barren without vegetation spread over distances indefinite till it meets the confluence of Mahodadi (Bay of Bengal) and Ratnakara (Indian Ocean).

Rameshwaram is closest to Madurai, a major city in Tamil Nadu, only about 150 km away. There are plenty of buses, passenger trains that commute between Madurai and Rameshwaram. Trains from Chennai ply daily to Rameshwaram via Trichy (223 km away from Rameshwaram), another major city in Tamil Nadu.

Travel mode and duration of stay: Section 1 By Mysore-Mayiladuthurai Express, departed from Bangalore (7.20 pm) to Trichy/Tiruchirapally on Sat, Sep 24, 2011. Section 2 Chennai- Rameshwaram Express - boarded at Trichy to Rameshwaram on Sun, Sep 25, 2011. Reached Rameshwaram at 11 am.

Left Rameshwaram on Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 8.45 pm to Kanyakumari by Rameshwaram Cape Express.

Hotel details: Hotel Sethu Maharaj - Ph contact – 04573 221271, close to West Tower of Ramanathaswamy temple - budget hotel with Non AC room at Rs 475 per day for two. Very basic room, proximity to temple is the highlight, not to expect any WOW factors in the hotel as Rameshwaram is primarily a pilgrimage centre.

Places to eat: Hotel Ananda Bhavan on Middle street, close to West tower of Ramanathaswamy temple - superb, south Indian vegetarian fare/breakfast comprising dosas, idli, vada and puris. We had wholesome and simple Gujarati meals at Gujarat Bhavan, few metres away from the East Tower (main entrance) of the temple. We loved the dal chaawal, roti-sabjis served there and not to forget Srikandh and Puran Poli for desserts.

Tourist's itinerary:

Ramanathaswamy temple: This temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and stands close to the sea - Agnitheertham beach. The main deity is Ramanathasway, a Shiva lingam better known as Rama lingam juxtaposed with Shri Viswanath, another Shiva lingam. Tales puport that Rama suffered from a sense of guilt after killing Ravana in Lanka and was advised by Sage Agasthiya to worship Lord Shiva at Rameshwaram to remove all sins (Brahmahati vimochana) and overcome the sense of guilt. Hanuman was sent to bring back a Shiva lingam but he got late in his journey from the Kailash mountain. Meantime, Sita made a lingam from sand and prayers were offered to this deity - Rama lingam during the proposed auspicious time. Upon Hanuman's arrival with his lingam, to avoid any dejection, it was ordained by Rama that prayers be first offered to Viswanath - the lingam/idol brought back by Hanuman.

The right procedure to enter the temple includes first a dip in Agnitheertham beach in front of the main entrance to the temple, then a bath in water from each one of the 22 wells/theerthams inside the temple complex, changing the wet clothes and then visits to the sanctum. Looking beyond the protocol part, this practice to enter the temple, quite interestingly, offers a chance to hear many tales of the 22 wells inside the temple complex and a highly refreshing dip in the sea. It is also a wonder that each well's water has a unique taste to it.

There are deities of Parvathavadhini, Perumal, Mahalakshmi, Hanuman, Ganesha, Subramanya and Sethumadhava inside the huge temple complex which has some structural jewels like the long 1000 pillared corridors and a 3-dimensional effect Nandi painting on the ceiling close to west tower. From memory, the names of theerthams/wells inside the temple complex are provided below - Mahalakshmi Theertham, Gayathri, Savitri, Saraswati, Sanku, Chakra, Gavaya, Gavacha, Gandamadhana, Sethumadhava, Surya, Chandra, Sarva, Siva, Brahmahati Vimochana Theertham, Nala, Neela, Ganga, Yamuna, Gaya and Koti theertham. Urghh!! I guess I cannot recollect the 22nd theertha's name. One can completes his/her dip in Agnitheertham (sea side) and take help from temple guides who willfully offer services of a tour inside the temple complex and pour water from 22 theerthams for a fee of Rs 150 per person.

Boating: The Tamil Nadu state tourism department arranges for a boat cruise on the Bay of Bengal sea lasting 30 minutes for Rs 40 per person in motor boats. The boats leave from a point close to Agni theertham. Listen to the boating announcement carefully (a recording played in continuum) -the Hindi segment is highly hilarious !

Rameshwaram has a slice of the epic tale - Ramayana in every corner. There are many important tourist sites and many a tale cocooned in them. These sites can be covered in an auto for hire.

1) Ganda madana Parvatham - the highest point in Rameshwaram, originally a sand dune, now a hillock with a temple bearing the impression of Rama's foot steps. It is believed that Rama looked out for Sita in the direction of Lanka from this point/hillock. Climb onto the terrace of the temple for a breathtaking view of the island - Dhanushkodi, Pamban bridge and the tranquil, blue-green Bay of Bengal. The Ramanathaswamy temple gopurams (towers) and the tall, imposing TV tower mark the azure sky line vividly.

2) Bhadrakali Amman temple - en route Dhanushkodi, favorite deity among locals.

3) Sugriva Theertham en route Gandamadhana Parvatham

4) Saakshi Hanuman temple - apparently the point where Hanuman conveyed to Rama that he saw Sita devi in Lanka.

5) Rama Theertham and Ram Sita temple- a big tank, with the temple adjacent to it. Displayed here is a limestone shoal purportedly used by army of monkeys (the Vaanar sena) to construct Ram sethu (Adam's bridge) to go from Rameshwaram to Lanka.

6) Pancha Mukha Hanuman temple - deity is a five headed Hanuman. There are many samples of the light weight limestone shoals that Nala and Neela - the chief architects used to construct the Ram Sethu that figures in Ramayana.

7) Lakshman Theertham - big tank (quite similar to Rama Theertham)

8) Sita Theertham - a medium sized tank.

9)Kodanda Rama temple, Dhanushkodi - this temple marks the point where Rama conducted the coronation ceremony of Vibheeshana, king of Lanka and brother of Ravana. The temple was completely destroyed in a cyclonic storm in1964 and was re-built in 1978. The surroundings of this temple astound a commoner wearing the look of barren, tree less, sand flats for distances that eye can see and even beyond, much like the Rann of Kutch in miniature laid in front of you.

10) Dhanushkodi, visit to Land's end and destroyed town remains - The road ahead from Kodanda Rama temple, 8 km from Rameshwaram to Dhanushkodi speaks of a forlorn town that crumbled completely to the fury of nature on a fateful night in Dec 1964. The road, all along, is flanked by highly saline, white sand flats that gleam under the mid day sun. The flat lands are mostly devoid of vegetation, barring a few thorny shrubs at places. The road ends at Mukundarayar Chattiram which has a few drinks/snacks stalls, a thin beach strip, a check post and a Mahindra van/truck stand. These Mahindra jeeps are modified to ride adeptly over the sand flats which are wet at points but largely silken and slippery. Only these modified vehicles can ply to the Land's end at Dhanushkodi, no autos or private vehicles can ply on this terrain. Passengers are packed to full capacity in these modified trucks/jeeps, photography enthusiasts prefer sitting on the top. The 1 hour 30 minutes journey reveals a landscape that can be best captured and registered by the human eye. It would be a sin to even attempt to describe the scene in words. A trip to Dhanushkodi - land's end can render one speechless and is a must in the itinerary of a person who visits Rameshwaram.

At the lands' end - a thin strip of land in the shape of a bow is flanked by timid and shallow blue green waters of the Mahodadi on one side and fierce, frothy waves of Ratnkara on the other. On the way back, the trucks stop at old Dhanushkodi town, declared unliveable post 1964 cyclone. Remains of destroyed water tank, church, post office, railway station - abandoned and sunk in deep sands against the background of roaring sea waves reiterate the most important lesson - that man cannot conquer or overpower nature. So fierce was the cyclone of 1964 that it battered the town completely, swallowed a train with its passengers causing a death toll of over 1500. Man, truly is inconspicuous before the mighty nature.

The auto that leaves one at Mukundaraya Chattiram waits till you get back from the Land's end. The trip in the modified jeep/truck costs Rs 80 per person and the auto fare for a tour of all places inclusive of waiting charges stands at Rs 400.

Pamban Sea Bridge:
The rail-road bridge pair connects the island of Rameshwaram to mainland Ramanathapuram. The section of sea begins with Mandapam station and ends with Pamban via duct/Pamban station. It is an experience of a lifetime when the train precariously chugs along the rail bridge that has no embankments. Pamban bridge, at a length of 2.3 km, is the second longest sea bridge in India, after Bandra Worli Sea Link. The rail bridge has a still functional double leaf bascule section that can open and let ships pass through and this bridge stands adjacent to the road bridge.

Footnote:
1) Rameshwaram is oppressively hot, your body burns even when you cover your head with a cap. It is advised that you always carry water.
2) Resort to tender coconut water - lot better than bottled drinks. Best means to beat the heat!
3) If you care for your complexion, carry a bottle of sunscreen without fail.
4) Rameshwaram is one (probably the only) town in Tamil Nadu that has openly and heartily embraced Hindi as a language. From auto rickshaw fellows to priests in temple, all speak fluent Hindi and put sincere efforts to make people from North India feel at home.

Picture Gallery:

View of Pamban Road Bridge from the rail bridge

View of Agnitheertham beach with Gopuram (tower) of Ramanathaswamy temple

View from Ganda Madana Parvath

En route Land's end, Dhanushkodi

At Land's end

All that remains of Dhanushkodi town

Efforts to save environment in vain

2011-09-21T21:05:00.003+05:30

Read - http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_coal-mining-centre-dumps-go-no-go-dubs-it-illegal_1589631

When the UPA central cabinet shuffled this year and the reins of Environment Ministry were transferred from pro-environment Jairam Ramesh to "obsequious with Congress top brass" Jayanthi Natarajan, I was worried that efforts made by the former to stall projects that affected environment on a large scale would get awash in a jiffy. And yes, this newspaper report makes my fears true.

When Coal India Ltd was rated the top company this year, beating the evergreen behemoth - Reliance Industries, there was an article in Times of India newspaper on how this occasion of a PSU rising to the helm in the nation's industrial and energy sector must not be celebrated with gusto. I was aghast when I read how the article endorsed the idea of privatisation in coal mining, issue of licenses to foreign, private players or better say profit gluttons, as a key to real financial success.

When the government states that there is 7% or 8% growth rate in industrial output, does it actually track this growth against loss of agricultural and forest land? If the loss of forest land, loss of innumerable hills and anti-environmental effects of such mining and industrial activities were to be accounted for, then the rate of growth would be a deep abyss in the negative section. Think of the large scale displacement of people in forest lands, from the hills in which they thrive; think of these landless souls who when denied simple right to live where they want take up arms in revolt against the government and state trained police. They fight their oppression and unleash an unreasonable terror war that causes huge death toll. Can living in social fear - fear of when a train will derail, when a crude bomb will explode, when a contingent of police will be ripped apart by Naxals in ambush, in regions like Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal appear insignificant against industrial productivity which comes as plain statistics on paper. The various pie charts and graphs may be illustrative but they hideously cover the true, rapacious secrets of industries and governments, the mercenary attitude that is hurting the aam-aadmi (commoner) deeply.

I am providing some important parts of the newspaper report below so that it may exist even after the link becomes non existent -

Less than two years after splitting coal mining zones into ‘go and no-go’ — a move that has stalled almost every big-ticket coal mining project in India — the government is scrapping the policy.

The Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), which had framed the policy guidelines along with the Ministry of Coal, on Tuesday accepted that the categorisation of ‘go and no-go’ did not have any legal sanctity. The move was expected after Jayanti Natarajan was given charge of the MoEF, replacing Jairam Ramesh, whose brainchild the policy was.

“Had this happened in any other country, the government would have been sued left, right and centre for loss in business and opportunity cost, now that there is a mea culpa,” said an analyst who tracks the resources sector with a foreign brokerage. “India has unnecessarily lost two years of crucial productivity gains and also fixed capital formation opportunities.”

An analyst call this decision of restriction for two years as a mea culpa. Is there only loss of productivity gains, can people not witness a gain if few layers of earth are not dug into and left undisturbed? Not to forget what a mea culpa it was to let illegal mining in Bellary district, Karnataka and we have answers for who pocketed the profits and who bore the ill fate of a barren, quarried territory; changes in local weather and topography, the misfortune of not even having pure drinking water and multiple occupational/health hazards that arose due to large scale illegal mining activities.

The report quotes -

According to a source present at the meeting, Natarajan said she was ready to take up projects on a case-to-case basis, and in future no project would be judged on the basis of the policy guidelines drawn by Jairam Ramesh.

The above paragraph clearly shows that all pain staking efforts that imparted a little tight conservationist approach to protection of environment are all going to be undone. The government does not have time to run the country and seeks help of Supreme Court, CAG and PAC with multiple corruption scams etched all over, so taking time to analyse case by case is a next to impossible. This individual case-by-case basis approach is not to ensure that mining "go-ahead" licenses are actually issued responsibly but only an aid to procure suitable bribes in coherence with the market capital of the company/license seeking party in question. Issues related to environment bequeathed to us can take the back seat for now, loss of profit incurred over two years due to tight policy needs to be compensated for first and speedily, this is what the government - ridden by corruption and scams aims at.

Aping is so easy

2011-09-21T12:08:00.003+05:30

I have been making entries on my blog under foodies' sphere section over last one week. The red, pulpy tomato in my kitchen served as a bridge in sudden migration of my thoughts from cooking to more serious issues. I read reports of the recent La Tomatino festival in Garden City college, Bangalore following links - - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshowpics/10016330.cms and http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-17/bangalore/30168987_1_la-tomatina-la-tomatina-tomatoes . It is said that many kilos of tomatoes were wasted in recreating the fun that people visualised in the recent Hindi movie - Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

La Tomatino is a traditional festival celebrated by people of Spain in month of August, much like we celebrate Holi with colors. Instead of colors and water, it is tomatoes and its pulp.

I put my earnest efforts to understand how people or more precisely youngsters get such brilliant ideas to make merry and have fun and frolic. The moment something is shown in a movie, even if it is a practice we do not have and cannot imagine having at any cost, we yearn to ape it instantly. Aping seems so easy and effortless.

On one hand, we take away farmer's land in name of continuous development, for every activity one can name - construction of highways, power projects, express corridors and real estate development and then there are vagaries of monsoon and climate that the farmers battle every year. Farmers are this unlucky lot who are not aided by both nature and men; yet they toil and till their land to provide us agricultural produce so that we can feed ourselves. Blame further, the inefficiency and mismanagement in the chain from the time harvest leaves farmland to storage warehouses, till it reaches the customers' hands. The middlemen, suppliers and stockists build a mafia and inflate prices artificially to unimaginably high figures. In such a scenario, neither is the end customer benefited by the skyrocketting prices for a kilo of veggies nor the farmer who despite all his labor does not even get a paltry share in the profits.

If this is the situation in India, how can one digest the idea of wasting 62000 kg of tomatoes for sake of mere fun? When the government wisely re iterates to fools who throng behind such ideas; they accuse and call it lack of modernity in attitude, lack of tolerance and acceptance of others cultures and traditions. They give a sordid defence for the heinous act of wasting such veggies saying they are only rotten tomatoes - so where's the loss? The first question that arises - how/why 62000 kg of tomatoes goes waste and rotten and this is only a fraction of the total figure from one state, so imagine the scale of wastage in a big country like ours. Can these college students who seek fun and such pricely pleasure pay some serious thought on how food loss can be averted, what can be done to improve the storage and distribution systems in our country? What appears rotten to some may help in making a decent meal for the utterly destitute. But yes, we cannot expect college students in Bangalore (who whine on news channels that the monthly provision of pocket money of Rs 1500 is not enough) to understand the plight of people who spend little over Rs 32 per day and still be not termed as poor in our country.

I am sure the immediate question will be "so..now that this blog post comes from you, what have you personally done to better the storage and distribution systems and mitigate the food crisis situation in our country? " The meek answer is NOTHING .. but I do not get such preposterous ideas in name of fun (despite watching the movie) and I ensure that food does not go waste whether I eat at home or outside.

For once, the state government has taken a wise decision by not lending support to such abominable acts. It happened once in Garden City College premises but care has been taken to avoid a bigger and grander act in Palace Grounds in the city. To appreciate the fiscal and practical details of damage that can occur from such an event, please read - http://www.deccanherald.com/content/191340/la-tomatina-gets-rotten-tomatoes.html

Through this blogpost, I sincerely request the youngsters to head back home and relish their burgers and pizza with a huge dab of tomato sauce and refrain from such disastrous acts that are totally uncalled for. We live in Bangalore and not Bunol; even in Bunol, in current times when the Horn of Africa is starving to death, this festival only denotes serious crime of food wastage and no fun. However, I am nobody to question foreign practices and festivities, let them be the way they are and let us simply be what we are - human and not apes.

Pure Serendipity

2011-09-19T22:30:00.000+05:30

I made an incredible discovery when I landed at this blog - http://cuisineindia.wordpress.com/ on cooking.

The website is a true haven for people interested in cooking vegetarian recipes.

There are a variety of recipes that suit my interests particularly - lot of dry chutney powders, vegetable curries and wet chutneys, those that provide an insight into many traditional aspects of cooking. The blog is authored by a very senior person - Prathiba Rao who has served her family's gastronomical interests for over 30 years.

By true serendipity, I landed at this blog and ever since the day of discovery, I have been itching to get back home in the evening post office work and aerobics classes, to try out some recipes from the website.

I tried two of them from the blog on the same day in a span of two hours in pretty much a parallel computing and execution mode.

I prepared Corn Usli and Flaxseed/Peanut Laddoo. Please feel free to access the complete recipes with illustrations at -

1) Corn Usli - http://cuisineindia.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/corn-usli/

2) Peanuts Flax seed Laddoos - http://cuisineindia.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/peanut-flax-seeds-laddoo/

The Corn Usli, I used inside a dosa for filling and this made a superbly yummy combination.

The Peanuts Flax seed Laddoo, I served as a prasadham for Ganesha idol at home, before his Visarjan (immersion) marking the end of Chathurthi festival.

I used onion instead of mustard in Corn Usli as mentioned in the link above. I substituted Chat masala with Aamchoor powder in the list of ingredients.

In making Flaxseed Peanuts Laddoo, I used lesser ghee (marked as optional in the recipe) than mentioned. I must say that I had to put some efforts to roll out the laddoos, they weren't as neat as seen in the source blog. My Philips mixer has got old after several years of use and I had to grind ingredients in batches.

There are the usual recipes of Dosa with Molagai Podi, Coconut Chutney, Tomato Chutney, Pudina/coriander Chutney and Sambar/Kothsu as accompaniments, then there is Masala Dosa with typical Potato masala as stuffing. I add little variations to dosa at home.

Below are pictures of Paneer Bhurji and Dosa roll using it as a filling I made during last weekend -

For Paneer Bhurji (quantity serves as stuffing for about 8-10 dosas)

You need -

250 g Paneer

1 big onion

1 ripe tomato (medium sized)

5 green chillies

Turmeric powder, chilli powder, dhania powder, aamchoor, garam masala and salt

1 tsp Cumin seeds

Lots of coriander (finely chopped)

Oil - 2 full tbsps

In a pan, add oil and wait for it to heat. Add cumin seeds, finely chopped green chillies, finely chopped onion and saute well. Add turmeric powder (1/2 tsp), 1 tsp chilli powder and 2 tsp dhania powder. Add finely chopped tomato with its juice into nicely fried onion in the pan. Mix well and add salt to taste. Saute well until the raw smell of tomato goes, the tomato and onion must shrink to make a nice mixture.

Take 250 grams of cottage cheese (paneer, I usually buy it fresh from Karthik Mithai shop on New Tippasandra Main Road) and crumble it into small pieces using your hands. I personally feel there is no need to grate paneer. Use your both hands well to crumble up the paneer block.

Mix well all the contents in pan and leave it for 3-4 minutes on less flame. Add 1 tsp of aamchoor powder and 2-3 specks of Garam Masala powder. Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves, give a final mix and turn off the stove.

The bhurji can be served with roti and a simple dal. This is a terrific combination for dinner.

To give a twist to our usual dosa fare, we can use the bhurji as a filling. Each filled dosa can be rolled over, cut into pieces and served hot with mint coriander chutney.

Eating paneer occasionally/in moderation (say at least 2-3 times a month) is good and highly essential as it is a dairy product and provides the quintessential proteins, calcium and phosphorus.

In the last one week, there has been lot of learning as far as foodie's sphere is concerned, lots of experiments in the kitchen that turned successful and many more recipes in the "to-do" list. I would like to end with a note of thanks to Prathiba Aunty for the precious information she is sharing on her blog - Indian Food Court.

Baking with Zest

2011-09-19T21:47:00.002+05:30

After procuring a long list of baking essentials from Institue of Baking and Cake Art, Bangalore, I baked an orange marmalade cake during the weekend.

(courtesy: http://vegbowl.blogspot.com/2011/05/marmalade-bundt-cake.html)

I used a 6" round cake tin for baking the above cake. The procedure I followed is as prescribed in the above link/blog post with a change in that I did not add two eggs recommended. There were no eggs at home and after finishing the routine household chores marked for the weekend, I had no drive to go out to a shop and fetch them. I am sure I missed that extra fluff the addition of eggs provide me, nevertheless the cake came out nice golden brown and well baked. Water was added to get the cake batter to right consistency in the absence of eggs. Also, I added little extra (25g additionally) butter to the cake batter.

I preheated the oven to 180'C and baked at this temperature for 35 minutes duration, a knife inserted came out clean as a check. I baked the cake post lunch around 3.30-4.30 pm and I must admit it turned out to be the perfect accompaniment for hot evening tea.

Note:

1) I used Kissan Orange Marmalade Jam to make this cake and I would like to point out that it has a strong smell of preservatives and taste of stabilising agents. This affects the taste of the cake mildly and can be noticed upon very keen taste analysis. Therefore, request readers to procure any other brand of orange marmalade jam and try out the cake.

2) Here's a link to understand what is orange zest and how to acquire it - http://www.ehow.com/video_4790427_make-orange-zest.html . This link helped me lots.

To the set of gadgets in my kitchen, I added a NOVA N62M 250 watts, six speed hand mixer with whipping blades and dough hook attachments purchased from IBCA, Bangalore for Rs 850. This electrical hand mixer reduced my effort largely when folding in ingredients to make the cake batter.

Below is the picture of a cake piece with a slice of orange on its top -

I know it is a very very poor image, taken on Nokia 3110C mobile camera. I literally pulled out the last piece of cake to take a picture before the contents on the plate vanished.

The NOVA hand mixer N62M, my small, new baking wonder gadget looks like this -

Thanks to Mallika - owner of Veg Bowl blog on cooking for lending me this wonderful and zesty Orange Marmalade Cake recipe.

Puttu with Kadala Curry - my strong favorite

2011-09-14T21:14:00.003+05:30

Preface

During each summer vacation, when I would return home from college, even before I could unpack my stuff, my mother would ask me what special dishes I would like her to prepare. With twinkling eyes and a refreshing smile, despite being worn out after a long train journey spanning more than 30 hours, I would immediately utter - Puttu and Kadala curry.

Post marriage, while cooking for my better half, the number of occasions on which I reminisce my mother's cooking has only increased. How would Amma have prepared this dish? What secret ingredient would she have added for that unparalleled magical taste? During school and college days, there just wasn't enough room to make gestures of appreciation or even acknowledgement of her efforts in the kitchen. But being an avid food lover, the constant urge in me to improvise, experiment and excel in my own kitchen and win accolades from my husband makes me recount all that she has done for me carefully over so many years.

My mother and I share recipes on phone even now. I pick up the traditional aspects of cooking from her and in turn share with her some information I acquire from the "online" world that would help her cater to my brother's taste buds. My brother belongs to an entirely different generation in that he is 11 years younger than me. So traditional dishes like paruppu urandai sambar, vazhapoo usili, vazhathandu morkozhambu, avial, keerai molagoottal, lemon rasam etc do not figure in his hit list. My mother's penchant to cook new dishes and make a delectable spread for her son made her foray into lesser known domains of North Indian food, desi-chat, Chinese (the Indianised version, of course) and even Italian; I must admit, she turns victorious in all her efforts every time.

Heading back to my favorite dish - Puttu and Kadala curry, Puttu is a dish from Kerala made of rice flour. Traditionally, it is made by steaming rice flour on a rocket-like apparatus - a pot containing water with a long cylindrical tube attached to its mouth. The cylindrical structure, containing the rice flour to be cooked, is covered with a lid bearing holes that let steam escape.

Kadala curry is the side dish for Puttu, a gravy consisting of black channa.

On Onam day - Sep 9, 2011, I made Puttu and Kadala Curry along with Palada Pradhaman payasam. The festival did not fetch a holiday from work and I had no time to prepare the complete Sadhya/feast.

It is my husband's notion that the conventional apparatus used to make Puttu creates a very tightly packed, dense and less moist version of the dish. He quite comically equates eating this version to initiating an exosmosis process in one's body. He never relished eating Puttu and so I refrained from preparing it.

However, my mother broke the myth with an apparatus that looks like Aladdin's magic lamp. This small cup shaped apparatus with a lid contains rice flour (puttu mixture to be steamed). It can be placed on top of a pressure cooker or any steam vent/source. The steam coming from the pressure cooker is used for cooking Puttu. The Aladdin lamp puttu maker consists of a small cup with a handle, a covering lid and a small, flat plate with holes placed inside, at the base of the cup.

Below is a picture that shows the apparatus at work in my kitchen -

Puttu preparation

All we need - Puttu podi, grated coconut, luke warm water with little salt added to it.

Puttu podi or rice flour used to make Puttu is available in most stores in major South Indian cities. In Bangalore, brands like - Double Horse, Nirapara and Manna are available. I prefer Nirapara puttu podi, there are two versions - white rice flour and red rice flour. The latter, prepared from unpolished red rice, is rich in vitamins and effective in reducing bad LDL cholesterol.

I usually mix equal quantities of white and red rice flour in a flat, big plate. Mean time, I heat a glass of water with 2 tsp of salt added to it till water is lukewarm. This water is carefully sprinkled over the rice flour. ensuring the flour does not get over wet and has no lumps. The puttu podi made moist with salt water is left aside for 10-15 minutes.

Place the mini plate with holes inside the cup apparatus at its bottom first. Add a layer of grated coconut on this plate. Fill the inside of the cup with puttu podi kept aside. Add another layer of grated coconut on top of the rice flour. Close the cup with the lid. Add few glasses of water to an empty pressure cooker and heat it till a prominent stream of steam comes out. The set up is now ready, place the lamp on the pressure cooker, right at the point where one would place whistle while cooking rice/dal.

Leave the set up for 10 minutes. Remove the cup from top of pressure cooker and invert the contents of the cup onto a plate or inside a hot pack. The puttu - end product, if steamed and cooked well, will fall well as a single entity without breaking upon inversion. If the puttu powder is uncooked, then it will crumble apart and break loose.

Repeat the process of filling the cup's contents and ensure that enough water exists in the pressure cooker for adequate steam generation.

The volume of Puttu this puttu maker makes in a single attempt is less, therefore this apparatus may work well for a small family. For a big family, the conventional rocket apparatus would save lots of time as the volume of Puttu it makes in an attempt is much much more. My mother procured this Puttu maker from Chennai, am not sure it is available in Bangalore.

Kadala Curry

To soak overnight (preferably 8 hrs atleast)

1 cup black channa (black chickpeas)

1/4 cup green gram whole (this helps in adding volume to the gravy)

To begin with, black channa and green grams mixture is cooked under pressure (3-4 whistles).

A pinch of turmeric, salt and little (1/4 tsp) ghee is added to channa before placing it in the pressure cooker. Ghee ensures that the black channa is soft and well-cooked, it leaves a nice aroma as well.

For Gravy

1. 4-5 red chillies (for medium spicy)

2. 3 tbsps full coriander seeds (dhaniya seeds)

3. 2 tsp fenugreek seeds (methi seeds)

4. 2 garlic pods - finely chopped (may add more if you like garlic)

5. 2 thin slices of ginger (even 1 slice would suffice, ginger leaves a prominent taste, so keep it minimal in this gravy)

6. 1 medium sized onion (cut into big chunks)

7. 1 small sized tomato (chopped into big chunks)

8. 4-5 sprigs of coriander

9. 4 full tbsps of grated coconut

Dry roast gravy ingredients 1-3 in a pan. Once the chillies change color and leave an aroma, transfer contents of pan to mixer. Now in very little oil, fry onion chunks with cut garlic and ginger until the raw smell goes. Add a pinch of turmeric and little salt while frying. Once onion is fried well, add in the tomato pieces with their juice and fry well again until the raw smell goes. Add sprigs of coriander. Transfer this into the mixer, allow to cool. Add grated coconut directly to mixer without frying. Add little water and grind well in mixer to get a smooth, well blended paste.

In the wok

All we need- 1 medium sized onion finely chopped, tamarind water, cumin seeds (jeera), oil, salt, chilli powder (if required), garam masala powder, finely chopped coriander for garnish, pressure cooked black channa and green grams, gravy in mixer.

Process

Add 3 tsp of oil first, add 1 tsp of jeera when the oil is hot. Add finely chopped onion (1-medium sized) into the wok and fry till it turns golden brown. Add salt to taste.

Transfer the cooked black channa/green gram mixture to the wok along with water that was used to boil it (While adding water, take care to ensure that the gravy does not become too watery) Give the contents a good boil.

Transfer the contents of the mixer to the wok. Stir well and check for adjustments in salt and spice.

Take a gooseberry sized ball of tamarind and makes its extract in luke warm water. Add this tamarind extract to the boiling mixture in the wok. Give the contents of the wok another boil.

Add just one pinch (2-3 specks) of garam masala powder. Garnish with finely chopped coriander and turn off the stove. Do not boil for a prolonged interval after adding tamarind extract, this increases the sourness of gravy. Likewise, do not heat excessively after adding garam masala powder, it would lead to loss of aroma/flavor.

Kadala curry is ready to be served with puttu. This gravy can also be served along side Idiyappam and Appam.

Footnote

I have no pictures to upload of the dishes prepared as they disappeared in a jiffy into hungry tummies.

My friends' mother has the receipe for a non-coconut version of kadala curry on her blog with nice pictures, am sure it will help immensely, please refer-
http://lakshmisindiancurry.blogspot.com/2010/08/kadalai-curry-black-chickpeas-curry.html
Please feel free to refer to other recipes on her blog, they are well illustrated and explained carefully that anyone can weave magic in the kitchen.

This is my first attempt in writing down a breakfast/main dish recipe. I work with hand approximations, mere estimations in head and barely use the spoon. So it is quite an ordeal to think back/recollect how much tsp/tbsp of the ingredient I actually added. And when it comes to providing illustrations, I do not stop to click pictures at important junctures while cooking. And even if I do, they are on my unimpressive Nokia 3110C mobile camera.

I sincerely appreciate the patience and efforts with which my friends' mother (http://lakshmisindiancurry.blogspot.com) and owners of many food blogs I follow, post their recipes, imparting valuable knowledge to many like me. I hope to churn out more recipes with more precise details and lively illustrations in future.

Additions to my Baking Paraphernalia

2011-09-12T15:08:00.001+05:30

On Saturday, Sep 10, 2011, I made a visit along with my husband to the Institute of Baking and Cake Art, Bangalore. I wanted to purchase a few items that will help me bake better and more. The institute is well known in Bangalore for providing excellent courses in baking for both novices and experts. Through Suma's blog - Cakes and More, I learnt that the institute sells all essential elements for baking goodies.

I am providing the link to the post on Suma's blog below - http://sumarowjee.blogspot.com/2010/05/institute-of-baking-and-cake-art.html

The institute is tucked near and behind the Richmond Road flyover, on Mission road, in the direction one would take from Richmond Circle to approach KH road/Lalbagh, in the first floor of an old building.

When I first purchased my Microwave/Convection/Grill combi oven, I grabbed an aluminium square cake tin, an aluminium brownie tray, a hand/manual egg beater (coil shaped) and a sieve from a nearby Casio supermarket on New Tippsandra road. Most shops in Bangalore are well stocked with basic supplies like baking powder, cocoa powder, vanilla essence and self raising flour. With a limited inventory to start with, I made vanilla butter sponge cake, dates and fruit cake and chocolate brownies a couple of times, over and over again. All of the above were a thorough hit with my friends at work and my relatives.

I wanted to experiment more now and mature as a baker at home. Suma's blog provides diverse baking recipes with appropriate illustrations and can bring out the budding Nigella in each one of us.

Below is the list I prepared before hitting IBCA stores. It helped me as I did not test the patience of vendors at the store, the customer who went in before me had driven them nuts by guessing indefinitely on what she wanted.

1) Round cake tin - aluminium - 6 inch
2) Round cake tin - aluminium - 8 inch
3) Bundt cake tin - aluminium
4) Muffin moulds (single * 6) made of aluminium
5) Pie mould with removable base in aluminium
6) Bread tin (with lid made of tin) - makes bread 400g
7) Chocolate chips - 100g
8) Chocolate vermicelli - 100g (I bought the chocolate brown colored ones, these are available in many other colors and flavors too)
9) Cream of Tartar - 100g (this is the minimum quantity available)
10) Wheat Gluten 100g (minimum quantity available)
11) Gloripan yeast - 100 g
12) Morde compound dark chocolate (bar)
13) Morde compound milk chocolate (bar)
14) Vanilla super essence
15) Almond essence
16) Cling wrap foil (1 box)
17) Butter paper (5pcs)

Items 16 and 17 can be procured from most shops, I added them to the above list for convenience.
The purchase of all above items listed was made for a total of Rs 1300.

To have an insight into the courses that IBCA offers to a commoner, please refer to - http://www.ibcablr.com/school.html

Baker smart is the online stores of IBCA, Bangalore - http://www.ibcablr.com/bakersmart.html

You may refer to this link to have an idea of what the stores at IBCA sells, but the listing here is not exhaustive. Lots more is on offer at the stores, it is good to visit the place in person if you stay in Bangalore.

Caramel - is the cake store/outlet of IBCA located in Shanti Nagar - http://www.ibcablr.com/cakeorder.html. One can place an order for cake at this site as per ones' requirements.

IBCA can be followed on Facebook, they have a blog - iBake and a issue a publication - Bakery World that provide vital information related to baking.

I would like to thank Suma (http://sumarowjee.blogspot.com/) heartily for providing me the right direction both in baking lessons and in procurement of baking essentials. Now, the baking mania shall begin!

Ban..Ban..Ban

2011-09-07T21:53:00.004+05:30

Just when I was sulking over a full work week starting Sep 5 after an extended, festive weekend; the blues I was battling seemed indomitable. Almost in an involuntary fashion, my hands lazily clicked on the Internet Explorer icon after I logged onto my work PC. In all merry making, during the weekend spent partly in Bangalore and in Chennai, I hadn't checked my emails or accessed Internet. GMAIL worked ... no interesting emails except for some promotional offers, online shopping discounts, credit card offers, details of phone bills etc. Sitting a little upright now in my chair, I pulled out Facebook from my set of favorites onto the explorer bar.

Access to this site is restricted during office work hours - 8.30 am to 5.30 pm - it said.

I lost my little upright posture in one slump.

I could roughly gauge the amount of bandwidth Facebook consumed in our office, am sure it is a HUGE figure. A casual walk across my floor or any floor in my office revealed the social networking site always open alongside a Linux terminal or a Visual Studio C/C++ or .pdf files of specifications. The ban on excessive social connectivity during office hours was understood, even appreciated, despite the fact that I was still battling against my Monday blues.

No !! .. I heard the exclamation from a nearby cubicle and I stood up to look at an anguished face, moneycontrol.com is not opening, ICICI direct.com is not opening. The face conveyed to me immense pain and frustration, all plans to retrieve the money spent during festival shopping through short term gains in stocks went in vain. Plans to buy at 52 weeks low and sell when Sensex gained 100-200 points were washed away. Adding further, the effect can be stated as so profound that imagine Hurricane Irene crossing seven seas to ruin monetary plans carefully laid out by my fellow colleague in Bangalore, India.

Somebody cribbed in the afternoon that espncricinfo.com is not working, but they appeared convincible given the slipshod performance of Indians against England in cricket, in all formats of the game. They said, "Anyways, India is not going to win, we can afford to wait until 6 pm or head back home and then watch how they get battered".

Completing the survey of nearby cubicles around me, listening to many concerns and cribs, with a heavy heart, I sank in my chair coming to terms with the sudden multiple ban imposed.

I got up in a flash and entered flipkart.com in my explorer bar. The website took a whale of time to open and I waited eagerly and patiently. When it opened, I was flabbergasted. It was not the Flipkart site I knew or I had always seen and admired. In basic HTML format, without options to login, buy or add to wishlist etc, the sight of the rudimentary webpage on my monitor irked me.

My post lunch routine involved surfing "books" section on Flipkart portal. I affixed a monthly quota of purchase of at most two books from the website. I have exceeded the limit many a times, so it is fair to amend the rule as at least two books per month allowance. Shattered, angered and frustrated at the lifeless version of Flipkart, I realized my blues were giving way to "red".

I was fuming and wanted to rebel against this ban. Soon popped an email from the left most bottom corner of my screen - it was from the team of network administrators and stated that the official ban on many websites was put to effect to save Internet bandwidth and cooperation of employees was sought.

Emotions were suppressed or repressed, call it whatever. It turned out to be the worst Monday at work, a Monday without Flipkart, and the ban is here to stay.

Why this clamor?

2011-08-03T10:46:00.033+05:30

It is said that in April 1942, after the failed Cripps mission, Gandhi said in his speech - "Leave India to God, and that be much, Leave Her to Anarchy". His statement urging immediate and complete withdrawal of British from India holds good in even today’s context.

The statesmen, all noble and literate who fought for Indian independence, drafted its Constitution, formulated a system of legislature, executive and judiciary and unified India despite indelible scars of partition and schism into states on largely linguistic basis, were all gone within few decades post independence.

The nation’s reins, then came in hands of a generation which only heard tales of independence or knew of it from letters sent by daddy dear in jail, and with it stealthily grew the proportions of corruption. Amendments to the nations’ Constitution were made in a whimsical manner; emergencies were declared for personal gains, for instance, to escape guilt of election rigging; communities were targeted in an orchestrated fashion with full backing of the state in name of repression of terror.

More into future, stories of independence became even sparse, many were even misconstrued. There was no trustworthy story teller anymore. The governments that ruled the nation and its people were merely lost travelers in a desert fooled very often by a mirage - the coalition or alliance governments. Currently, the detour from prescribed route of the journey for the nation has become so pronounced that this empty falsehood overwhelmingly forges itself as the reality. The all-pervasive malaise of corruption has engulfed the nation – in sports – Commonwealth Games, in business and industry – illegal mining contracts, 2 G spectrum scam, in defense deals and even in food storage and distribution, the list is endless.

The phony democracy in India, it appears, is run by the Supreme Court today and the government exists only namesake. Be it the disarmament of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh, be it the land conflicts between farmers and real estate builders in Noida, the 2G spectrum scam resting heavily at the Centre, innumerable illegal mining licenses and land de notifications by the CM in Karnataka– the court or an ombudsman comes to fight for justice and pronounce it. The government is busy shuffling cabinet berths and supplying cash for votes.

To fight this pernicious disorder of corruption that runs in our system at both central and state levels, we have a pretty interesting group of fighters who follow Gandhian ideals and undertake fast unto death as the primary step. Their efforts in getting a Lokpal bill drafted is appreciated but why they exist in a state of reverie when the government is clearly playing Hide and Seek is not clear.

There has been enough clamor on the question whether the Prime Minister of India must be brought under the ambit of Lokpal bill. Yes, he must come under the purview of the bill is an obvious answer.

For a nation that till day boasts of transport and postal systems left from colonial times, of the palatial Gothic style buildings in every major metropolis but seeks empty pride in changing Madras to Chennai, Bombay to Mumbai and further; that till today uses the police force as its right arm to curb any expression from its citizens (not to forget the state orchestrated deaths in Singur and Nandigram); that even today secretly exports the iron ore mined from its nation for personal gains exposing its own people to untold hazards (ore exported from Karwar and Marmagao ports, Karnataka which has caused disappearance of 80% of hills in Bellary region quite similar to what British east India Company did with our farm produce and cotton years back) ; that picked up this few magical words - socialist, secular, democratic etc without knowing thier essence and plays “divide and rule” much like the English did, it is not difficult to ape the royal English one more time.

Remember the Magna Carta of the year 1215, the first ever declaration of rights and liberties, formulated by barons who found atrocities inflicted by free will of their then monarch – King John of England intolerable. The highly regarded constitutional document covered the king himself in its ambit offering no special exemptions and no lengthy debate ensued thereafter. If that was in 1215 in Runnymede; to copy it by reference once more in history is not that atypical.

Weekend Baking - Fruit n Nut Cake

2011-07-24T14:24:00.005+05:30

Some time to spare in the weekend and thus comes the scope for experiments in the kitchen.

Below is the recipe I followed for Eggless Fruit n Nut cake. It worked well for me.

One needs little less than 3/4 cup of demerara sugar, 1/4 cup to prepare caramel and rest to be added to the cake flour mixture as is.

Why: Little less than 3/4 cup as we will add 1 mashed ripe long banana (that adds much needed sweetness)

What: Demerara sugar is natural brown sugar that caramelises fast. Gives the rich, brown color to our Fruit n Nut cake. Available in most provision stores in Bangalore under Eagle brand.

How: Heat little less than 1/4 cup of water in a fry pan, add 1/4 cup of demerara sugar to it, stir constantly to prepare a caramel syrup.

Now in a bowl, take 1 and 1/2 cups of All Purpose Flour - add to it 1 tsp Baking powder, 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder, 1/2 tsp dry ginger powder, 1/2 tsp shajeera powder and 1/2 tsp salt.

Sieve the contents together so that they mix thoroughly and evenly.

To this flour mixture, add 1 ripe mashed banana, 1 cup of broken cashew, walnuts, unseeded dates (cut and sliced) and dry, black raisins. All these put together must comprise 1 cup.

Add remaining sugar (little less than 1/2 cup that we are left over with) + 30 g of unsalted butter (melted in a pan) + 1 tsp vanilla essence and pour in the caramel syrup prepared, giving all contents a careful and thorough mix.

Grease the baking tin and dust it with little flour on the inside. Pour in the cake batter.

Preheat the oven to 180'C and bake the contents at 180'C for 40-45 minutes (a toothpick inserted at the end of baking must come out clean)

Once baking is over - turn the tin upside down on a flat plate, let the cake cool down.

Tap gently and remove, the cake is ready for cutting.

From across several websites, it was suggested that the tin with cake batter in it be covered with alumimium foil and then put into the oven for baking. Guess this will ensure uniform and thorough browning of the cake surface.

I baked for about 35 minutes with the foil, removed it and baked again without foil for the remaining time. I had a perfectly baked cake after 45 minutes time.

Have a happy weekend !!

Pics: Taken on Nikon 3110 C Camera

A Special Gift ...

2011-07-19T22:22:00.008+05:30

My office colleague and friend Juhi had been to her hometown - Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, a month back. She got back and gave me a special gift- a salwar suit material with Bagh print on it.

I am crazily fond of sarees and crafts work from India's heartland - the state of Madhya Pradesh. There is a special fondness I nurse for Chanderi and Maheshwari sarees. In a handlooms fair, which occurs at quite regular intervals in Bangalore, an unexplainable attractive force draws me to the outlet exhibiting Chanderi and Maheswari sarees. Their typical cotton cloth/salwar suits with vegetable dye based block prints on them in various colors offer the most comfortable and elegant wear during hot and humid Indian summers.

Thanks Juhi :) for this special gift. Below are two pictures of the Bagh print salwar kameez material she gifted me. I completely adore the bold paisley motifs on the cloth. (Paisley motifs - in the shape of a droplet are a regular pattern in Indian/Pakistani cotton cloth and even figure in mehandi designs)

The suit material is in black and olive green colors and I am terribly sorry for the poor picture quality - all that was possible from my Nokia 3110c phone, one can hardly make out the colors.
I swear to replace them soon with better pictures taken on Nikon DSC.

Stapled onto the dress material was a small note on Bagh Prints. Through this blog post, I want to share that information with one and all.

BAGH prints derive their name from the small town of Bagh in Dhar district of western Madhya Pradesh. The Bagh printers migrated from Sindh (now in Pakistan) over 1000 years ago due to unconducive environment and atrocities of rulers. Their art is deeply influenced by the Sufi Saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti Aulia.

The process of Bagh printing is painstakingly tedious process; a single piece of cloth undergoes various transformations over25-30 days before it is finally ready for sale. Only natural material is used in the process. The fabric is treated by Khara method where it is soaked in Sanchora (raw sea salt) , non refined castor oil and goat dung, dried three times in succession. After the final drying, it is dipped into a solution of Baheda or Harada powder.

The red color for painting is made using seed of tamarind mixed with alum. The black color is prepared using iron filings and jaggery left together for 15-20 days. Printing is done with wood (Kor, Saaj, Kalam, Burra) blocks on cloth spread on tables. The cloth is dried for 15 days, washed in flowing river water and boiled in water mixed with Dhavadi flowers and roots of Aal tree in a copper vessel.

Next time you wear Bagh, spare a thought for the artisan whose infinite labour of love has caressed the fabric to perfection.

Apart from handloom fairs, fabrics with Bagh prints and sarees from Madhya Pradesh are available in the permanent state government owned handlooms outlet (Madhya Pradesh State Emporium) by the name - Mrignayanee, located in Kormangala BDA complex, Bangalore.
So when are you grabbing a Bagh print salwar material for yourself ?

Adios Amigos

2011-07-16T16:18:00.012+05:30

After over half an year, I hit the cinema hall to watch "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara" ... and I am glad I had a good time. I am not going to fall short of adjectives in writing a review for this movie but I must admit that from 10 am to 12.45 noon, I laughed heartily not quite knowing how time passed by.

The movie from Excel Entertaintment banner directed by Zoya Akhtar is a visual treat - a carefully arranged virutal tour of Spain for the audience. Striking cinematography par excellence makes one look out for the name responsible - Carlos Catalan. The movie deals with a road trip through Spain heartland, of three friends, planned on the pretext of bachelor party of one of them. The friends keep up their pact made back in school days, of trying out an adventure sport of each one's choice, there is no option of backing out from it. The time they spend together makes them break free from compulsive restraints and mundane confines of their lives, makes them share their deeply cached secrets and shed their fear and inhibition. Their road trip marks an enlightening journey where they let go everything, live life without bounds, much along the lines of one of the dialouges in the movie - a man must be in confines only upon death and not before that. The theme might sound very philosophical, insufficient to let the reels run for more than 2 hours. However, the multitude of humorous moments, adept and natural performances by the cast make it an enjoyable experience.

The many strong aspects of the movie that make it a pleasure to watch are -

1) The powerful cast - a union of multifaceted actors who share the screen space with equal responsibilities and with so much comfort that they appear as true friends, friends for life. It only appears that all through, there was none to direct the lead three on what to do, what not to, to what extents etc.

2) Farhan Akthar (Imran in movie, a copywriter for advertisement agency) is simply superb. His sense of humor and impeccable timing leaves the audience in ripples of laughter. His poetic monologues sail with the movie well. His mastery in acting skills and dialouges makes him eligible for many laurels from the audience.

3) Abhay Deol (Kabir, running his family construction business) is the most natural actor that Bollywood has witnessed in recent times. It seems he was never a novice to Bollywod. Starting from his first movie - Socha Na Tha, he has a carved a niche for himself which no other actor's been able to until now, something very different from the other Deols. As always, he delivers his best, playing the role of an emotionally balanced person settling fights between the other two friends.

4) Hrithik Roshan (Arjun, a financial broker) comes alive finally. Smitten by the crying bug from K3G times, the symptoms progressed disastrously unto his movie Kites. He's definitely the most gifted actor when it comes to looks and physique and can beat Greek gods to shame/death. In this movie, he portrays a serious role to start with, eventually melts down to a fun loving person breaking free from his inner shell. He is an actor and dancer, unsurpassable truly.
5) Katrina Kaif (Laila, a sea diving instructor) is a true barbie doll, she looks fabulous and scores a perfect ten in the role crafted for her. One will definitely appreciate her acting skills in this movie, much like in Rajneeti.

6) Kalki (Natasha, Kabir's fiancee) has a small role to play but does well as a possessive and watchful girlfriend, worried over her fiancee's bachelor party proceedings.
7) The story written by Zoya and Reema Kagti does not favor anyone in the cast unduly. Each one has his/her space with such clear outline that they gel without any hiccups. There is no dominance from anyone in the cast, be it in scenes of adventure, casual conversations, dance and song sequences. Must say, it is a balance, highly difficult to strike. The moments of friendship are all natural. The portrayal is perfect and admirable, you can relate to all the conversations as if they were happening in your living room when three friends meet up. TOI mentioned - ironically, this natural portrayal of men's friendships comes from two women - Zoya and Reema Kagti. Looks like it's only men who still find women a mystery one cannot unravel, vice versa seems solvable.

8) Spain is captured in its best frames, the movie is like a Thomas Cook tour through Spain starting from Barcelona with the La Sagrada Familia church marking the skyline. There is deep sea diving and colorful aquatic life in one shot, there are deep valleys, huge reservoirs in others. There is sky diving, lush green fields below and long rolling meadows with horses galloping alongside. The Tomatino festival and running with bulls behind your back - all are captured realistically. The film could not have been shot better and for this reason deserves to be watched on the big screen.

9) The department of music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy is not impressive but flows in tandem with the movie. It grows on you because of the characters in the movie. Standalone, the tracks - Senorita, Ik Junoon (Tomatino festival song), Dil Dhadakne Do carry a "want-to-hear-again" charm in them.

There are no weaknesses so to state - after all you cannot be choosy when you are a beggar. Decent movies are a rarity nowadays and when something like ZNMD comes up, you cannot/should not complain at all. May be a few points can help while/before watching the movie -

1) Just because there are three male protagonists in the movie, comparison with the movie Dil Chahtha Hai will be a gross mistake. DCH is a masterpiece and way too different. ZNDM portrays celebration of friendship between three men but needs a different treatment from DCH. This comparison is as sinful as comparing Dil Bole Hadippa/Iqbal to Lagaan just because these movies involve cricket.

2) Treat yourself as a part of the road trip and appreciate the dialouges, humorous sequences shared by the cast, they are easy stuff that each one us can relate to. This will not be difficult for people in 25-35 age group who become increasingly inactive in friends circles with time/work and yearn secretly to celebrate special moments they shared during school/college times. If the idea is hard to settle, the movie might seem a compilation of National Geographic Expedition series showing activities like sky diving, deep sea diving and running with the bulls.

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara is a good movie, a wholesome and refreshing entertainer. TOI quoted in its review - Go and watch it - Aise film na milegi dobara. Considering the ensemble of Hindi movies released over a long time now, this is undoubtedly true - Aise film na milegi dobara !!

Out of HIBERNATION !!

2011-07-10T11:58:00.002+05:30

A brief hiatus of one month is over and I am alive, back to my blog in full vigor.

Away from e-mail, Facebook, blogosphere, summarily to say, the Internet accompanied by minimal mobile communication, my hibernation phase appears to have got over. Re iterating one of the well known dialouges in my head, from one of my Bollywood favorites - Jab we Met - I feel, I missed a train over the last month. However, such significant gaps are necessary and enjoyable in a way and I have caught my train back, finally :)

It is monsoon time in Bangalore but rains are sparse and scanty. A brief shower blessed the Bangaloreans yesterday evening. We armed ourselves with our umbrellas and set out to explore a new eatery. Personally, it appeared as if life got stuck and moved slowly in May-June 2011 - may be due to long, summer days or better said, the summer solstice effect.

The pretext of walking down avenues with tree cover (amongst the few that are left currently in Bangalore) and having sumptuous meal in an eatery offered great scope to break from the mundane set up. Over 5 years of stay in Bangalore, we have become regulars at the Konark,a vegetarian restaurant on Residency Road; Adigas, opposite Indiranagar BDA complex and small eateries on Tippsandra Main road. The advertisement on Times of India newspaper dated July7, 2011 pulled us to a new place - Sanjeevanam in Koramangala. Located on the Inner Ring Road, opposite Kendriya Sadan, close to Madiwala junction, this place offers healthy and unique vegetarian delights. The restaurant is run by makers of "Medimix soap" - the Cholayil. We visited the place at 8 pm and there were a variety of dosas, a meal combo, many soups, juices and desserts on the menu.

We binged on a roasted garlic dosa, a ragi keerai (ragi-spinach) adai, vazhapoo (banana flower) cutlets, ela adai (a dessert from Kerala), ginger coffee (that used no coffee beans) and banana-wheat pudding. The offering on the menu is completely different and highly delectable. The ginger coffee knocked out in one shot, the sinus headache and sore throat I nursed carefully for over a week. I bought some ginger coffee mix and palm candy from their stores/outlet, outside the restaurant, as a weapon against future instances of sinusitis and dry cough.

I would suggest that one visits this place to experiment with unique, healthy yet tasty vegetarian dishes. Sanjeevanam will make you believe that when a dish becomes healthy, it actually does not miss out its taste quotient. I picked up a few cues for culinary experimentation from the menu in Sanjeevanam. The meal above cost us Rs 387 inclusive of all taxes. So that sufficiently explains the fiscal outcome of the visit.

Sanjeevanam cannot be made as regular an affair like visits to Shanti Sagar for a singleton in Bangalore but it offers a great and genuinely different experience, a well deserved break from boredom/routine stuff. Much like the Bournville chocolate, a visit to Sanjeevanam points out - "you need to EARN IT" :)

Hands free

2011-04-29T11:31:00.001+05:30

A little thought hit my head on observations I made over many many days.

The sight of many solitary souls walking down lanes – empty lanes with canopy of tress sending a hiss through light breeze and busy streets teeming with people; brimming with vehicles - struck my head with a whiff. These troglodytes whispered mushy secrets with a cheeky giggle, walked and muttered things, gesticulated with hands and elaborated the most incomprehensible things, blew their tops off with furious reactions and nasty words. Upon taking a closer look, a pair of slender, black cords dangled from the ears and it dawned, they were hands free on their mobile phones.

Who said size zero is trendy these days? At least in phones, it is definitely not. Scenes from Bangalore roads make me conclude, people, by large, buy phones of considerable thickness that snugly fit between their cheeks and helmet’s inner lining. May be they carry their helmet to the mobile phones vendor for all practical checks. The phone sneaks out mysteriously like an extended appendage from the helmet of the driver of a two-wheeler. Again, when in a car or an auto, the phone should be, preferably, of considerable thickness to be supported between cheek and shoulder blade, not sleek that it slithers away from the neck.

People prefer to look like aliens, adorning a blue flashlight Bluetooth headset. Gone are times when grandparents were shy and reticent to wear hearing aids that shone explicitly, lest their grandchildren should make fun of them. Now, wearing these devices, like extended antennae from ears was in vogue though the purposes are clearly different. Who has the time to sort out the purpose or intent? As long as some gadget appears in the ear, the person is regarded a busy bee, supremely prominent and indispensable. It is cool! Come on; shrug your shoulders to add a little exaggerated effect to the statement!

The latest trend, catching up like a wild fever, is to cover one’s face entirely while talking. Bigger than the palm of your hand, this device does a great job defending your face, say from the sun or other social animals, or may be from a shoegate if you were a victim of smear campaign. These are the pads and the tabs –

I-pads and Galaxy tab. Sometimes, these come with a flap like cover, the flap covers your head a bit when you answer a call, serves as a wonderful sunscreen. Come on folks, throw away your "Fair and Handsome" and "Fair and Lovely" creams into trash can!

The above post may have a tint of jeer. Put those mobile phones to rest for a while when driving, eating and performing some essential daily duties even when you have the privilege of being hands free. It sure keeps accidents at bay.

Bocuse d'Or - I

2011-04-24T18:20:00.002+05:30

A long weekend and at home in Bangalore, thanks to Good Friday! I came across on TV, a cooking competition/reality show -Top Chef hosted by Padma Lakshmi. From the show, I learnt of a biannual international event - called Bocuse d'Or, based at Lyon, France - considered an equivalent of olympics in culinary skills/art. Though I barely knew the names of recipes and ingredients that appeared in the Top Chef show, I watched it with interest as the format of the show reminded me of my once favorite cooking show on TV - Master Chef India.

I decided to name this post on my blog, related to cooking with this new found word - Bocuse d'Or.
I follow a couple of blogs on cooking ardently and enjoy cooking thoroughly. I added to my kitchen paraphernalia, a Microwave-Convection-Grill combi oven - Samsung CE 104 VD-B this February. In immediate aftermath of the purchase, I carefully investigated the usage of all modes in the oven with a variety of recipes -
Microwave - Veg Pulao
Microwave + Convection - Veg Pizza
Convection - Choco Walnut Brownie (I used the ready mix available in stores from the brand - Fun Foods)
Grill - Pudina Baby Corn
Micorwave + Grill - Tandoori Stuffed Aloo

This long weekend was a joyous one due to heavy, incessant rain. In fact, Bangalore recorded its heaviest rainfall in the month of April this weekend for the first time in 40 years. With rain comes the unquestionable right to binge on some deep fried short eats with hot tea to wash it comfortably down the food pipe.
I made corn vada and pressed them between toasted bread slices, placed few onion rings and gave a dash of Maggi Hot and Sweet Tomato Chilli Sauce to complete the dish.

Thanks to Tamalapaku - a blog on cooking from which I picked up the recipe of Corn Vada.

You may access the recipe of corn vada at - http://tamalapaku.blogspot.com/2010/03/corn-vada-makai-vada-mokkajonna-vada.html

Along with hot tea, I now wished to have some fluffy, baked stuff. The aroma of baking in home would sure complement the smell of fresh earth drenched in rain outside.
So I went out to make a simple, basic baking dish - Butter Sponge Cake and I referred to Suma's blog - Cakes and More for this. I revere her completely for her expertise in baking.
Here's the link to the recipe - http://sumarowjee.blogspot.com/2010/10/butter-sponge.html
The only modification to the above recipe - I reduced the number of egg yolks to 4 (from 6 mentioned on the source blog). The number 6 for egg yolks seemed a bit too boggling for me to handle.

And here's how my cake looked, yummy it was along with hot tea.

Thanks to Harini and Jaya - the authors of Tamalapaku for the corn vada recipe. I have tried the Bread Uthappam and Black Urad dal idli too from their blog. I loved the former a lot and in case of latter, I would still rate our normal idli (not using whole black urad dal) taste wise unparalleled.
Thanks to Suma for the recipe "Butter Sponge Cake" , I have a long way to go in baking lessons and hope to acheive it with her blog :)

Some Ugly moments spoil the Sport

2011-04-06T16:05:00.006+05:30

Mar 18, 2007 was a day when cricket as a sport took an ugly turn. Pakistan’s elimination from ICC World Cup 2007 after a humiliating defeat at the hands of greenhorn like Ireland, sent shock ripples across the world.

More flabbergasting was the end, the coach of the Pakistan team, Bob Woolmer met, in just a few hours after the calamitous defeat. The whole world sniped at the unfortunate turn of events, the murder in Pegasus Hotel, Jamaica gave a morbid and cold start to the most important and prestigious event in cricket calendar.

Investigations by a jury, vindications, insufficient evidence to draw conclusion if death of Woolmer was due to criminal act or natural causes marred the professionalism, dignity and camaraderie expected in any sport. I barely followed 2007 ICC WC and virtually lost interest in the sport after this episode.

There were times when my comatose state was awakened – 2007 ICC World T20 cup, Monkey gate scandal of Border Gavaskar trophy 2008, IPL, the Ashes, India topping ICC test rankings, Suraj Randiv-Sehwag’s no ball gate. The multitude of verbal spat between Greg Chappell and Saurav Ganguly, Greg's public, acrimonious remarks on the overall conduct of Indian team increased my doubts if there were any positive attributes left in the way the game was played or managed.

It is difficult, however, to stay away from cricket for long, call it a part of Indian inherited trait or upbringing in a household where people are die hard cricket fans. With dauntless Dhoni leading team India from the front, his astonishing aplomb in dealing with cricket affairs both on and off field and a sensible, grounded and sincere coach in Gary Kirsten, interest revived and became profound as days passed with the pinnacle hitting at 2011 ICC world cup.

Many reasons made 2011 WC special from the start – it was happening in the Indian sub continent and no part of the world can parallel the cricket frenzy here. Sachin had to bag the gift which had long been eluding him. He served the nation against all odds for over two decades, a world cup victory was the only delectable garnish to his palate of zillion individual records. Dhoni definitely weaved magic in all formats of the game and taught all and sundry the importance of being careful with words, being diplomatic, shrewd, clever, composed and most importantly fearless – come what may. And yes, I was only 8 months old when India last lifted the world cup.

We are basking in the glory we earned the hard way for team India’s efforts culminated in the picture perfect victory on April 2nd 2011. India rode majestically as a team, unified in overcoming many a hurdle from league matched to the likes of Aussies, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans. The semi final against Pakistan in Mohali on 30/03/2011 was one such hurdle. Gautam Gambhir’s loose comments on a social networking site that India’s win in semis was for all 26/11 victims made no sense. Such a shoddy, insensitive remark was completely uncalled for and Afridi’s response calling Indians "not large hearted" gave the familiar ugly tinge to the game again. Gambhir has nobody to blame but himself – not just for missing his century by a wisp on the grand finale as quoted by Dhoni in the presentation ceremony but also for his insensible remark on mixing politics with sports. Common man in India would be glad to see this vigor and ire in ministers who lead the nation, to get clear answers for 26/11. They readily shun it all and invited their counterparts from across the borders for diplomatic talks over a cricket match. May be nations’ leaders started it all and Gambhir only followed suit.

Gambhir does not need to look too far to learn his lessons – he has responsible fellows like Dhoni, Tendulkar to look up to, even better - Virat Kohli who stumped the whole nation with his single sentence remark on what Sachin means to India. For now, all I ask for is, there be not too many ugly moments that spoil the fun and agility that this sport brings to its fans. Hope the nation does not wake up to another round of verbal brawls of the Ganguly-Greg Chappell likes through Gambhir-Warne (if Warne were to become the Indian coach as per speculations dated April 6, 2011)

Play of Anomalies

2011-03-31T14:48:00.003+05:30

Many would have said, “We don’t care about the finals. Just win this game” for the WC 2011 Semi Finals between archrivals – India and Pakistan, hosted at Mohali, PCA Stadium on Mar 30, 2011.

While news channels quizzed if the ever increasing frenzy was due to decades old Indo-Pak jingoism, while various diplomats and ministers with their hefty group of delegates met after a brief cold war, terming the match an excuse for diplomatic cross border relations, for the common man in both the nations, this game was larger the life, most critical than most of their daily duties. The streaks of patriotism were so heavily rampant that no "Aman ki Asha" initiative would work.

For an average Indian, there were many questions –

1) Will India maintain its unbeaten record of being triumphant over Pakistan in all WC encounters?

2) Will Sachin hit his 100th century today?

3) Will Dhoni include Ashwin in attack?

Many more questions occurred as the game progressed –

1) Why did Dhoni include Nehra when he was so costly in previous WC 2011 matches?

2) What did he find so interesting in the pitch that he included three seamers in the bowling attack?

3) Why did he keep Ashwin away when he had done well and when everyone endorsed his selection?

4) How much butter did Pakistanis consume for breakfast to let go Sachin so easily and so many times?

5) What magic wand did Sachin wield to keep alive at the crease for so long?

6) Will Indian pace attack weave the same magic that Wahab Riaz managed to through his 5-wicket toll?

7) How Pakistan manages to bring in the best pace attack possible, every time despite its ace bowlers – Asif and Mohmd.Amer denied their berths in the team?

8) Why Raina was not brought up in the order for his unruffled batting prowess displayed on many occasions and was brought in at position 8 for fire fighting?

9) Why, despite many fielding lessons, did Yuvraj hit the stumps with his hand and not with the ball, thus giving a lease of life to Umar Akmal?

10) Why Pakistan team did not use their batting power play much earlier when Afridi and Misbah were at crease?

/////////////*********************************************///////////////

India’s victory was truly special, a memorable one it will remain for every soul in the country. It was a show of power and responsibility by Team Blue – be it Sehwag’s cold blooded massacre of Umar Gul’s overs, Sachin’s consistent efforts to remain at crease and work wonders, Raina’s unquestionable composure at very testing moments, unprecedented discipline in bowling from Nehra, Yuvraj’s contribution with the ball, Bhajji’s witty tricks on his home turf, only a single digit extras in an innings that carries unfathomable pressure, the yorkers, leg cutters and off cutters from the pacemen of the team. Every moment was full of tension, fervent prayers and anxiety. There were many anomalies observed from the captains of both sides. At the day’s end, the net cost of the comedy of errors; how and for whom luck outplayed anomalies mattered. Mar 30, 2011 is a special day for India, another day where luck worked to support stupendous efforts and did not give a hoot to petty manual follies.

Where colors speak ...

2011-03-20T09:58:00.009+05:30

Back to my blog for a brief post after a long time... Happy HOLI to all!!
Can there be a better day/occasion than Holi (the festival of colors) to write/talk about colors?

Work has got hectic these days. We broke from our insipid routine at Bangalore, nailed down a weekend and made a trip to Coorg and Bylakuppe. Come April/May, the mad rush on account of summer vacations in most tourist sites in India, further bolstered our fervor to complete the visit in month of March itself.

That's a brief prologue leading to my post on Bylakuppe's Buddhist Golden temple, adorned with colors. From here on, let the colors convey it all to you -

Please feel free to access - https://picasaweb.google.com/divya553/Byelkuppe#
I have some problems uploading pictures onto my blog - my blog just refuses to listen to me after a significantly long inert period.

Some Footnotes:

Date of visit: Mar 13, 2010

Place/Location: Bylakuppe Namdroling Monastery, 7-8 km from Kushalanagar town. Kushalnagar is about 220 km away from Bangalore and falls in Mysore district.

Reached by: KSRTC buses ply at very good frequency from Madikeri/Bangalore/Mysore to Kushalanagar. An auto hired for Rs 40 (one-way) assures a safe drop at the golden temple.

More about Bylakuppe: A Tibetan refugee settlement established in the year 1961, consisting of many camps under the names - Dickyi Larsoe and Lugsung Sampduling. The mini, self-sufficient town houses monasteries in tandem with the Nyingma tradition. The temples/monasteries here are considered the second seat of the head monk - His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, whose main stay is the Palyul Monastery in Tibet.

Refresh yourselves:Kushalanagar is a fairly big town, has hotels for stay. Athithi restaurant, near the town bus stand provides good food.

Activities: The monks here form a tightly knit and coy community. Therefore, it is important to contain one's excitement, maintain silence and follow prescribed rules on display boards. One requires about 2 hours to visit the place at leisure.
When we reached at 12.45 pm on Sunday- Mar 13, we attended a prayer meeting. We witnessed a huge congregation of monks, they were performing rituals and chanting hymns, the prayer began before we entered the venue and lasted till we left - 2.45 pm.
When prayers are offered, tourists have to wait at the outer doorway and catch of glimpse of the interiors from there, strict entry restrictions are followed. Their prayer sessions are highly involved, complex with eerie noises made by a chief monk, these noises seemed more like inhalation and exhalation exercises. Dances were performed by men in colorful attire and masks; white clothes were swayed slowly by a monk between these dancing men; huge temple bells were rung and traditional musical instruments - drums and tremendously long pipes were played at regular intervals.

Tagline: The colorful monasteries, encompassed by green lawns, living quarters of monks, hospitals and educational institutions, in this mini town of Bylekuppe, present a different and unique cultural and religious landscape, seen nowhere else in South India.

Sometimes, we just care less ...

2010-12-08T12:17:00.012+05:30

Today was one of those many special days when traffic control went awrily wrong. After boarding a BMTC (state transport) bus at 8.35 am, I reached my office, 11 km away, at 10.15 am. There were bee lines of two and four wheelers, buses packed with school children, office people, all and sundry - stuck on a patch of road, for what seemed like eternity.

In a span of 5 minutes, I would have seen about 100-150 cars of varied sizes, moving at snail's pace on the opposite lane, their windows veneered with sun-protective film, neatly and completely raised. Most of these vehicles had a solitary person at the wheel. The driver, swaddled in the inner air-conditioned sphere of his/her vehicle, wore a big frown on face. Broadly summing up, this was the sight. Only empty Tata Indica taxis formed an exception as cab drivers do not have the privilege to drive with AC on unless requested by customers.

The scene left a sense of revulsion in me. It was only 8.30 am and the city in question is Bangalore, widely known in India for its pleasant climate round the year. The date is 08 Dec 2010 and December mornings are little cold. I had only one question, out of sheer antipathy - "Why are these people using AC at this hour in the morning, at this time of the year and in this city?" The post does not bud from a single day's observation; records from memory signify it as a trend, seen under the most pleasant timings of the day and weather conditions.

I have invited the wrath of many while attempting to discuss the right/wrong aspects of such behavior. There were three major, highly preposterous reasons in defence of such an act and they are listed below -

1) If the windows are left open, it would spoil a person's hair do/make up. Given one spares time to comb his/her hair before alighting or entering the office premises, has a mirror in the car and dashboard that can house some basic cosmetics, this did not seem a serious excuse, barring the case when a person needs to attend a social function, he/she has to be prim and proper.

2) There is so much pollution outside. When this is cited as the reason, I get stunned at the brazen effrontery. The pollution, definitely, will not cause death due to asphyxiation/suffocation. In an attempt to shield oneself from pollution outside by turning on the AC, a person is only adding a noteworthy amount of heat to the immediate and external precincts of the vehicle. This heat component only becomes a huge overdose with each one of the hundred vehicles aping the same action. This excuse can only be dismissed as a display of pure and uberous selfishness.

3) It is a question of affordability. I have the money and luxury to buy a vehicle, turn on the AC 24*7 and drive. Not to bother my vehicle will offer me lesser mileage with AC turned on. This act distinguishes me from the lower middle class/poor class. "If I can afford luxury, why should I refrain from it?" With this excuse, comes a smile of contempt hinting at how I must get ahead in life and soon ape him/her.

I am not entirely and blatantly against the use of air conditioners and I am not imposing sweeping bans. Most of us sit in office in air conditioned premises for a greater part of the day. If we visited a restaurant/mall/theatre/supermarket, there again, we spend appreciable time in air conditioned interiors. Using airconditioner in cars, more than affordability, poses a vital question of avoidability whenever possible. For instance, the windows of a vehicle must be raised, AC/blower turned on when it rains lest water should enter the vehicle. There may be many such simple cases where excuses are necessary and valid.

____________________________________________________________________

However, the bottomline is - live and let live. It is not just about your luxury and convenience in the inner limits of the vehicle every time. It is about many who are standing in the vicinity of your vehicle and its exhaust. In toto, it is about the summation of such small avoidable actions which can help heal the ongoing damage to this world. It is about the regurgitations that, not we, but our future generations, your children and my children will have to face for our loose definition of luxury.

The question always is - How does my action alone help? I will be the only fool, lowering my windows, inhaling plenty of smoke and soot, I gain nothing out of it. Just try out once, make it a habit, others will follow suit definitely, some time or the other. At least, you can rest assured that you have done the simplest thing from your side to preserve this earth as is for your children and grand children.

The next time you look at the sky and wonder - "By golly, why this sudden change in climate here, this place has never been like this?" do not forget to ponder what you can do to minimise the extent of surprise. You and I alone cannot stop the damage but may be with our sensible, timely and quintessential actions, we can mitigate the catastrophic effects or postpone the day of judgement.

Before turning an year old, our children will know atleast two alphabets of English language, without our assistance - A C. The requirement is to draw the line between what is essential and what is pompous, define it in a way that benefits you and more importantly, your neighbours. It is our duty to pass the lesson of judicous use to future generations and refrain from providing avenues to splurge just because one can afford.

All said and done, it may be cool to shrug one's shoulders and throw a carefully trained accent but if all this leaves a cooler planet to stay on in the future is the most intriguing question.

Quiz time again !!

2010-11-16T12:59:00.005+05:30

Prologue: A dry spell loomed in the arena of television quiz shows after the end of Sports Ka Superstar, a sports quiz show on DD. This show specially crafted to enthuse audience before Delhi CWG 2010 kindled abundant interest in me on topics related to sports trivia and I enjoyed every episode thoroughly.

KBC season 4 cast away this dry spell and renewed my television interests. The new season of KBC has Big B - Amitabh Bachchan donning the role of a host. It commenced on Oct 11, 2010 - Big B's 68th birthday. The show is aired on Sony TV, every Mon-Thurs from 9-10pm.

There are minor changes to the format -

1) 50-50 lifeline does not exist anymore. There's an expert advise lifeline instead.

2) A double dip lifeline (4th one) comes into existence when a participant crosses Rs 3,20,000 mark. The contestant is bound to play if he/she chooses to use this lifeline and cannot quit. This lifeline allows a contestant to answer twice to a question.

3) The number of questions has fallen to 12 from earlier 15.

4) An additional jackpot question for Rs 5 crores appears when one has won 1 crore.

5) Questions 1-6 (Rs 5000 - Rs 1,60,000) are timed. The time limit is 30 sec for questions 1 and 2, 45 sec for others. The timer stops when a lifeline (audience poll, phone a friend, ask the expert) is used. Questions 7-13 do not have any associated timeline.

6) The show has a new logo that bears the new rupee symbol.

The creative head/director remains the same for this season - Mr.Siddartha Basu. I am sure every Indian student will attribute a share of his/her interest in quiz/trivia to this great guy. Amitabh Bachchan, unquestionably, is the biggest strength of this show. His immense and unparalleled fan following, his poignant personality, his powerful diction in crisp, baritone voice, his affable manners, his decent and enjoyable sense of humor remain the erstwhile ingredients for making the show a huge success. The show has revived my quiescent interests in quizzing, driven me to buy a copy of the first official edition of KBC Quiz Book. This post is a brief note on the book and its contents.

The book and its overview:

Donning a brilliant blue cover, published by Rupa and Co, priced at Rs 95 per copy, Kaun Banega Crorepati - The Official Book, edited and compiled by quizmaster Siddartha Basu, on stands, in the Reliance Timeout Store, Cunningham Road, Bangalore, attracted my attention. The book begins with a Foreword written by Big B, he quotes two lines penned by his father, reiterates the spirit of human nature and endorses the fact that there are many questions each one of us face and no question is small - Koi bhi sawaal chotta nahin hota. The preface section by the quizmaster hands out a token of thanks to all who have contributed to the questions set. He writes to stress the popularity of the TV show given that it formed the baseline of the Oscar winning movie - Slumdog Millionaire, conceived from the novel - Q&A by Vikaas Swarup.

The book has 100 questions in Fastest Finger First section, 120 each in Rs 5000 section Rs.10,000 section, 100 questions in Rs 20,000 section, 90 in Rs 40,000 section, 80 questions each in Rs 80,000, Rs 1,60,000, Rs 3,20,000 and Rs 6,40,000 sections, 45 questions in Rs 12,50,000 section, 40 questions each in Rs 25,00,000 and Rs 50,00,000 sections and a set of 15 questions in the final, big, Rs 1 Crore section. The questions in different sections procuring increasing money rewards are of increasing complexity. Answers to all questions are provided in the book for reference. The book facilitates its readers to play the game - KBC with its questions as options like audience poll and 50:50 find suggestions/stats in the end of the book.

My Review:

I would'nt say that this official book of KBC will help one in getting to the hot seat, the writers of this book too do not lay the claim. Also, it is not the exhaustive compilation of trivia and quiz questions. If you expect the complexity of questions in this book to be in tandem with Siddartha Basu's Mastermind TV quiz show, then you will be terribly let down.

Upon reading through its contents, I suggest, this book is apt for anyone interested in KBC and in quizzing - it is a fun exercise. I loved it thoroughly. The book is a good read during travel/lone time and even at home when with a group of like minded friends/children/elders.

The book, definitely, offers many things for us to learn and remember and the question set compiled in here is no cakewalk. After all, koi bhi sawaal chotta nahin hota - no question is small.

Pune's CadB, now in B'lore

2010-11-15T10:18:00.012+05:30

How would you like a Friday evening stroll down Brigade Road, a sumptuous meal at one of its many food joints and end it with a drink of thick, dusky chocolate shake. Perfect ten!!

This blog post is about the serendipitous discovery of one of the most delectable drinks I have ever had. Friday brings immense respite to me; the fervor with which I wait for it has only surged with time. A stroll down Brigade road and MG road on a Friday without hurry and worry of next day’s chores, watching people unwind from their sphere of flit and flutter, refreshes one immensely. Brightly lit shops doing brisk business, multiple eateries teeming with young crowd, cars and bikes honking to get into Rex Theatre for a night show of the latest release, all this and much more, in this part of the city, pumps a new lease of energy into lackadaisical souls weary from the week's toil. Viswa and I had a meek dinner at Stars and Stripes, a small restaurant, opposite Eva Mall, on Brigade Road last Friday. After the meal, we needed something to rejuvenate our sweet tooth.

A few feet away from this restaurant, after Kanti sweets shop, diagonally opposite to Eva Mall (Brigade Road) and directly opposite to St.Joseph’s college of commerce, existed our new find - the CadB outlet. The shop had alluring pictures of chocolate shakes and everything super-yummily chocolicious. These pictures provided a warm promise of a sweet surprise in store for us.

The menu card bore names like CadB - a thick brown chocolate shake and CadM - a thick white chocolate shake, the major highlights in the outlet. Their exotic variants were walnut topped CadB, Coconut blended CadM, Hazelnut CadB (Ferrero Rocher), Roasted almond CadB, Dry Fruit CadB, all available in both medium and large quantities. The shopkeeper politely explained that these thick, creamy shakes offered a unique taste.

We ordered a CadB (medium) priced at Rs 50. Topped with crushed, rich chocolate flakes, this dark brown beauty enticed us thoroughly with its divine but sinful taste. The shopkeeper was true to his word and the drink was truly one of its kind. In just one attempt, the dark temptation seemed irresistible. We ordered a CadB Hazelnut (medium) priced at Rs 80. An opulent offering of finely ground hazelnuts atop grated chocolate, floating on thick, dark chocolate potion provided a magical experience that enriched our taste buds.

From our conversation with the shopkeeper, we inferred that CadB is a highly popular chain in Pune with 20-30 outlets meeting demands of many who queued up to relish its yummilicious offerings. CadB’s sole outlet in Bangalore is on Brigade Road, the one we visited and is about four months old. The menu also lists 30 flavors of thick shakes and mastanis (thick shakes with lavish topping of ice cream) – mango, butterscotch, roasted almond, custard apple to name a few. There are chocolate sandwich and cheese-corn sandwich for people who to intend to take a quick bite along with a drink. Strategically located opposite a college, the outlet already has its share of loyal customers and is beginning to get popular amongst others.

From my first experience at CadB, I would award it a neat 100. The residents of Pune are definitely gifted to have indulged in CadB for longer than us in Bangalore. While I have earmarked a Friday, about 2-3 months from now, to pamper myself with another CadB, I only wish time flies fast (the way it normally does) to expedite another sinful indulgence.

A plunge into a tall glass filled with thick, creamy chocolate is sheer BLISS !!!

Note -
Contact details of CadB outlet –
Shop #1, St.Patrick’s Complex, Opposite St.Joseph’s Commerce College,
Kanti Sweets lane, Brigade Road, Bangalore
11 am to 11 pm (open on all days)
Ph: 8147543894, 8088810816

Kollywood’s gift to Isaac Asimov

2010-11-08T14:11:00.004+05:30

After witnessing an extraordinary hype for over a month since its release, exorbitantly, yet sustainably high prices of tickets, reading innumerable articles on Rajni, the Superstar and soaking up the essence that he undoubtedly has a Midas touch, I watched Enthiran, the super blockbuster Tamil movie, during Diwali 2010. I got my turn for this interesting rendezvous with Kollywood’s work on science fiction, on Nov 6, 2010.

I put my share of Rajni frenzy under control for a month and waited for the price of the ticket to fall from the range of Rs 1000/Rs 500 to a meek Rs 70. I am still aghast at multiplexes in Bangalore screening the movie for no less than Rs 200 per ticket, for even the earliest show of the day. That, in short, suggests the kind of boffo this movie is, at the box office.

Date: Nov 6, 2010
Time/Show: 6 pm
Venue/Theatre: Single screen, Cauvery Theatre, Sankey Road, Bangalore
Ticket Price: Rs 70 per ticket

The film opens with Dr.Vaseegaran (Rajinikanth), a robotics scientist, researching and creating an andro-humanoid robot out of ten years of dogged diligence. His robot, his look alike, christened as Chitti, functions at a speed of 1 Terra hertz, has humungous memory, possesses ability to understand multiple languages, cook dishes from world cuisine, perform different martial arts, dance to classical, rock, jazz and techno tunes and grasp details from a dozen books in a single scan – be it medical literature or telephone directory records. Chitti performs all tasks as instructed by its master, Dr.Vaseegaran, blissfully devoid of emotions and any reasoning derived from them. The inability to comprehend human emotions and apply those drives Chitti and its creator to face varied problems. Chitti’s rejection by Professor Bora, played by Danny Denzongpa, in a conference held at research centre, drives Dr.Vasee convincingly into a compulsive urge to make his robot emote and take decisions based on emotional reasoning.

It is a treat to watch Danny don the role of a villain after a long span. When Vasee proudly announces to Professor Bora that Chitti can now emote, infer human emotions and is not merely a dumb machine that executes orders blindly, Bora laughs sheepishly and cites unfathomable problems are just about to begin.

Sana, Dr. Vasee’s long time girl friend, played by Aishwarya Rai, is cordial with Chitti right from the start and completely awestruck by his abilities. With human emotions newly activated in the robot and a hormone like mechanism topping its original neural schema, the closeness between the two lets love blossom in Chitti for Sana. All hell breaks loose. There is so much pandemonium that Vasee is forced to destroy his most cherished creation.

However, like a phoenix, from the garbage, with Professor Bora’s help, Chitti rises, with bouts of negative qualities injected via a red chip. A new stylish look is imparted to Chitti, the terminator, with insurmountable abilities to destroy and devastate. Intense love for Sana still lingers, forcing Chitti to abduct her from her wedding and confine her in quarters, run and managed by robot clones like itself. The remaining story is on how this mayhem leads to incalculable damage to life and property. Anyone/anything coming in way of Chitti’s love for Sana is ravaged completely without the slightest hesitation, not even Prof.Bora is spared.

The climax is stupendous as man takes up the extremely difficult and nearly impossible task of terminating the machines awfully gone wrong, he had created. It is a heap of special effects perfectly crafted and executed that leaves the audience spellbound and in complete acceptance of the fact that Enthiran is better than likes of English movies like I, Robot.

Good prevails over evil always; the red chip is ejected from Chitti, thanks to Dr. Vasee’s efforts. Chitti, the robot Vasee created and held close to his heart, becomes adorable again. It dismantles itself completely upon instructions issued by the court of law. Vasee and Sana marry. Chitti is lodged in the Robotics museum, available for millions to view and is hailed as a man-made marvel even 20 years later.

The film is 100% special because Rajinikanth stars in it. For audience who has seen Rajni in negative shade years back, in movies like Avargal and Apoorva Raagangal, Chitti with a red-chip in this movie is a gentle reminder that Superstar a.k.a Thalaiva is indomitable even as a villain. Like all Rajni movies, Enthiran too ends with a message – human beings across the world are infested with many red chips with negative emotions like anger, jealousy, lust etc. Robots are only machines and can be dismantled with ease, but how to handle human beings ?

Enthiran has true strengths apart from Rajni, the Superstar. The story is interesting, a concept each one of us can relate to. We are living in an era where scientific spirit tends to overdominate, man is trying to create life; artificially tweak and interfere excessively with many natural phenomena. The movie clearly points out the stark reality behind all these human excesses – complete devastation.

Special effects in the climax are stunning, thanks to posse of technicians from the West who helped Tamil film industry scale such heights. AR Rahman’s music is catchy only in two songs in my opinion – Kilimanjaro and Irumbiley. Even here, the brilliance is largely because of beautiful locales like Machu Pichu, Peru and excellent choreography. Aishwarya Rai is a beautiful lass, comes out pretty in all costumes and grooves well to all tunes.

There is a hero about whom I have not yet uttered a word, more appropriately, the true hero. It is the movie’s director – Shankar who dared to dream so big and ensured that his dream thrives in minds of millions, world over. His zeal to experiment and provide a genuinely refreshing movie to the audience, deserves unlimited accolades. I am sure, Isaac Asimov, the renowed sci-fi writer will be content with this small Indian gift from the kitty of Sun Pictures.

Happy Diwali !!

2010-11-05T22:38:00.005+05:30

Diwali 2010 was truly different for me in that Viswa and I were in Bangalore. Diwali 2007-9 were spent in Chennai in company of our parents. Bursting crackers and digging into sweets and great food were the major activities then.

This Diwali, we purchased an assembled PC/desktop for our home on Nov 5, 2010. Both Viswa and I needed a desktop to surf Internet, edit documents, download and upload stuff. We both detest gaming to a great and equal extent. Therefore, we came up with a no-frills/minimalistic configuration and completed the deal for Rs 16,600

Details of PC configuration are as below -
Processor - Intel Pentium Dual core E5500 (2.8 GHz clock, 800 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2 Cache)
Mother board and chip set - Intel G31 express chipset with Gigabyte Mother board (Taiwanese make - GIGABYTE G31M-ES2L) that supports DDR2 memory. The motherboard has 4 USB ports at back and 4 on the front panel.
Memory (RAM) - Transcend 1 Gb DDR2 memory at 800 MHz
Hard disk - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 (7200 rpm SATA hard disk drive) 500 GB capacity
SMPS - Mron (450W)
Cabinet - Zebronics basic cabinet (similar to model - Raunak)
Keyboard and Mouse - wired keyboard and mouse package from Microsoft (Microsoft wired keyboard and mouse 500 series)
Monitor - DELL 18.5" TFT

Purchase details are as below -
Date: Nov 5, 2010
Place/Shop details: IT Gain Computers, #1, AM Lane, SP Road, Bangalore - 560 002. Ph 080-42108651
(SP Road in Bangalore is fanous for multiple shops trading in electronic goods, computers and accessories, mobiles etc. The market is similar to Richie street, Chennai)

***************************************************************************

As for other activities during Diwali, we watched Endhiran movie in Cauvery Theatre, Sankey Road, Bangalore. We happily devoured samosas with sweet/sour tamarind chutney, sheera (a sweet dish made of chiroti rava), paneer bhurji, cucumber raitha, vegetable pulav, potato smileys, rava dosa with coconut chutney that I made at home. We had a brief, namesake session bursting crackers - 4 boxes of sparklers and 2 lar crackers at night and lit some diyas to decorate our house. It was a very quiet and simple Diwali.

CWG 2010 – First a trickle, then a drizzle and then a TORRENT

2010-10-15T12:00:00.004+05:30

The title of this post is inspired by a line in an article that featured on the The Calcutta Telegraph newspaper. This one-liner was used to describe the crescendo effect in India’s medal triumph in the 19th edition of the Commonwealth Games held at Delhi. With an event of such international importance happening in India and sportspersons from all fields striving hard to prove their mettle in their home ground, I could not refrain from capturing special moments these laudable achievers offered us. Many a times, our national flag was hoisted before the medals podium. Many a times, our national anthem was played before an awestruck audience and proud winners.

I list down, in this post, all gold medals that our Indian sportspersons won in the 19th edition of Commonwealth Games, Delhi starting Oct 3-14, 2010. The shower of gold began on us on the 5th of October. On this day, we won 5 gold medals from shooting and wrestling.

Shooting

1)10 m Air Rifle Men pair event - Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang - win the first gold medal in CWG 2010 for India.

2)25m Pistol pair event- Rahi Sarnobat, Anisa Sayyed

Wrestling

3)Greco Roman style 96 kg men - Anil Kumar

4)Greco Roman style 74 kg men – Sanjay Kumar

5)Greco Roman style 60 kg men – Ravinder Singh

The quest for gold proceeded in full vigor with sportspersons from weightlifting arena joining in.

Shooting

6)10m Air Rifle Men (individual) - Gagan Narang

7) 25m pistol women (individual) - Anisa Sayid

8) 50m pistol men (individual) - Omkar Singh

Weightlifting

9) 58 kg category Women - Renu Bala Chanu

Wrestling

10) Greco Roman style 55 kg men - Rajendra Kumar

11) Greco Roman style 69 kg men - Ravi Kumar

Wrestling, Weightlifting and Shooting emerged the strong areas for India.

Shooting

12) Pairs 25 m Rapid Fire Pistol Shooting Men - Vijay Kumar and Gurpreet Singh

13) 10m Air Pistol Pairs Men - Omkar Singh and Gurpreet Singh

Wrestling

14) Freestyle Women 55kg - Geeta

The archers joined chorus with fellow Indian comrades. Women clinched gold in wrestling and ensured a near clean sweep; much like men did in Greco Roman style wrestling.

Archery

15) Women team recurve - Dola Banerjee, Dipika Kumari and Bombayala Devi

Shooting

16) Men's 50m Rifle three Positions (Pairs) - Gagan Narang and Imran Hassan

17) Men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol - Vijay Kumar

18) 10m air pistol event Men (individual) - Omkar Singh

Wrestling

19) 59Kg Women Freestyle Wrestling - Alka Tomar

20) 67Kg Women Freestyle Wrestling - Anitha

The shower of gold medals continued unabated for the nation. However, it was localized over the rain bearing areas of shooting, archery, wrestling and weightlifting.

Shooting

21) 25m Centre fire Pistol (Pairs) – Vijay Kumar and Harpreet Singh

22) 50m men's rifle 3 (individual) event – Gagan Narang

Wrestling

23) 60kg Freestyle Men - Yogeshwar Dutt

24) 74kg Freestyle Men - Narsingh Pancham Yadav

Archery

25) Women Individual Recurve - Dipika Kumari

Tennis figured in the list of sports that won India gold on Oct 10, 2010. The day offered a pot pourri of golds.

26) Men's 25m Centre fire Pistol – Harpreet Singh

27) Archery Recurve Men Individual – Rahul Banerjee

28) 66kg Men Freestyle wrestling – Sushil Kumar

29) Tennis Men Single – Somdev Dev Varman

On 11, Oct 2010, India added only one gold medal to its kitty. However, the day witnessed a remarkable feat. Gold, Silver and Bronze in women's discus throw were all won by Indians. The podium shone brightly with these valorous women and nation's flag flew higher like never before.

30) Discus Throw Women – Krishna Punia

Athletics was for long deemed a drought prone arena, since 1958 Cardiff Games where Milkha Singh proved his prowess by winning a gold in 400 yards track event. On Oct 12, 2010, the shower of medals that brought merry to the nation turned into a heavy torrent bringing unprecedented joyous and proud moments. The long term drought was over.

31) Women Pairs 10m Air Pistol - Heena Sidhu and Annu Raj Singh

32) 4*400 women's relay event athletics - A.C. Ashwini, Manjeet Kaur, Mandeep Kaur and Sini Jose

Neatly completing an act of tribute to their coach - Gurbaksh Singh Sandhu, the Indian boxers won three gold medals. And the Indians went ping pong in merry, winning gold in Table Tennis for the first time.

33) Men's 62 kg light-welterweight boxing event - Manoj Kumar

34) Men's Boxing Flyweight (52 kg) event - Suranjoy Mayengbam Singh

35) Men's Super Heavyweight (Over 91kg) Boxing event - Paramjeet Samota

36) Table Tennis men's doubles - Achanta Sharat Kamal and Subhojit Saha

Dreams of a second place in the overall ranking in CWG 2010 and total medals over one hundred were turned into reality by Indian badminton players and the country's national game, hockey, earning a silver.

37) Badminton women's doubles event - Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa

38) Badminton women's singles event - Saina Nehwal

The above list looks flabbergasting for a nation highly undervalued in multi sports events, even by its own people. With such achievements, Indian sportspersons had every reason to party with huge gusto and we, Indians, loved getting drenched in this torrent.

THRIVE …

2010-10-09T16:23:00.005+05:30

Prologue:

Back in 2006, I wrote a short story for a Flash Fiction competition in my office.

The contest imposed a word limit and insisted that the piece of fiction start with the sentence -- On a dark and foggy night, a small figure lay huddled on the railway tracks leading to the Bangalore station.

Now, I post below, the entry, I wrote for the contest. It got a special mention then.

Article: (I chose to name it Thrive .. and that's the title for this blog post as well)

Thrive ...

On a dark and foggy night, a small figure lay huddled on the railway tracks leading to the Bangalore station. I drew close by; a girl lay there, it seemed I knew her since my birth – had to be so as she resembled me in every way. Astounded by the similarities, I stood there, holding her in my arms, feeling an eerie sense of weightlessness.

I was left staring at her pale eyes, face marked with wrinkles. She was weary of deep thought, helplessness and fear of failure. Her intensely morose look held me in silence and she softly uttered – “Life holds no meaning to me, no more. I have failed to accomplish what I wanted to!” Her voice revealed strong pessimism, lack of drive to make her dreams come true, haste, pandemonium and much more. She was choked – choked out of peer pressure, her accountability to her family, a burden of satisfying everyone around her which she took on her out of her own volition.

Just as she hung her head in shame and frustration, not willing to talk more about her pitiable state for which she took sole responsibility, I took my turn to speak . In a solemn tone, I tried to make her understand that a person derives the energy of fulfilling his/her ambitions out of sheer self-faith, being selfish about one’s own interests to a sensible extent that peers, parents and their thoughts cannot intrude that private space.

Hitting it harder than ever, I said, “Thrive , FIRST for your self , then think of others around you!!”. We talked, one at a time and I silently, inferred !!!

She had lots of dreams, profound interest in many diverse subjects, in academic and arts and was capable of excelling in all fields. However, her intention to keep everyone happy with her choices weighed upon her extensively and thrust her into a hollow circle of failure. She had gone off the tangent into the circular trap and there was no getting back. Unable to overcome the inertia of her negative thoughts, her helplessness only increased and my words imparted no change in her.

At this moment, I let her go and climbed on to an elevation off the track. I turned back and saw her run over by a train, more aptly, a behemoth of pessimism and fear, squashing her dreams even before they came into existence in this material world.

A loud screech and a sudden halt woke me up , the train arrived at Bangalore Cantontment station. I got down with just one thought in my mind “Thrive , FIRST for yourself , nurture your dreams boldly and give them a form , don't give them up in fear of others petty opinions!”

My Name is GUL and I am not a terrorist!

2010-10-09T16:16:00.007+05:30

My Name is GUL, Gulmohar and I am not a terrorist.

I am a tree, one of the many, scalded and bleached by irresponsible and ignominious human activities. Bridges, buildings, flyovers, foot over bridges, road-widening projects, name a commercial activity and people axe us to death mercilessly. There is an unanswered question that keeps ringing in my mind – “Why do people slay us when we provide them shade from scorching sun, cleanse the air that they breathe, decorate their avenues with an orange red hue in full bloom and nurture life of many forms like insects, squirrels, birds and even their young ones in nests?” Practically, photosynthetically and aesthetically, we resolve to stand by humans, enduring bouts of negative emotions from them.

We share a common family name – Gulmohar, Laal is my first name. Our relatives in Canada and America are known as Royal Poinciana. Some in Taiwan and New Zealand are known as Flame of Forest. Scientists who studied us long back gave us an incomprehensible Latin name – Delonix Regia. They state, we hail from an island named Madagascar and are best suited to live in tropical and sub-tropical climates.

In India, we are grown as a street tree, also found in botanical gardens and big parks .Very few mansions shelter us within the limits of their compound wall. People admire us for our fern like foliage, the many leaflets that are vivacious in the morning and fold up lazily in the evening. They adore our red-orange flower canopy. They run around our thick, rounded barks, children merrily and adults shyly and romantically. Some manage to climb on us and play funny pranks on others. Squirrels, crows, million insects thrive in the labyrinth of our branches. Bees hover busily and hungrily over flowery cups of nectar.

I was born and brought up on 100 ft road, Indiranagar, Bangalore. My parents are no more. Last month, they gave way for a new cosmetics outlet and retail showroom. They were axed to death in my presence. For once, I felt I should have a voice like humans do, then I would have shouted aloud for help. I wished fervently that I could move my branches like human limbs, then I would have stopped the atrocities on my parents right when the first crack fell on my mom’s bark. All I did was sway violently in the chill breeze that evening, unable to wreak vengeance on my foes.

We, Gulmohars, are naturalized trees and I have a dozen half brothers and half sisters, tens of cousins, in and around Indiranagar, some in Koramangala too.
My parents always cherished their young days. They reminisced kind gestures made by people who took immense care of them. They basked in abundant sunlight, drank sweet water from the table below, derived indispensable nutrients from the soil that smelt fresh. The air was laced with sweet smell of their comrades – laburnum and champa. They were cherubic with dense, verdi green foliage and bright vermillion flowers.

In the last decade, their health condition deteriorated drastically and so did the attitude of common man towards us. The water turned saline and their xylem vessels, like mine, were choked with salt deposits much like atherosclerosis in humans with high cholesterol. They had breathing difficulties as their leaves were coated with dust, soot, sulphur and high concentration of air pollutants. Their leaves turned from green to an insipid grey color. The velvety texture of their leaves was replaced by a puckered appearance, much like the wrinkles on an octogenarian’s face. Their flowers wilted faster, they lacked the bright and lustrous shades. They grew bald even during spring with only empty branches spreading out in an eerie agony. Much to their despair, they saw all these signs of ageing in my siblings and me at a much younger age.

How could people turn a blind eye to such obvious signs of destruction? Does their education not impart basic knowledge of environment and its timid balance? They did not give a hoot to my parents’ calls for help and change. Instead, they massacred us in large numbers as if we were traitors, outlaws and terrorists.

In a mad rat race towards development, man lays down concrete roads, widens them, digs and mines to reach an abyss, builds glass and aluminium panel buildings, stifles the soils with artificial fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides.. an endless list of harmful chemicals, chokes it even further with plastic bags and garbage, emits plumes of heavy, stifling smoke through his various activities. Man no longer wants the chill breeze and lower temperatures that trees provide, they have artificial air conditioning systems. Man no longer wants our fruits, they want to genetically engineer them to their requirements and tweak our very identity. Man no longer wants rain to fill the water table, he no longer wants us to stop floods for him or bind the soil in its place. Man no longer wants balance in the biosphere; he want to be an omnipotent and ruthless power despite being blessed with super brain faculties.
Man no longer wants peace and he decapitates us like terrorists?

CWG 2010 Opening Ceremony: Glitz and Glory

2010-10-04T14:39:00.009+05:30

On 3rd October 2010, the whole nation, starry eyed, awaited the opening ceremony of the 19th edition of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium. Shadowed by only negative attributes in the last month, the games and the nation bore the brunt of endless scams; embezzlement of public money; shoddy, unfinished and delayed work; innumerable reminders of unlivable conditions in the athlete’s village, collapsing foot over bridge and false ceilings, caving in roads; slaughter by heavy rain and inundation. It seemed that the nation had to gear for more embarrassment with the commencement of the games.

However, yesterday, thousands of people from Delhi and outside buried the hatchet and came to laud the glitz and glory showcased by a nation that possesses prolific culture. A long, boring conversation between Charu Sharma and his colleague, the anchors for the show on DD; long commercial breaks made the audience impatient in many homes. The channel Doordarshan, the official broadcaster of the Delhi CWG 2010, provides LIVE High Definition content of the games to all its viewers.

The opening ceremony began with huge posse of percussionists from all over India marching to the forefront, playing bold music. The central dais was huge and had a small kid, Keshava from Pondichery at the tabla. He was oblivious of the many eyes watching him as he played the tabla. He shook his small hair curls and locks, his face wore a constant smile, as he enjoyed every musical moment in true maestro Zakhir Hussain style, the crowd went into a crescendo of applause.

A presentation on the various forms of classical dance in India was the next grand event – groups of Bharatanatyam, Mohiniaattam, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Odissi and Kathak dancers performed to classical tunes, first singly and then in unison. Next was the turn of thousands of children, neatly forming a pattern of hands folded in welcome – the Swagatham symbol against the backdrop of a song rendered by renowned singer Hariharan. The children swiftly changed their hanging robes and created the tricolor. Shrouded under a huge white cloth, they used altha (red dye) and created an image of mehandi on palm in no time. At this point, the audience roared in cheer and amazement and it was clear that India was doing every essential act to recover its lost pride.

The central showstopper in yesterday’s opening ceremony was the 70 crores rupees worth aerostat held aloft, above the central dais. Huge in perimeter, with many reflector panels in its base, it created magical lighting and stunning visual effects. Events happening far below on the floor of the stadium were displayed vividly on the aerostat's screen. Hogging all the limelight, this helium balloon added the quintessential element of BIG scale grandeur to the ceremony, making it a sheer visual treat to millions.

There were speeches by heads of India and the British Empire – our Prime Minister, Mr.Manmohan Singh addressed the gathering, he appeared sober and preoccupied. The head of OC – Mr. Suresh Kalmadi was next in turn and welcomed by incessant booing from the crowd. Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales declared the games open, reading out Queen Elizabeth II's message. To my surprise, the President of India – Ms. Prathiba Patil possessed more energy and fervor than anyone did in the stadium, she announced boldly – “Let the games begin”.

The contingents from 71 nations across the world marched in pride and cheer waving to the audience. The previous games host, Australia, led the parade followed by other nations in alphabetical order, with India, the current host, marching in the end. As the various contingents marched, the name and the national flag of their country appeared vibrantly on the aerostat. The Indian contingent was led by Olympic Gold medalist, Abhinav Bindra who also delivered the oath of the games in a composed manner and with clear diction. The Queen’s baton relay continued in the stadium passing from hands of one Indian sports icon to other - Vijendra Singh, bronze medalist in Boxing, Beijing Olympics 2008, Mary Kom, 5 times world champion in women’s boxing, Samaresh Jung, nicknamed the "Golden Finger" for his medal kitty in 2006 CWG and Sushil Kumar, a bronze medalist in wrestling in Beijing Olympics, 2008. The Commonwealth Games flag was hoisted with impeccable military honor.

The cultural extravaganza continued in full throttle in front of the athletes’ teams assembled in the floor of the stadium. There was a pompous display of rich culture and diversity in India by the Indian Railways. A temporary, but beautifully crafted rail engine wriggled into the stadium to the tune of Chaiyya Chaiyya song, with its many coaches displaying varied elements of a common man’s life in Indian states. There were dabbawaalas from Mumbai, bangle stores, sweets and condiments shops, cycle repair shops, porters walking and folk dancers from all parts of the country dancing to lively music. The celebration was huge and it was like a Kumbha Mela/fair.

Highly talented artists crafted art, using sand, on a screen and depicted the Dandi march – salt Satyagraha movement led by the father of our nation. The brilliant piece of work was thrown open to full view on the aerostat. Prince Charles and Princess Camilla were caught staring at the sand art in rapt attention. Towards the end of this creation, a Gandhi like figure, in rich illumination of laser beams arose from the central stage. There was an astounding display of the various Aasanas in Yoga by school children. This event ended with a human figure in a yoga posture with dazzling laser beams and rich lighting effects emerging from the central dais. The delegates from various nations wore a completely look, a look of ratification that when it comes to richness of culture, color, life and vivacity, India is Incredible, and is undoubtedly, unbeatably the BEST.

The maestro AR Rahman arrived in the last segment of the ceremony along with an elaborate and ornate array of fireworks springing up from every corner of the stadium. He rendered the CWG 2010 theme song accompanied by synchronized gyrations from a group of dancers. The folk dance artists were still on the floor performing their classy steps to his tune. More power packed than his theme song, was his rendition of Jai Ho song that sent the stadium into reeling applause, cheer and uproar. Jai ho truly works out magic – be it the Oscar awards podium or the Delhi Jawaharlal Nehru stadium. To mark the end, Rahman sang loudly – Jiyo, Utho, Badho, Jeetho; bolstering further, the message – Come out and Play!

Label Guide

2010-10-03T12:58:00.007+05:30

Hello All,

Hitting over a half century in my blog, I found navigation to my older posts clumsy. I decided to use labels to enable classification and easier access to my earlier posts. This post is a guide that briefly describes the labels I have used and their intent. I intend to update this post as I add more posts and use more labels. I hope this label based classification will provide a broad idea of what Furore Scribendi has to offer to its readers.

1) Bangalore Magic - I currently reside in Bangalore and this label points to all articles about Bangalore, my life here, info+entertaintment here.

2) CWG 2010 - All articles pertaining to the Commonwealth Games held at Delhi from Oct 3-14, 2010.

3) Intro - This is the first post I wrote on my blog.

4) Music and Movie review - I am music and movie buff, love Hindi film music lots. An equal fan of Tamil classics, old movie songs and Carnatic music, look out in this space for some reviews of films and music.

5) My fav articles - this section consists of some articles written/posted by eminent journalists/persons who have inspired my thoughts. I have put up these articles for my personal/future reference and I can vouch that these will offer a good read.

6) On a serious note - This is exclusively MY SECTION where I have penned down my thoughts and opinions. These are mostly issues of national importance, though some generic and international issues may also surface.

7) Quizzing - I like quizzing and look at it as a very productive and involving hobby. Please refer to this section for some Q & A.

8) Travel - I am fond of traveling and so is my husband. Together, we have visited many places, predominantly in the state of Karnataka, more precisely, in South India. This section consists of some travelogue entries.

9) Short stories - This section consists of some short stories/fiction.

10) Help - Look for any help or general blog related information here.

11) Book Review - A brief review of some books I have read. Not a voracious reader, still grab a book when I get time.
12)Foodies' Sphere - A new label added on July 10, 2011 to accomadate posts related to cooking/eating , everything related to food.
13) Sporty Affair - My observations and related deductions on sports and sport related activities appear under this heading.

A Verdict with so much Brouhaha

2010-10-01T18:26:00.009+05:30

I decided to write down my thoughts after heavy contemplation on this topic. Yes, this post is on the verdict delivered on Sep 30, 2010, by Allahabad High Court in the 60 year old Ayodhya title suit. There was immense brouhaha surrounding the verdict, release dates of movies were altered, schools, colleges, shops, bazaars and IT companies were closed as a precautionary measure, petitions were filed to postpone announcement of verdict fearing dire consequences.

Here, I am not going to discuss the correctness of the verdict. I do not possess the required qualifications for it. And at most times, it is better not to mouth one's thoughts and opinions openly.

Primarily, there are three things that worried me in the immediate aftermath of the verdict and I list them below -

1. The way the media scavenged for news on Sep 30 and Oct 1, 2010

Gone are those days of my childhood, when I listened to 30 min news daily, watched The World this Week news by Prannoy Roy on Fridays on Doordarshan channel. This dose of news supplemented with "The Hindu" kept me well informed. The news channels of today host only debates and arguments. The actual news comes as meta data running in the lowermost section of the TV screen. The remaning portion of the screen is spilced into 4/6/8 sections with each bearing a face and an argumentative voice.

On Sep 30, 2010, from 3 pm, the Allahabad High Court was made a no access zone. Media persons roamed in its limits diligently, waiting for the smallest iota of news to leak from the courtroom. It was a race on who will grab the iota first, a race, more organised and planned than the races in our forthcoming CWG.

People who watched the movie "Peepli [LIVE]" saw like events happen in reality, on TV. Instead of Nathadas' hut (the protagonist in the movie), the venue for this posse of mediapersons was the courtroom.

Post verdict, talk shows continued endlessly till Oct 1 dawn. I realised that senior journalists on TV news channels remained in the same attire and grew doubtful if they attended to their natures' call in this melee. Such HUNGER for news .. INDIGESTIBLE !!

2. Hope this verdict does not justify acts of vandalism and destruction.
The Babri Masjid remained a site of worship for Muslims from time of its erection by/under Mughal ruler Babar to 1949. In 1880s period, Hindus and Muslims worshipped here alongside in peace. This could have continued. But on Dec 22, 1949, idols of Ram Lalla were placed under the central dome of the mosque and a case of trespassing was filed in 1950. In 1985, the site was opened by Rajiv Gandhi's government to Hindu worship. And we all know what happened on Dec 6, 1992 - the mosque, a prominent symbol of religious faith for Muslims was trampled upon, brought down to debris in no time.

The verdict issued by the three judge HC bench states that the place where the idols were kept in 1949, belongs to the Hindus. Nobody dared to question the legality behind placing the idols at that place. It is now ratified that the area below the central dome is the birth place of Lord Rama. We do not have eye witness accounts to substantiate this claim but the outcome is - the idols will not be removed from their position and the area rightfully belongs to Hindus. The land at the disputed site will be shared 2: 1 between Hindus and Muslims. If Bhagawan Sri Ram Virajman himself is a litigant in this case, a minor, represented by Mr.Nandan Agarwal, then a lesser mortal like me cannot make further comments on this verdict.

I only hope history does not repeat itself. Atleast, from now on, let no group erect idols of some god in the altar of a church or below the dome of a mosque, later demolish/vandalize it, then 50-60 years later, claim that the place where the idols were erected, is actually, the birth place of the God they revere, and therefore rightfully belongs to them only.

My fear is not unnatural because we all know, India is primarily, a Hindu nation. It was with the arrival of Dutch and Portugese missionaries that Christianity arrived on this soil. These fierce missionaries destroyed many temples and erected churches on top of them. One can visit Old Goa to understand this. With the arrival of Mughals in North India, Islam permeated to a vast extent. Many mosques and tombs stand on early temple sites. If today's common man in India wants to rewrite history and lay his claim on a past bygone, it will be wasteful and inharmonious, heinous and irrational.

3. Are we still a Sovereign, Socilaist, Secular, Democratic Republic ?
Yes, we are a Republic, but stripped of all other adjectives. Democracy is in doldrums in parts of India flooded with curfew. There is no right to education;shops and hospitals are shut down for months. Instead of rubber bullets, tear gas shells and water cannons, it is real bullets that tear through many chests.

I have grave doubts on socialist component after viewing the pictures of food grains rotting in the open in Haryana and Punjab. It is this rotten stock, fed upon by dogs and rodents that was distributed to flood victims in Uttarakhand last month. A nation that spends 74000 crores to build and renovate stadiums is unwilling to spend even less than half this amount to build warehouses and godowns to ensure proper storage and distribution of food.

Sovereign, a partial yes, the state and its police force are sovereign, supreme and independent but the people, it governs, live as its subordinates.

The SECULAR aspect ceases to exist following the verdict. A certain party's leaders were happy that the verdict divides and provides lands for everybody - Hindus and Muslims, they say it is all encompassing, promotes peace and ushers a new era. On news channels, they sought the cooperation of their Muslim brothers for the construction of a temple in the area demarcated lto them legally. When these leaders were asked if they will cooperate with their Muslim brothers and help build their mosque, there was no straight answer. Tongues twisted, faces changed, words were minced, the person who threw the question was reprimanded for short sightedness and irrelevance and heavily ridiculed. Everything happened barring a terse "YES, definitely we will help" !
The clarity with which help and cooperation were sought in building a temple disappeared gawkily when the question of paying back came.

Does this mean that we all have to endorse and bolster one religion? How are we a secular republic?

Before the verdict was announced, many said India has moved on, India has come a long way. It is not the India of 1992. There is more tolerance and amity in the air now.

They all should be reminded that Mayawati complained of inadequate security in her state, washed her hands off any responsibility; a neat disclaimer even before the verdict was announced. A fellow citizen filed a petition for postponement of verdict to a date after the Commonwealth Games lest we should have riots and add that last, unforgivable element of embarrassment. Nobody on roads were willing to risk their lives. Irrespective of age, caste, sex, religion, profession and class, we all, shut the doors and nestled ourselves in safe premises, promptly before 3 pm on 30th Sept.

Tolerance, trust and a sense of security is built in a nation with meaningful symbiotic relations; with help, respect, love and cooperation flowing in all ways. If one party begins to extract it all and refuses to payback or even commit on a possible act at a later time, then that's a phony symbiotic relation, more aptly, a parasitic one in which destruction is inevitable.

A satirical account from a novice

2010-09-22T10:51:00.007+05:30

Preface

Years of serious news, news of bouts of corruption, a zillion scams, grim news of deaths in Kashmir valley, deaths due to Naxal attacks, 26/11, 9/11, post 9/11, deaths in Iraq, suicide bombings, overt and covert terror attacks, false encounters, rape and murder, dowry harrassment, sodomy, honor killings, a never ending saga of dirty politics, market/sensex dynamics, global climate change meets, BT brinjal - raise an eyebrow, twitch a muscle or two, rack our nerves, send a shiver down our spines.

The lesser mortal has got complacent to an egregious display of such news items on many television channels. For long, our elders taught us to refrain from heated arguments, they avoided debates with best efforts. Now, the TV encourages us to engage in raging debates and pointless arguments. One day, the media blows a matter hot and we fume, the next day it blows it cold and our reactions mellow down.

A refreshing change from all of the above, comes in the form of a website - http://www.fakingnews.com/
A serendipitous discovery, I must admit, this website gave me hours of laughter. The website handles current, hot topics of national interest, largely and makes a satire on them. These satirical accounts provide a meek, completely harmless pleasure. I have been following this website for over a month and am its huge fan. So when Arnab Goswami, Barkha Dutt get boring, when Karan Thappar gets irritating (he is born that way and meant to be so) and when Rajdeep Sardesai blasts his vocal chords, turn to these fake news for sheer fun :)
When your quota of satire for a day is met, get back to meet the real world.

Some of the good reads from this website are provided below, I am sure you will have a good time LOL and ROFL.

And yes, the website inspired me to try my hand at satire. I picked up a current topic - Obama's visit to India in Nov, 2010, his constant urge to awaken Americans to supersede Indians and Chinese, to build my satirical account.

Some good reads on fakingnews.com

1) http://www.fakingnews.com/2010/08/pcb-mulls-over-legalizing-match-fixing-to-offer-it-as-service/

2) http://www.fakingnews.com/2010/08/rahul-gandhi-to-throw-shoes-at-cms-to-show-solidarity-with-the-common-man/

3) http://www.fakingnews.com/2010/07/police-hunts-rahul-gandhi-lookalike-eating-food-at-dalit-homes/

4) http://www.fakingnews.com/2010/08/happily-married-frog-couple-to-be-divorced-for-commonwealth-games/

5) http://www.fakingnews.com/2010/06/pakistan-divided-over-what-symbol-to-choose-for-its-own-rupee/

My Account (read below)

Obama’s secret agenda for visit to India revealed
We all know that Obama is highly paranoid about the pace at which India and China are catching up with the USA in all fields. Last week, Obama woke up American school students from an eternal hibernation and asked them to race faster than their counterparts in Bangalore and Beijing. But reporters at Fakingnews.com have progressed an extra mile. Tying up with Wikileaks, the special correspondents of the website have uncovered the ulterior objective of Obama’s trip to India in November.

It is not the Civil Nuclear Bill, it is not about Warren Anderson, it is about means of demolishing Indian schools and demotivating Indian children, particularly Bangalore kids, from studying well. Secret sources from the White House indicate that Obama is planning to table a 456 agreement with India, given that the 123 agreement is drafted and passed.

This agreement seeks India’s complete and unconditional cooperation in performing the tasks below –
1) Curbing the mid day free meal scheme at schools with immediate effect
2) No free primary education
3) Allow 100% reservations in all professional educational institutions
4) No more new IIM s and IIT s
5) Destruction of esteemed schools in Indian urban centers with special focus on Bangalore. Obama plans to deploy well-trained American forces with decades of war experience in Iraq and Afghanistan for this cause.
6) Provision of a free Nintendo Wii plus other hi-fi gaming gadgets to every Indian student in an attempt to ruin focus on studies. Free distribution till stocks last and students from class 10 and 12 will be given first preference.
7) Guaranteed chance to every student to show case their talent on America’s Got Talent show, encourage full time participation in other US reality shows, thus prodding the students to bunk schools.

Undercover agents reveal that the above is only a rudimentary draft and Obama intends to list out more naughty shenanigans. They also state that US government officials are urging the Indian government strongly, to pass the 456 agreement in the Parliament before Obama’s arrival.

When we questioned the ruling party and some opposition parties on this leaked out draft of 456 agreement, this is what they had to say –
CPI senior member, D Raja said, “We were always against literacy, always hated English medium schools. Take West Bengal in Jyoti Basu times, he was a master translator, man with a great vision and never allowed English to be the medium of education. His loss is the biggest tragedy. Had we followed his foot steps, we would not have faced this day”

Arun Jaitley of BJP remarked, “All this is because of the Congress party. They have for ages had elite associations, studied in Harvard and Oxford. Now the current generation is facing the ire of US government and paying the price.”

Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister replied in his characteristic brilliant fashion, “The media is creating unnecessary hype, the government has still not received a copy of 456 bill. And, for God’s sake, Obama has nothing to be scared of Johnny-come-lately India. However, if US intends to table a similar bill on China, we welcome the decision wholeheartedly”

Children from urban centers largely welcomed the 456 agreement. In fact, they wanted its quick approval before the board exams in Mar-Apr 2011. They justified that free gaming consoles, trip to USA with parents for participation in reality shows were zillion times worthier than a free meal at school or a seat at IIM/IIT. One of them sheepishly remarked, “Obama knows how to bell the CAT”.

Obama is planning to avoid a visit to Bangalore during his Indian trip. Upset at Bangalore’s skyrocketing progress, he raised the slogan, “Say NO to Bangalore, YES to Buffalo”. The people of Haryana and UP have welcomed this slogan, extremely happy that Obama respects buffaloes. In fact, they have invited Obama to visit their state.

When we questioned Karnataka CM Yeddyurappa if he was unhappy that Obama boycotted Bangalore, this is what he had to say, “He is not POSCO, he is not Arcelor or Vedanta, and who is he? I am not bothered.”

With such indifferent response from politicians, 456 bill may pass with minimal vocabulary corrections, but the future of Indian education, is truly, at stake.

The End

Sports Ka Superstar - Grand Finale

2010-09-21T17:10:00.007+05:30

My favorite sports quiz show came to an end yesterday - 20/09/2010. After the last semi final on 13th Sept, I was eagerly expecting the finals on 15th as the quiz show is aired on Mon/Wed every week. But that day, on DD National, a show on All India Radio was telecast during the quiz slot 10 - 11 pm. A mixed reaction, one of ennui and confusion resulted, "Why no quiz today, if not today, then when is the finale?"
The question snowballed into an unsolved mystery as Internet searches did not yield desired results and Times of India newspaper does not tabulate DD national daily program schedule.
To make matters and my fear worse, KPL started in Bangalore from Sept 16th and our cable operator conveniently replaced DD National with a certain Udhaya Kannada Varthagalu in the evenings to telecast ongoing KPL matches LIVE. My husband and I, after a couple of phone calls to our cable operator, topped it with two visits to his office requesting him to restore DD national channel. Our dogged fondness for the show took us to the cable operators' office for one last time at 9 pm yesterday, a fervant attempt to remind him of the indispensable channel restoration. Success !! and he reinstated the lost channel. The clock struck 10 and Mini Mathur, along with Shera, the mascot for CWG 2010, appeared on the sets of the show with a battalion of ten, brilliant finalists.

Atul Nath qualified to the podium and contested with P Sarin in challenger rounds for the title of Sports Ka Superstar that carried cash prize of Rs 3 lakhs and a trophy as honors. Sarin turned out victorious at the end of the final buzzer round.

I was highly excited yesterday for reasons below -
1) this quiz show has been on our regular must-watch list for over two months and it was good to see the sports trivia bigwigs battle it out
2) we would have missed the finale by a whisker if not for the timely, personal reminder from my husband and quick/polite response from the operator

Without further ado, containing my excitement, I list down the questions from the Sports Ka Superstar Grand Finale (dated 20/09/2010) below - (please refer to the comments section, a comment from me for answers)

Sports Ka Superstar Grand Finale Questions
1) What trophy is given to the winner of World Men’s Team Badminton Championship?
2) Which Dutch footballer is nicknamed the “Non flying Dutchman” because of his aviophobia?
3) Name the first Indian woman to become a finalist at the Summer Olympic games.
4) Which country’s President is a former weightlifter and winner of seven Commonwealth Games gold medals?
5) Which athlete currently holds the world record for women in 100m and 200m races?
6) In the world championship of which sport is Richard Bergmann Fair Play award given?
7) When did beach volleyball make its debut in Summer Olympic games?
8) Name the only Indian to score a hat trick in football at Olympic Games.
9) Name the Australian athlete who won gold in 400m event in Sydney Olympics in 2000 (visual q modified)
10) Name this legendary middle distance runner who after retirement took to politics, headed the London bid to get the right to host Summer Olympics in year 2012 (visual q modified)
11) Name the current president of FIFA (visual q modified)
12) Name this swimmer turned film actor who is best known for portraying Tarzan (visual q modified)
13) The basketball shooting technique called Skyhook became a trademark of which player?
14) Name the last event in decathlon
15) Name the first recipient of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Rathna award
16) Which Indian cricketer has also played Davis Cup?
17) Name the event for males for which the female counterpart is 100 m hurdles (visual q modified)
18) Name the legendary athlete who won gold in 400m hurdles in 1976 and 1984 (visual q modified)
19) Name the gymnastics event that includes jumping on a taut cloth surface (visual q modified)
20) Apart from athletics, aquatics, wrestling, boxing, lawn bowls, which other game featured in the first edition of CWG?
21) Who is the first double centurion in women’s ODI cricket?
22) In 1997, a head to head 150m race was held to determine the world’s fastest man, this was between Michael Johnson and which other athlete?
23) Shiva Keshavan represented India in which sport in Winter Olympics?
24) Who is the first Indian to reach the semifinals of Wimbledon Men’s singles?
25) Name the famous race held on the Thames river between Putney and Chiswick
26) Cricket, my style is a book from which cricket captain?

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Travel Pictures: To God's Abode

2010-09-15T23:41:00.017+05:30

Srirangam, Trichy

View of the main temple tower, Srirangam

Ucchi Pillayar temple, Malakottai/Rock fort, Trichy

The hillock, fort and temple view

Thiruaanai kaaval temple, Trichy

Huge compound and high walls enclosing the sanctum

Tirumalai Nayakkar Palace, Madurai
Painting on the ceiling

White, rounded pillars

Palace darbar hall view
Meenakshi Sundareshwarar temple, Madurai
Long hallway, ceilings with paintings

Temple gopuram

To God's Abode

2010-09-15T12:04:00.014+05:30

The pretext of a friend’s wedding took Viswa and me to Trichy, Tamil Nadu on Sept 10, 2010. Friday, the 10th Sept was a holiday on account of Ramzan and we, like most in Bangalore, promptly packed our bags to a nearby tourist destination.

Our itinerary for the extended weekend included a visit to Trichy (Tiruchirapalli) and Madurai, then back to Bangalore on 12/09/2010, a Sunday, to grab some rest and bring the house back to order after a two-day hiatus. As requested in most wedding cards, we graced our friend’s wedding, provided them our company on their special day and headed out on our religious odyssey.

First, we headed to Srirangam, about 8 km from Trichy central bus stand. Srirangam is a temple town standing between Cauvery and Kollidum rivers, connected to the mainland by a bridge. Considered, possibly the largest temple complex in India, Srirangam is the abode of Sri Ranganatha Swamy (Vishnu) and the temple, of immense importance to Vaishnavites, is revered as Vaikuntam on Earth. About 156 acres in extent, the tall, imposing main gopuram (tower), 13 tiered and 72m high, completed in the year 1987, welcomed us to an architectural marvel, dotted with 21 gopurams in a complex spanning seven concentric walls. Built from 14th to 17th centuries, the Hoysalas, Cholas, Pandyas, Cheras, Vijayanagar Empire and Nayaks of Madurai have all contributed their bit to this temple.

We walked through the crowded market streets, right across the tall, concentric compound walls to reach the main complex. To our left, we visited the deity of Chakrathalwar and to our right, the shrine of Shri Ramanujacharya, the 1000 pillar mantapa (under renovation and therefore closed, it consists of 953 pillars actually) and the art/sculpture mantapa. Walking straight, we crossed the Garudaalwar shrine, the prasadam/food counter and reached the sanctum sanctorum after a short wait in the queue. We were in front of the lord, Sri Ranganathaswamy, huge and charismatic, in reclining position. Outside the inner sanctum, to the left, is the shrine of Ranganayaki Devi. There were three deities in a line here, Sridevi, Bhoo Devi and Ranganayaki, all adorned beautifully. There are many other shrines in the temple complex - Narasimha, Dhanvantri, Varahaswamy, Krishna and Kodanda Rama to name a few. We visited the temple at 2.30 pm, right after it opened for devotees and completed our tour in two hours; the temple complex is that HUGE.

From Trichy Central bus stand, many buses ply to Srirangam. Similarly, many buses connect Srirangam to Chattram bus stand (Trichy Rockfort/Mala Kottai), our next destination. The hill temple dedicated to Ganesha is an iconic landmark in Trichy. The barren, rounded, brown hillock, about 3500 million years old, houses the Manicka Vinayagar (Ganesha) temple at the foot hill/base, the shrine of Thayumaanavar (Shiva) mid way and Ucchi Pilayar temple at the top (again a Ganesha shrine).

The rock fort was originally built by Pallavas, later fortified by the Nayaks. The hill temple overlooks a tank (water pavilion) used for ceremonial purposes. The tank is flanked by shops/market area on all four sides. A flight of about 417 steps takes one from the base to the Ucchi Pilayaar temple atop the hillock; I did not count to check. The climb is not at all tedious; it is highly rewarding, a superb, visual treat all the way.

The Thayumanavar temple mid way has a shrine for goddess Kundalambikai with a golden tower (vimana) over it. There are two Pallava cave temples of the 7th century times, one close to the Thayumanavar temple and another is little difficult to locate. After leaving Manicka Vinayagar shrine at the base, one hits a road, turn to the left here, walk for about 50m on it and take right to reach the second cave temple, behind a bunch of houses.

The climb from Thayumanavar temple to Ucchi Pillayar temple can inspire life in any trite soul; the cool, refreshing breeze at that height, the beautiful, panoramic view of the temple town, view of the rail/road bridges over river Cauvery, of the imposing tower of Srirangam at a distance, a mix of trees, fields and houses/shops and a mild drizzle recharged us thoroughly.

We drank a cup of hot filter coffee and devoured hot bajjis from a restaurant near the temple, reminiscing the images, we captured of Trichy from atop the hill and that of gods/goddesses so beautifully decorated. As we enjoyed dinner at a restaurant in the central bus stand area, we acknowledged that the temples are truly BIG in every aspect and rituals are performed with immense sincerity and devotion.

On day 2, we began early at 6.30 am and visited the Thiruaanai Kaaval temple, which we reached by bus from the central bus stand after a 20-minute ride, crossing the bridge on Cauvery. Thiruaanaikaaval temple is a highly revered Shiva temple, built by Kochenga Chola Raja about 1800 years ago, in a sprawling compound (about 18 acres). Housing the deities – Shiva and Parvathi, more appropriately – Lord Jambukeshwarar and Shri Akhilandeshwari, this temple marks its prominence as it signifies one of the five elements (pancha bootha) i.e. water (the other 4 temples and their elements are - Chidambaram (sky), Kalahasti (wind), Tiruannamalai (fire) and Kanchipuram (earth)). The temple compound is huge and consists of five concentric walls encompassing the main sanctum.

We visited the shrine of Akhilandeshwari, (on the left on entering the main temple complex) first, many small shrines and temple tank on the way to the main deity – Shiva’s shrine. A custom at this temple is to see the Shiva lingam (Jalakandeshwarar/Jambukeshwarar) through the nine square window frame/grilled window. The vast expanse of this temple astounded us.

There are many temples around Trichy – Samayapuram Amman temple, Narthamalai, Gunaseelan temple to name a few. We intended to cover the three primarily important temples in Trichy town and I must say, our first phase of the journey ended well with a sumptuous meal of idli, vada, dosa and pongal at the Kurunji restaurant near Central bus stand. Food in Trichy (South Indian tiffin items, more precisely) is of a very high quality/taste, very affordable and is served with a lot of courtesy and affection. The autorickshaw drivers, shop vendors were exceptionally rude, but that came as no surprise as auto drivers are more ill behaved in Chennai.

We boarded a bus to Madurai from the Central bus stand and embarked on a 116 km long journey from Trichy via Viralimalai and Melur on NH 45B. Three hours on the smooth highway brought us to another equally important temple town-Madurai.

We lodged our backpacks in the Mattuthavani bus stand cloakroom and geared up to visit the Tirumalai Nayyakar palace. Built in 1636, by Tirumala Nayak of Madurai, this palace supposedly built by an Italian architect is an exemplary piece of Indo Sarcenic architecture. The palace consists of two portions, the Rangavilas and the Swargavilas, of which only the Darbar hall, Dance hall/Nataka shala and the entrance remain. The present remains account for only ¼ th of the original palatial structures. It is purported that Tirumala Nayak’s grandson demolished the Rangavilasa to procure materials for building a similar palace in Trichy, an activity he never accomplished. The restoration work commenced under Lord Napier, the governor of Madras in 1868-72. The palace is closed during lunchtime 1-2 pm and hosts a light/sound show in Tamil and English in the evening hours. The audience hall has an array of huge, cylindrical, white pillars, long corridors marked by arches and ceilings full of exceptionally beautiful paintings, restored with utmost care.

As the clock ticked 4 pm, we left the palace, drank two full glasses of a certain, yummy and highly satiating “fruit mixture” from a road side shop and marched towards the most prominent landmark in Madurai – Meenakshi Sundareshwarar temple; a temple looked upon with immense veneration in India. I was filled with awe when I caught an ariel view of this temple in the World Tamil Conference 2010 anthem (Semmozhi Maanadu anthem), the concentric rectangular walls with tall, beautiful gopurams (towers), one on each side. The temple is extraordinarily marvelous and houses deities equally awe-inspiring - Shiva in the form of Lord Sundareshwarar meaning Beautiful Lord and his consort, Parvati, as the gorgeous Meenakshi.

The main entrance to the temple is through the east gopuram, the road first hits the Raya gopuram, reaches a Mantapa that teems with bookshops and then a Nandi Mantapa facing the sanctum. A clean, wide pathway, devoid of shops and encroachments exists around the temple, for people to walk around and see all four peripheral gopurams. Visitors can enter the temple through any of the four entrances (each has a cloakroom/footwear stand) but the main entrance is through the east gate.

The breathtaking experience at this temple commences as one walks in the long hallways, their ceilings covered with colorful paintings, seeing the brilliant, full relief sculptures adorning the pillars before the main sanctum, that of Nataraja, Bhadrakali, Agora Veerabhadrar, Agni Veerabhadrar, Kalyana Sundaram, Dakshinamurthi and many more. All these sculptures are labeled in English, Hindi and Tamil; this is an appreciable effort.

We headed straight to the Sundareshwarar shrine, saw a big, silver idol of Nataraja – in the Rajata Sabha/Velliambalam on to our right and the Lord Sundareshwarar, in the form of a Lingam in front of us, the sight was a true spectacle. Leaving the main shrine, we reached the shrine of Mukuruni Vinayagar; a Ganesha idol carved out of a single stone. Truly, a fortuitous event to see the lord in such a revered temple on an auspicious day like Ganesha Chaturthi. We walked further and saw the Porthamarai Kulam (the temple tank/tank with the golden Lotus), the passage around the tank had walls full of mural paintings depicting the marriage between Lord Sundareshwarar and Meenakshi and from the epic Tiruvilayaadal. We took time to study the model of Meenakshi temple kept on display and visited the shrine of Meenakshi Devi lying in the south west. The goddess is sheer beauty personified. In the last leg, we visited the shrine of Lord Kalyana Sundaram and the 1000 pillar mantapa on our way back to the east tower. The 1000 (actually 985 pillars) pillar mantapa houses a museum and is maintained by the ASI. The Madurai Meenkashi Amman temple, truly, marks the pinnacle in the Dravidian temple architecture; abounds with beauty and grandeur in every aspect.

Filled to hearts content, caught in a mild shower, we grabbed a simple dinner from West Masi Street, headed back to Maattuthavani bus stand to board our bus to Bangalore. On our journey back home, on NH-7, we recounted all we had seen. Feeling of regret, of not paying a visit to Thiruparankundram Murugan temple in Madurai, not being able to explore good food options remained but were easily subdued by an overwhelming sense of joy, or term it, a serene sense of satisfaction/a tranquil demeanour that results only when you return from the Abode of Gods.

Sports Ka Superstar - More Questions

2010-09-09T13:21:00.008+05:30

The semi final episodes are drawing to a close, there's just one more round before we BANG onto the grand finale of the sports quiz Sports Ka Superstar. Yesterday's episode had a mixed bag of questions, some easy, some difficult, not a very high scoring episode. Also, some contestants like Ramki, Pranav and Arun Hiregange, more adept in quizzing, slipped from becoming the "awesome twosome" by a hairline margin. In my opinion, the two selected from this episode, especially the winner - Gaurav from Bangalore, will face the heat with the rest at the grand finale.

I decided to list down the questions of yesterday's show (dated 08/09/2010) in a new post, I had some problems formatting the contents of the earlier post. Guess it ran above the prescribed/manageable length.

Set 4: (Questions from the episode dated 08/09/2010 + 8 questions from prelims episodes, answers to this appear as my comment - refer comment 1 of the comments section to this post)

1) Which one of these games does not have a goalkeeper – polo, water polo, football, hockey?
2) At 2004 Athens Olympics, which athlete broke the 400m national record made by Milkha Singh in 1960 Rome Olympics?
3) Crocodile hold, elephant stance, charging elephant are all skills employed in which sport?
4) Which country’s national football team bears the nickname – Bafana Bafana?
5) Name the only Olympic medalist from Namibia who holds the current CWG record for 200m, a record since 1994.
6) With which team did Michael Schumacher make his formula one debut?
7) What is the “bull taming” sport in Tamil Nadu known as?
8) Name the strongest female chess player in history who became the grandmaster at the age of 15 years 4 months. (visual q modified)
9) Name the French footballer of Indian origin who made his debut for the French national team in the year 1999. (visual q modified)
10) Which edition of CWG is known as the “boycott” games?
11) The player who hit the fastest century in Indian Premier League.
12) Name the sport that is played with two kinds of balls – “kitty” and “woods”
13) Name this Swedish athlete just behind Jackie Joyner Kersie in the all time heptathlon points list (visual Q modified)
14) Name the gold medal winner in 2004 Athens Olympics – women’s singles tennis (visual Q modified)
15) Name the first woman sportsperson to receive the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award
16) Name the first recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award
17) Name the sporting organization founded on 23rd June 1937 in Army HQ at Shimla
18) In Durand cup, currently, the winning team is presented with two other trophies, name them.
19) In 2010 Wimbledon, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played the longest ever tennis match, how long did this match last?
20) Name the first woman to have run the entire Boston Marathon.
21) Name the South African band that featured along with Shakira in 2010 FIFA anthem – Waka Waka
22) Name the first Indian in NASCAR
23) Name the president of Rajasthan Cricket Association from 2005-2009
24) Name the players of the very popular/successful men’s tennis doubles team from Australia which bore the nickname “The Woodies”
25) Which major mishap is associated with the Tamburello corner?
26) Who is nicknamed as the “The Flying Sikh”?
27) In the name Jeev Milkha Singh, Jeev is the shortened form of what?
28) To whom did Milkha Singh lose the Bronze medal by a whisker in the fateful 400m run in 1960 Rome Olympics?
29) Who threw his Olympic medal into the Ohio River after a feud with a whites gang and after being refused service at a whites restaurant?
30) Name the player who received two golds in CWG for lawn bowls and was inducted to Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2007?

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The last round of semi finals happened yesterday - 13/09/2010. With just 20 days more for the CWG at Delhi, the concern of a neat display is a perennial high - first over corruption, money laundering, completion of venues on time, then on health aspects as the number of dengue cases are skyrocketing by the day, most recently on warnings from host nation government officials on an impending terror strike during the games. As a nation, we all are on tenterhooks, waiting to see events unfold from Oct 3-14, 2010. Not digressing further, I have updated a set of 40 questions (26 from yesterday's show and rest from previous episodes, after a gruelling memory exercise :)). The questions in yesterday's show mostly dealt with Olympic events, the questions I recollected from past episodes are more CWG centric.

Please find the answers to the questions below as a comment (comment 2) from me in the comments section. Happy Quizzing !!

Set 5:

1) Which of these events will be a part of the Delhi CWG? 50km walk, 20 km walk, pentathlon, bicycle motocross
2) The term steeplechase derives its name from which sport?
3) Which team won the Ranji Trophy in the year 2009-10?
4) Which game originated at Melrose, Scotland in 1880s when a local butcher Ned Haig organized it for fund raising for a sporting club?
5) Which city did Delhi beat by 46 votes to 22 to win the right to host 2010 CWG?
6) Ippon, Koka, Yuko, Waza-ari are four scores in which sport?
7) Who is the only tennis player to have won all the 4 grand slams and an Olympic gold medal in the men’s singles?
8) Which city has hosted the Asian games maximum number of times?
9) In which Olympics, did Leander Paes win the bronze medal for men’s singles, becoming the second Indian to win an Olympic medal in an individual event?
10) Name the Ukrainian heavyweight boxer who is the current IBO, WBO, IBF and Ring Magazine champion of the world. (visual Q modified)
11) Name the legendary baseball player who bears the nickname “Sultan of Swat” and “The Bambino” (visual Q modified)
12) What is the title of Dhyan Chand’s autobiography?
13) In 2010 FIFA world cup, Jerome Boateng represented Germany, which country did his half brother Kevin Prince Boateng represent?
14) Who defeated Bobby Riggs in the widely publicized match called the “Battle of Sexes” in the year 1973?
15) Which Bollywood actor represented Indian in cycling?
16) Name the Czech long distance runner nicknamed as “Czech Locomotive” who won gold s for 5000m , 10000m and marathon in 1952 Helsinki Olympics. (visual Q modified)
17) Name the first woman athlete to have won 6 Olympic gold medals. (visual Q modified)
18) Name the athlete who holds the record for 1500m middle distance track event (visual Q modified)
19) In which Olympic Games did women compete in weightlifting event for the first time?
20) Kalenjin tribe, the running tribe, known for long distance running skills belongs to which country?
21) Ever Onward is the motto of which sporting event/games?
22) Name the Olympian who was diagnosed with Polio at the age of 7 but accumulated 10 golds over 4 games.
23) The athletes of which country were taken hostage/murdered during the 1972 Munich Olympics?
24) In which sport did Jonty Rhodes represent South Africa apart from cricket?
25) Which five time US open men singles champion is also the youngest to win the title?
26) Which sport was demonstrated by the Hanuman Vyayam Prasarak Mandal in the 1936 Berlin Olympics?
27) Which athlete was forced to leave Munich (1972) before closing ceremony of the Olympic Games for the fear that he should not be targeted by the Palestinian gunmen?
28) Which sport is locally known as Hu-Tu-Tu or Chaduguddu in different regions of India?
29) Where did the first edition of CWG take place?
30) Who marches first in the Parade of Athletes in the CWG?
31) Who hosted the games under the name Commonwealth Games for the first time?
32) When and where did the Commonwealth Games take place for the first time in Asia?
33) The CWG held in 1962 were also known for “heat, dust and glory” for the inhospitable weather conditions. Where was this edition of the games held?
34) Name the first black African to win a gold medal Olympics, who clinched the gold (1960 Rome Olympics) in marathon event running barefoot.
35) Name the Indian athlete who failed the gender test and was stripped off her silver medal of 2006 Asian games.
36) Who remained not out in the innings when Kumble picked up all 10 wickets in the test innings in the year 1999?
37) Who won the Orange Cap for the IPL held in 2010?
38) In which edition of Olympic games did Agassi win the gold in men singles, managing to complete a career golden slam?
39) Name the legendary figure in Indian motorsports who died in an air crash while flying a trainers aircraft

40) Which of the following is not related with Cricket? Deodhar trophy, Irani trophy, Shimla trophy, Ranji trophy

Sports Ka Superstar

2010-08-31T15:21:00.010+05:30

For the last two months, I have been hooked to a certain quiz show on Doordarshan channel - Sports ka Superstar. This is a sports quiz produced by BIG Synergy productions (Siddhartha Basu), anchored by Mini Mathur and Shera (the mascot for Delhi CWG 2010).

The sports quiz puts forth a great collection of questions, with multiple choice (4 choices) and buzzer, visual/direct (without choice/shootout) variants. Ten participants contest each time, with only 2 qualifying at the end of the show to the next round. The quiz show aired on DD on Mondays and Wednesdays at 10pm, has so far, handpicked 50 sports whizkids out of 25 episodes. The contest is now, on between these 50 players for selection to finals, with already 2 clearing the semi final hurdle on 30th Aug 2010.

The quiz is a must-watch as it is well anchored, the participants have immense knowledge of the subject and there is definitely lots to learn from the questions thrown. For long, I watched the show intently, answering questions along with the contestants, researching on unknown topics the next day. From now on, I intend to note down as many questions as possible and post it onto my blog for future reference.

I have jotted down some questions (see below) from the Aug 30, 2010 show (not all, some of them) and some questions from the previous episodes (some that I remember starkly) -

Set 1: (the answers to these questions will appear as a comment from me in the comments section)
1) Who said these words - It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am.
2) The name of the military leader who participated in the Stockholm Olympics 1912 modern pentathlon event.
3) Who is the only player to have scored a hat trick in FIFA finals?
4) Who is the first Indian member of the International Olympic Committee?
5) Which sport does the body FISA represent?
6) With which sport will you associate FIDE?
7) K.M Beenamol won gold in 800m track event in Busan 2002 Asian games. Her brother, KM Binu, won the silver medal in which sporting event the same year, same games?
8) Name this tennis player from Sweden who lost to Rafael Nadal in 2010 French Open.
9) Name the golfer who has the nick name – The Great White Shark
10) The 1934 CWG were held in London. Which was the initially proposed venue/city for the games?
11) The Merdaka tournament is associated with which game?
12) Name the game that was first introduced in Doha 2006 Asian Games.
13) Shaolin martial arts hail from this country.
14) Name the Olympian after whom a Cricket stadium is named in Gwalior.
15) This is a unit of measurement of length and is roughly equal to/little over 600 feet. Name this unit
16) Name the sport that is going to be demonstrated in Delhi CWG 2010.
17) With which sport will you associate the terms – glide and spin techniques?
18) Who is the only athlete to have won 4 consecutive Olympic golds in the same individual event and also bettered the record with every win?
19) With which sport will you associate the famous sportsperson – Jehangir Khan?
20) The book “From gloom to glory” is the story of which Indian coach?
21) Straight from the Heart is an autobiography of which sportsperson?
22) The Four Minute Mile is associated with which famous athlete?
23) Breaking the Surface is the story of which famous sportsperson?
24) Venus Rosewater Dish is presented to the winner of which tournament?
25) Which famous tournament in Tennis is named after a French Aviator?
26) It’s not about the bike is a book by a famous sportsperson. Name him
27) With whom will you associate the Rope a Dope technique in boxing?
28) With which sport will you associate terms like castling, the fortress, Alekhine’s gun?
29) Name the air pistol specialist who claimed 5 golds, 1 silver, 1 bronze in 2006 Melbourne CWG.
30) Which country won the most number of golds in Beijing Olympics 2008 and which country won the maximum number of medals at the same event?

Set 2: (the answers to these questions will appear as a comment from me in the comments section)

After yesterday's episode (01/09/2010), here I update the post with another set of questions, as many as I could note down. Good to note that of the two selected to finals from this episode, one Mr. T.B. Srinath belongs to my school (PS Senior Secondary School) and college/graduated from BITS, Pilani.

Below are the questions:

1) Who is the only Indian prime minister to have received the Olympic Gold Order?
2) Who along with Sir Roger Bannister ran a mile under 4 minutes in the 1954 Common Wealth Games?
3) Name the S.African cricketer whose autobiography is known as “White Lightning”
4) Which other country apart from England, Wales, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand has attended every edition of the Common Wealth games?
5) Who was named the greatest female athlete of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated for Women magazine?
6) Their national netball team features a silver fern for its symbol, name the country.
7) Which sport has a technique named after Mitsuo Tsukahara?
8) Name the chess grandmaster who is diagnosed with a kind of spondiloarthritis.
9) Which other nation, apart from China and Indonesia, has won the Thomas Cup since its inception from the year 1948?
10) Name the athlete, who in 1913, was stripped off his Olympic Gold medals on grounds of violating the amateur rules.
11) Which football club was sometimes known as Jubilee club, Hamidia club, Crescent club?
12) Name the first recipient of Arjuna Award for achievement in athletics.
13) Name the only player to have won twice, all the four grand slams singles title (each set of 4 grand slam titles was won in the same calendar year)
14) Which Ethiopian long distance runner is nicknamed Neftenga?
15) Name this athlete who four Olympic Gold medals in the year 1948, nicknamed “The Flying Housewife”
16) With whom will one associate the book “The good, the bad and the bubbly”?
17) Name the remarkable invention made by Mr. Stuart Robertson, the marketing manager of ECB.
18) With which sport will you associate the term small/little slam?
19) Which other city apart from Melbourne and Sydney has hosted both Common Wealth Games and Summer Olympics?
20) Question from one of the earlier episodes: What was awarded to the victor in Ancient Olympics?

Set 3: (the answers to these questions will appear as the third comment from me in the comments section)

Yesterday's episode (06/09/2010) was a very high scoring session. Questions were relatively easier - my personal opinion. My favorite contestant from prelims- Pradipta Chattopadhyay, qualified for the finals. He has tremendous knowledge of sports trivia and yesterday he scored a neat 100/100 in MCQ s rounds. Along with him qualified Mr.Anand from Mumbai, outsmarting fellow contestants - Kinshuk and Sairam by a very narrow margin.

Below are the set of questions from yesterday's show. I have added two (that came to my mind) from the prelims.

1) Name the grand slam tennis tournament held last in a calendar year.
2) Who received the Golden shoe award for the best athlete in the 1986 Asian Games held at Seoul?
3) Name the only sport in which women took part in the 1930 Commonwealth Games, its first edition.
4) An annual hockey tournament, Sultan Azlan Shah Cup is named after which country’s monarch?
5) With which Olympic sport will you associate the terms – Epee, Foil and Sabre?
6) Which sport was introduced in the year 1895 for those who found playing basketball very tiresome?
7) Which sport introduced in the year 1895 was known then as Mintonette and was initially designed to be played indoors?
8) Besides lawn tennis, which other sport’s name features/is associated with Wimbledon?
9) Who is the author of the book Letters to a Young Gymnast?
10) Which was Sania Mirza’s first grand slam win?
11) The first three editions of Cricket world cup were officially known by what name?
12) Which victory came first for India, the Cricket world cup victory or the Hockey world cup victory?
13) Which nation is hosting the 2014 FIFA world cup?
14) In which water based sport is the eggbeater technique used?
15) Name the British athlete who won 100m gold in 1924 Paris Olympics, the feat that was depicted in the movie “Chariots of Fire”
16) What does the WADA monitor?
17) Which city hosted the equestrian events for 2008 Beijing Olympics?
18) What did the Czech athlete Jan Zelezny hurl for a distance of 98.48m at Jena, Germany in the year 1996?
19) What is the name provided to the four-year period between two Olympic Games?
20) Name the football tournament, introduced in 1888 to provide recreation for the British soldiers and Shimla secretariat personnel.
21) Which Indian tennis player’s mother played basketball for India?
22) In 1967, two warring factions in Nigerian civil war agreed for a 48-hour ceasefire to watch which player play?
23) Who announced retirement from hockey after 2010 hockey world cup?
24) With which sport will one associate the terms – Amar, Surjeevani and Gaminee?

25) With which sport was Leander Paes’ father Vece Paes associated?

On Friday, Sept 3rd 2010, Viswa and I went to Bangalore Cantonment station to see the Commonwealth Games exhibition train/CWG Express. The train arrived from Mysore and was scheduled to leave to Hubli on 3rd night. Open for public viewing from 10 am to 7 pm, the train in green color (the 2010 Delhi CWG is also known as the Green Commonwealth Games) had 5 coaches dedicated to information on Commonwealth Games and 6 other coaches for information on e-governance and Information technology.

The 5 coaches dedicated to CWG were laden with information on CWG, its birth, its history, its different venues/hosts, stadia/venues and their details for Delhi 2010 CWG, Indian sportstars, superstars in Indian sports who serve Indian Railways etc.

The mascot - Shera for 2010 CWG was completely adorable in the many cartoon strips displayed on information charts in train.

Wish I were an alumnus of La Martiniere School, Kolkata

2010-08-19T11:45:00.005+05:30

Last week, I happened to read the article (refer full text and link below) in a column by Mr. Jug Suraiya in Times of India newspaper. I could not help laughing at the shade of satire in it. Very good read and here I add it to my blog for all future references :)
Link - http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/jugglebandhi/entry/take-a-tip
Title of the article, details of publishing - Take a tip by Jug Suraiya, 12 August 2010, Times of India, Bangalore
Full text - (refer below)

Take a tip

Without referring the matter to me, the porter in the New York City hotel picked up my bag six inches and put it on a trolley. He wheeled the trolley five feet to the elevator, and pressed the button for the 5th floor. He wheeled the trolley 10 feet to my room, opened the door and pushed the trolley in. He held out his hand. Bowing to the inevitable, I put $5 — which i could ill afford — into it. My bag had travelled 10,000 miles with me free of cost, its conveyance covered by the price of my air ticket. However, its journey of less than 100 feet in a NYC hotel was not covered by the price of the hotel room and cost me an extra five bucks by way of a characteristically American institution known as the tip.

Though not unique to US culture, giving a tip for services rendered is the bedrock on which American capitalism is based. According to folklore, the word tip, as in gratuity or baksheesh, is said to be derived from the initial letters of the phrase 'to insure privilege'. To insure privilege, or good service, from a waiter in a restaurant, say, you gave the chap a tip over and above the price of the meal consumed. This custom was soon extended to other areas of daily commerce so that everyone, from taxi drivers to tour guides, hotel porters to Wall Street multinational bankers, expects a tip for services rendered — though in the case of the Wall Street bankers it's not called a tip but an incentive bonus, which is often in excess of a million dollars a year and which might well have helped to nudge the world into the global economic crisis.

Crisis or no crisis, almost everyone I encountered on a professional basis in America — cabbies, bartenders, the folks who served you fast food and the people who pointed out to you the local sights of interest on a hop-on, hop-off tourist bus — not just expected, but often demanded, a tip for doing whatever it was that they were supposed to be doing anyway, and for which presumably they were already being paid. And just in case you missed the point, sometimes they'd even do the arithmetic for you and tell you on a restaurant bill, for instance, exactly how much the tip worked out to if you left a 15 per cent tip, a 20 per cent tip or a 25 per cent tip. But 15 per cent was the absolute bottom line. If you tried to get away with anything less than that it was likely to be interpreted as an overt act of hostility liable to provoke an appropriately warlike response.

It got so much that whenever I found that once again I had lost my way — which I have a great knack of doing, in America or anywhere else; why is it that the place I'm looking for is never in the place that I'm looking for it but in a totally different place altogether? — I wouldn't ask passers-by for directions. What if the person I stopped turned out to be a professional, unionised directions-giver and demanded a tip for the benefit of telling me that where I wanted to be wasn't where I was, and where I was wasn't was where I wanted to be? Fifteen per cent, minimum, just to hear that? Get lost. Which is exactly what I did.

Going around in circles in America, I realised that we in India also have a long tradition of giving tips. Except we don't call them tips. We call them guru dakshina, or tatkal, or speed money, or ghoos. Or just plain bribes. Which we perforce pay to service providers like cops, and babus, and politicians, and the guy who replaces our empty LPG cylinders, to make sure that they do indeed provide the service that they are meant to provide to begin with. And because we think of these things as bribes, we beat up on ourselves, and the world beats up on us, for being corrupt. No one beats up on Americans for being corrupt, not even those Americans who happen to be Wall Street bankers. It's a question of vocabulary. Change the word 'bribe' into 'tip' and 'corruption' becomes 'capitalism'.

So next time you have to make a hand-out to the LPG delivery man, or to your friendly, neighbourhood CWG contractor, don't think of it as a bribe. Think of it as a tip. As in a 'totally innocent practice'.

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Jug Suraiya is an eminent journalist, a great satirist who features in the opinion editorial in Times of India newspaper. His column carries creative names like - jugular vein and juggle bandhi.

In the habit of reading Times of India for over 4 years now, watching Times now channel news debates; I have grown fond of Jug Suraiya and Swapan Dasgupta. While the former uses very simple, funny thought with many a pun at places, the latter is spotless clean on facts, facts on history and politics, highly verbose in nailing down the point. The fondness for both seems to only increase with time. They both are very noted journalists and are alumni of La Martiniere, Kolkata. Wish I were an alumnus of the same school, guess it is never late ... can learn so much from their blogs/posts/columns, would love to write like them someday.

Dud...Dud...Dud to Melkote

2010-08-09T17:16:00.012+05:30

Preface:

On Aug 7, Viswa and I made our first bike trip for the year 2010 to Melkote. Melkote, 137 km from Bangalore is a famous hill temple close to Mandya on Bangalore-Mysore highway (SH-17). Previously, weekend trips on Viswa’s Royal Enfield Thunderbird bike to places around Bangalore was an integral part of our routine. But this year, we had to wait until August to open the years’ travel account due to our new found, intense passion for swimming. We joined swimming classes in Feb 2010 at St.Joseph’s Indian High school, Mallaya Road, Bangalore and since then, have prioritized it over most other activities. Devoting an hour daily, from Mon – Fri for swimming (at times we swam on Saturdays too), left us with weekend to rest, do household chores, watch movies etc

There are 1001 blogs on Melkote, yet, this trip being the first one for year 2010, I too wanted to write a note on it. May be I will try giving a new layout to this travelogue entry.

About Melkote:

A sacred place for Iyengars, Melkote is a hill temple site in Mandya district in an area called Thirunarayanapuram. The hill is called Yadavagiri and overlooks the Cauvery valley. Melkote is a revered religious centre for the Vaishnavites as it served as the abode, for over a decade, for the famous saint Shri Ramanujacharya, who with his powers, healed Hoysala king Bittideva’s daughter’s disease, an act for which he sought Bittideva’s conversion from Jainism to Vaishnavism and acquisition of fertile land on banks of Cauvery for construction of Vaishnavite shrines. King Bittideva adopted Vaishnavism, became known as king Vishnuvaradana and Melkote, an important religious centre since 12th century with Cheluvanarayanaswamy temple located at the foothills and Yoganarasimha temple atop the hill.

The list of places to visit at Melkote looks like below –

1) Cheluvanarayanaswamy temple – this is at the foothills with the main sanctum dedicated to Lord Vishnu, there are shrines of Lakshmi, Hanuman and a statue of Shri Ramanujacharya. The pillared ranga mantapa in this temple is an example of fine craftsmanship.

2) Rayagopuram – Stepping out of Cheluvanarayanaswamy temple, taking the straight road on to one’s right leads to the Rayagopuram, an incomplete structure with 4 pillars. As every blog mentions, this is the site where Aishwarya Rai dances for Barso Re song in the movie Guru. This is also the site where super star Rajinikanth shakes his leg for Rakkama song of Dalapathi fame. Incomplete structures, in my opinion, have a strange element of beauty about them, like the incomplete kalyana mantapa in Lepakshi temple, Hindupur and the incomplete mausoleum of Adil Shah II – Barah Kamaan in Bijapur. One can climb to the top of Rayagopuram and catch a glimpse of Cauvery valley.

3) Akka-Thangi Kulam - Walking down the Rayagopuram leads us onto the Sanskrit research academy, taking the road as it curves leads us to Akka-Thangi kulam, the sister ponds/tanks. These tanks lie in front of a Kulashekaralwar temple and not missing out the important information, these tanks appear in Rakkama song from the movie Dalapathi.

4) Yoganarasimha temple - Now we head back to Cheluvanarayanaswamy temple, take the road away from it, a right turn as instructed by tourism dept. board to reach the steps leading to hill top – Yoganarasimha temple. The road is motorable up to the mobile phone towers and from this point; it is only a 5 minutes climb to the top. The view of the Cauvery valley from this temple at a height of 1777 m above sea level is awesome. Take time to relax, take in the fresh air, soak up the beauty of the valley far below, now filled to heart’s content, take the same road down, turn to the right to stop by the temple tank – Kalyani with pillared mantapa around it and a flight of stairs leading to clear water meant for bathing/religious rituals etc

Photos:
1) View of the Cauvery valley from atop Melkote hill/Yoganarasimha temple

2) View of temple tank/Kalyani from atop the hill

3) Akka-thangi kula (sister tanks/ponds)

4) The incomplete Rayagopuram that features in movies

5) Pillared ranga mantapa inside Cheluvanarayanaswamy temple

6) View of Melkote hill temple from a distance

Travel means loads of fun …

Bangalore-Mysore highway – State Highway 17 is a great road to travel on, a superb highway, full of life. The last time we traveled on this road was to Bandipur in the year 2008 and I must admit that there has been a whale of change on this road since then. This is a highway where you have vehicles zooming past all the time, many colleges, many hotels, shops and petrol pumps. Even when you are traveling with elders/family, there is absolutely no worry of food/water. The Mysore highway boasts of restaurants like Kadumane (before Wonder La, Bidadi), Kamat Lokaruchi (near Janapadha Loka), 4 Café Coffee day outlets between Ramanagara and Channapatna, 1 Barista and 1 McDonalds outlet, 2 Kamat Upachar hotels near Channapatna, 1 MTR outlet near Indradhanush Café coffee day, 1 Adigas restaurant after Maddur. That’s a long list and this apart the highway also has regular shops for tea break, dhabas etc. The highway is abuzz with activity therefore.

Away from all this hustle on SH-17, to reach Melkote, one takes the right turn, immediately after leaving Mandya town. This winsome journey stretching for about 37 kms winds through sugarcane and paddy fields. The road is in very good condition and carries the sweet scent of jaggery all along. When traveling on this stretch of 37 kms, one easily realizes a drop of 1-2’C in temperature, thanks to the number of trees, fields and water bodies around.

A road trip with good food is like a boon and Melkote trip scores a neat 100. Outside, Cheluvanarayanaswamy temple, there are many stalls which sell the famous Iyengar Puliyogare. We found one such uncle and aunty who offered us a big dhonai (Palm leaves cup) of hot Puliyogare and sweet pongal, each priced at Rs 15. This is what I call ambrosia (in my language – devaamrutham), we yummily dug into the contents and also bought Puliyogare powder prepared by them to recreate the magic in our kitchen :)

More insight into our trip:

We left home at 6.30 am, stopped at Kadumane, Bidadi for breakfast and tea. We also stopped at Kamat Upachar, Channapatna to have a look at the wooden toys they had on display. We stopped for a tea break at a small village on the road leading from Mandya to Melkote. We reached Melkote at 10am, completed our darshan and lunch, left at 2.30 pm. There was no wait/queue in either temple but a brief, strong spell of rain restricted our movement for about half an hour.

Saturday, the 7th of Aug 2010 was well spent, a nice bike trip to an important religious and historical centre filled with many gud (pun intended – gud in Hindi means jaggery) memories.

Between Bridges, Backwaters and Beaches

2010-07-27T11:04:00.029+05:30

Prologue: Viswa, my husband and I have travelled lots in three years of our marriage, every place we visit is close to our hearts and makes fond memories. I hail from God's own land, Kerala, more specifically from Pattambi in Palakkad district. Almost all of my summer holidays, when in school (class 1-8) were spent in Pattambi in the company of my grandmom. In these three years, Viswa and I have paid an annual visit to Kasaragod in Kerala for different reasons and these trips are truly more cherishable than the others, especially the one in July 2009 against the backdrop of South West monsoon. Nestled in Western ghats, dotting the Arabian sea coastline, at northernmost tip of Kerala, this small, mystical town with its many backwaters, bridges, beaches and endless coconut groves has the quintessential ingredients to invite tourists.

I always wanted to jot down a travelogue on Kasaragod right after my first visit, however it appears that this post was reserved after I completed a hattrick :)

Photos:

1) Malpe beach, Udupi

2) Bekal fort berth bearing the SW monsoon fury

3) Ananthpur Lake temple, Kasargod

Post:
An overnight journey spanning about 7 hours in KSRTC bus, via Hassan and Puttur, takes one to Kasargod, that lies to the south of Dakshina Kannada district. This town is bordered by the mighty Arabian Sea on the west and the biologically diverse Western Ghats on the east. We can also reach Kasargod by train - Yeshwanthpur- Kannur Express, again an overnight journey.

Kasargod houses two prominent forts– Chandragiri and Bekal, of the Ikkeri Nayaks dynasty. While Chandragiri fort (in Melparambu, 5 km from Kasargod town) overlooks the confluence of Chandragiri River with Arabian Sea; Bekal fort, the biggest in Kerala (15 km from Kasargod town) stands tall and imposing at the edacious sea front. Bekal fort is bigger than one can imagine, it takes nearly 3 hours to cover its sprawling expanse over 40 acres and view all its sixteen bastions. Most of us would have had a glimpse of this impregnable fort in the famous song Uyire/ Tu hi re from the movie Bombay by Mani Ratnam. Images of a big, central bastion with a sloping ramp, huge fort walls with windows, opening to a view of the berth extending into the rough sea might still linger on from this song.

Set adjacent to the Pallikere beach and preserved with utmost care by ASI, Bekal invites flocks of tourists. A visit to the fort during South West monsoon provides an unparalleled experience –fresh air with intermittent spells of rain, blended with the sight of white foam of sea drenching the rocks, monstrous waves lashing at the berth in attempts to engulf it and rocky fort walls adorned with tufts of green moss.

Chandragiri fort offers a visual treat, no less in comparison. Atop the fort, at sunset, the vast expanse of Arabian Sea shimmers as Chandragiri River opens into it while trains chug on the bridge busily, from Kannur down south to Mangalore up north. It is coconut groves all over; as far as your eyes can see and for once you feel, Kasargod has enough coconuts to meet the whole world’s demand.

While a day is sufficient to visit these forts, the next day’s itinerary may depend on one’s interests. For those religiously inclined – there are Ananthpur Lake temple (primary abode of Lord Ananthapadmanabha) and Madhur (Madanantheshwara Swamy temple). Ananthapur lake temple is located in Kumbala and is set in serene village surroundings. The sanctum is in the middle of the temple tank that houses a lone vegan crocodile. Madhur temple houses Lord Shiva and Ganesha, it is a busy temple and is famous for its appam prasadham.

For those who take want to take a detour from these religious places, leaving to Mangalore as early as possible would save time. Reaching Mangalore by bus is ideal as it is quick and offers superb view of many beaches, bridges and rivers, all along a 50 km stretch. In Mangalore, one can visit the Someshwara Beach, Panamboor Beachor or proceed further to Udupi. In my opinion, one must stop at Mangalore to relish the culinary delights this place offers. From crispy, ghee laden masala dosas to snacks like biscuit Ambode, Mangalore bajji at Hotel Ayodhya(Kodiaballi) and Hotel Taj Mahal (Hampankatte) to rich and fine, yet very affordable ice creams at Ideal Ice Cream parlor outlets scattered through the city (an outlet exists in Hampankatte too), Mangalore has so much to offer to our taste buds that a day will not suffice.

Recharged with energy, one can alight a bus to Udupi and let the journey continue. As the conductors in private buses shout “ReReReRace”, the bus races down the highway and one reaches the temple city of Udupi in about 90 minutes. The Krishna Mutt founded by Saint Madhavacharya in the 13th century is the highlight of the town. Malpe Beach, about 10 km from Udupi bus stand, is a very pristine and scenic beach. Marked by lanes of coconut trees in fine, white beach sand, dotted with St Mary’sislands in a distance, this beach is truly different and definitely worth a visit.

Heading back to Mangalore to catch a train back to Bangalore will add immense value to your weekend getaway. Just pray that the night be amply moon-lit and you get/retain a lower berth. The train departs from the coastal town at 7.45 pm. The section beginning from Subramanhya road up to Hassan (from 10.05 pm– 12.10 am) through Bisle ghats offers an experience, totally awe-inspiring, wrapped with matchless elements of beauty mixed with proportions of eerie uneasiness. The train travels this stretch of 56 km, dotted by 58 tunnels (I counted 54), 109 bridges and 25 waterfalls at snail’s pace. On a moonlit night, the silhouette of the Ghats merges with the gray sky, with a cover of mist making the demarcations more obscure. Seated in the train, you ride over many bridges with swift rapids, deep gorges and valleys below. As you peek to get a view, through the iron bars of the window, you only wonder how one managed to create this broad gauge wonder at such an elevation and in such terrain. The periodic tunnels and bridges, the fierce roar of water underneath, the sheer depth of valleys, the awkward silence of woods interrupted by rail guards’ whistle sounds signaling the track’s OK condition offer a genuinely unforgettable 2-hour long adventure. It leaves one with a bundle of memories worth cherishing lifelong.

More Photos:

1) View of the berth extending into Arabian Sea at Bekal fort

2) View of bastions at Bekal fort

3) View of the rail bridge , confluence of Chandragiri river and Arabian Sea from atop the Chandragiri fort

Quick Notes: (The rates/tariff mentioned in the note below pertain to year 2009)

How to reach: KSRTC bus @9 pm from Kempa Gowda Bus terminus via Hassan (Bangalore – Kasargod). Board Kerala state buses to reach Chandragiri and Bekal forts (state buses maintain time and have only scheduled stops). Can hire an auto (for Rs. 200 inclusive of waiting charges) if visiting both Ananthpur and Madhur temples. Frequent private buses are available on Kasargod-Mangalore and Mangalore-Udupi routes. Auto from Udupi temple toMalpe beach will cost about Rs. 50 – 70. Getting back to Bangalore from Mangalore by train is the best option.However, there are KSRTC buses from Mangalore that ply toBangalore.

Where to stay (budget/ decent): Hotel City Tower, Kasargod – just a stone’s throw away from new bus stand with good restaurants nearby. Day2 - in Mangalore, can leave luggage @cloak room in railway station and roam around.

Where to eat: Hotel Taj Mahal, Ideal Ice Cream parlor (try out Gudbud, Parfait, Beehive, Tiramisu and many more for Rs. 30 - 45) – Hampankatte, Mangalore. In case, you visit the Udupi temple, don't miss out the free meals at the temple Bhojanashala, truly out of the world! Being a vegetarian, I regret being myopic, you have to figure out good options for sea food yourself.

Must see/ Not to Miss: Spend ample time at the fort’s berth in Bekal, fort timings 9 am-6 pm. Sunset atop Chandragiri fort (4.30 – 6 pm), many trains cross the rail bridge during this time. Tales of a solitary, vegan crocodile that resides in the lake at Ananthpur lake temple from the temple priest. Appam prasadham (sweet dish) at Madhur temple (Kasargod). Malpe beach at Udupi is a must-visit. Two-hour journey from Subramanhya road to Hassan in train to Bangalore – remain awake to catch the best of Western Ghats.

This Ramayana is not so Modern

2010-06-21T11:54:00.003+05:30

As a true Mani Ratnam fan, I eagerly awaited Raavan’s release. I chose to see the Hindi version first for the sake of Gulzar’s lyrics. Having heard the songs of Raavan (Hindi version) and Raavanan (Tamil version) for nearly a month or more, I felt Raavan sounded better, the lyrics fitted the music snugly without aberrations.

Theatre: Fame Shankar Nag Chitra Mandira, MG Road, Bangalore
Date and Time: June 20, 2010, 10.15 am
Ticket Price: Rs 80/per head

I am sure most readers would have either seen the movie or read multiple reviews from different websites by now. I have nothing new in my first paragraph in terms of content, just like the insipid first half of the movie – insipid in terms of script content. It is only the second half where the epic we so well know figures.

Dev Sharma (Ram/Vikram) is a top cop posted in Laal Mathi forest region, living happily with his dancer wife, Raaghini (Sita/Aishwarya Rai) till one day when Beera, the local outlaw, (Raavan/Abhishek Bachchan) abducts her. Hemant (Lakshman/Nikhil), another cop shares the tragic news of Raaghini’s abduction with Dev who sets out to settle scores with Beera, taking assistance from Sanjeevani (Hanuman/Govinda). Beera is all set to avenge the death of his dear sister played by Priya Mani fitting the role of Shoorpanaga but meekly submits to the beautiful, fearless lass – Raaghini during the course of 14 days hostage. Though he initially intends to kill Raaghini in 14 hours to teach Dev a tough lesson, his unbridled affection for her weakens him every time, costing him the life of his brother, Hariya, may be Mangal (played by Ravi Kishan, we are not sure what happens to him at the end, so we safely assume he’s dead), even worse, his own life at the end of the movie. Upon rescue, Raaghini is recommended a polygraph test by her husband to come out untainted, an Agni pariksha that sends her fuming.

Now where is Mani’s story in this, there is only Ramayana etched all over it. With such a threadbare script, when we feel Mani is all set to lose out, he roughly compensates by stunning visuals, superb editing, impeccable choice of locations, great music and background score, fantastically brave stunts. I guess no director will have an urge as strong as Mani to tap the beauty of Athirapalli falls, Malshej Ghats, Hogennakal and Orchha from such daring proximity. Without an original script, the film stands decent for a one time viewing majorly because Santosh Sivan, Sreekar Prasad, Peter Heins, AR Rahman and Gulzar, of course Mani Ratnam who brought them all together and extracted the best out of them.

If there is any bit of modernity/difference to the Ramayan we know, it is that Beera does not have evil lust and is superbly in control. He is a shade better than the Raavan we know. Dev is many shades darker than the Ram we know, in that he tells Raaghini things which Beera never said, misconstrues statements, kills Hariya when he is unarmed and out to negotiate peace, kills Beera ruthlessly, forgetting that only he saved him the day before. Raaghini is little more tilted in favor of Beera, must say bit more practical than our Sita, that upon suggestion of a polygraph test by her husband, she has the nerve to stop a chugging train in the middle of the ghats, take a bus and get back to Beera to question him on what he said about her, express her fondness in her eyes for him as he falls deep into the Ghats below. I would have lauded the climax if Raaghini too fell into the deep ghats along with Beera, then this Ramayan would have definitely been modern.

Mani is a tough taskmaster and he alone has the potential to make Abhishek Bachchan act and emote. I think if Abhi ever owed anybody, other than his father, for his presence in Bollywood, it’s definitely got to be Mani. Aishwarya has done her part well, though she messes in the end with her artificial loud laughter upon reunion with Dev. Habits die hard, is what we realize at that moment. Though Aishwarya dances well, thanks to Shobana’s training, God alone knows from where and how she gained a quintal kilogram.

Vikram scores well and definitely dons the role of a tough and not so good cop flawlessly. Mangal and Hariya, brothers of Beera (don’t ask me which of them is Kumbakarna/Vibhishana, there is no explicit correlation we can make) do their parts well. Govinda is my favorite in the movie. I was wondering how Mani ever imagined a role for him in his movie given the amusing performances he has provided teaming up with David Dhawan. Must say, Govinda is really good. Priya Mani stands tall and beautiful, very striking in the short role she performs. However, guess she has got branded for getting gang raped in movies, thanks to her stint in Tamil movie Paruthiveeran.

Music and background score mould the movie well. The trek up the Athirapalli falls in closest proximity to gushing water, the plunge into Hogennakal that Abhi takes in the prelude, the climax scenes atop the precarious bridge over Malshej ghats, the stunts in dense jungles where Beera’s men choke the cop vans’ petrol tanks with sugar and steal arms from police ground camps are superb, straightening most audience’s backs. Mani always chooses a contemporary political backdrop to weave the script; here he has chosen Maoist activities, their lawlessness, cops' attempts to curb them, acts of gunning down peaceful, unarmed tribals, raping women in custody etc which we read/hear in media. This movie is a must watch for our Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram, to understand the extent to which tribals are adept with jungles, how skillfully they move around and some flaws in the Indian police system where most times, policemen turn hooligans.

Verdict: Disappointed in that there is no original script, it is a huge letdown but the painful efforts taken by the team in shooting in such harsh conditions needs to be appreciated by a one-time viewing. Spend no more than 100 Rs and refrain from watching in multiplexes if you reside in Bangalore. Liked Mani’s Raavan, it is not as bad as Dil Se, and definitely not a masterpiece like Nayagan/ Kannathil Muthamittal, that’s all I can say.

If I could turn back time - Hampi Travelogue

2010-06-16T22:07:00.017+05:30

Prologue: I wanted to write this travelogue entry in Jan this year to commemorate 500 years of king Krishnadevaraya’s empire. This landmark event was celebrated in grandeur in Karnataka in Jan 2010. I penned down the article below for my office newsletter late March, now found the time to post it on my blog. A general advise - I request all to undertake a trip to Hampi, the seat of Vijayanagar empire, only in winter months (Oct – Dec) to avoid scorching heat of the sun.

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When Harihara and Bukka founded the Vijayanagar empire in Deccan plateau, back in 1336, they barely would have imagined this empire flourish as a strong conglomerate of four different dynasties – Sangama, Saluva, Tuluva and Aravidu dynasties, an era that marked the pinnacle in South Indian art, architecture and literature. It was under king Krishnadevaraya of the Tuluvu dynasty (1509-1529) that the empire reached its peak of prominence, many thanks to his administrative acuity, religious tolerance and his endless aegis to arts, architecture and literature.

Hampi, about 350 km from Bangalore, 13 km from Hosepet, now a world heritage site, is the capital of this renowned empire. The place teems with history and if one wishes to turn back time, revisit some magnificent examples of Vijayanagar architecture, nothing can parallel a 3-day visit to Hampi. There are KSRTC bus services to Hospet and Hampi and Hampi express, a daily train from Bangalore to Hosepet. While day 1 can be dedicated to visiting the Sacred centre, day 2 can be dedicated to visiting sites of the Royal centre at Hampi and day 3, for visiting TungaBhadra dam (at Hosepet) and Chitradurga fort en route Bangalore.

Virupaksha temple, the oldest temple in Hampi is the most prominent site and its giant gopuram (tower) overlooks the Hampi Bazaar. With Lord Virupaksha in the form of a linga in the inner sanctum, this temple with two courtyards has some important features - a tri headed Nandi statue, a 100 column mantapa in the first courtyard on left, a central mantapa with a view of the sanctum with intact mural art on its ceiling, a dark chamber behind the sanctum where an inverted shadow of the temple tower can be seen (pinhole camera effect). The Hampi Bazaar stretches from the Virupaksha temple to the monolithic bull statue and is flanked by shops, guesthouses and restaurants.

Adjacent to the Virupaksha temple is the Hemakuta hill with a cluster of temples. As one climbs the hill, one gets a better view of the Virupaksha temple tower. Descending the Hemakuta hill on the other side leads to Sasivekalu Ganesha, a monolithic in situ figure of Ganesha, round like a mustard seed. Nearby, is even bigger Kadalekalu Ganesha.
Figure below: From L to R – 1) Virupaksha temple tower 2) Hemakuta hill with shrines 3) Sasivekalu Ganesha 4) Tungabhadra river, view of Virupaksha temple Walking along the Hampi Bazaar Street, turning left before the monolithic bull takes one along the banks of Tungabhadra River to Kodandarama temple and Yantrodhara Anjaneya temple. Going ahead one hits the Achutharaya temple/Tiruvengalanatha temple, a grand example of Vijayanagar architecture with the wide Courtesan street in front of it and a stepped tank by its side. The courtesan street was then known for profuse trade in gems, pearls and ivory.
Figures below: Vittala temple & From L to R – 1) River side path leading to Achutharaya temple 2) Courtesan Street 3) Stepped tank 4) Inside Achutaraya temple

Getting back along the riverside path, one heads towards the Vittala temple observing the remains of Hampi bridge, Purandaradasa mantapa and Kings’ balance. Marking the apogee in temple architecture is the Vittala temple, our history textbook regular, bearing the Stone Chariot and the musical pillars mantapa. Walking back along the same riverside path brings us back to the Nandi, a point from where one can take a trek up the Matanga hill, the highest peak in Hampi to get a bird’s eye view.

Day 2 might witness some spill over from sites of the sacred centre. Up hill and down hill from Hampi Bazaar, turning left after crossing the Ganeshas, one reaches the Krishna temple. From here, one has to follow the road to Kamalapur via Chandikeshwara temple and Uddana Veerabhadra temples, en route the gigantic Lakshmi Narasimha statue, Badavalinga temple (monolithic Shiva Linga) and sister rocks to reach the Royal centre.

You get ready for the day's dose of architectural extravaganza of Vijayanagar empire when you see the board citing “Underground Siva Temple”. Taking the small dusty lane on left, you are at the threshold to the Royal centre that comprises the Mohammedan watchtower and mosque, Band tower, Danaik enclosure (mint enclosure), Vira Harihara palace ruins, Noble men quarters and Basement of palaces. As the dusty lane forks off, it leads one to the Zenena enclosure on the left, the Hazara Rama temple and Royal enclosure on the right.

Figure below: From L to R - 1) Lakshmi Narasimha statue 2) Band tower 3) Mohamaddan watch tower 4) Lotus Mahal 5) Elephant stables

The Zenena enclosure – royal women’s quarters comprises of some of the beautiful sites of Hampi – the Lotus Mahal, the royal treasury, the guard’s quarters and Elephant stables, all enclosed within broad, tall, stone wall compound marked with watch towers at the corners. Proceeding towards the Royal enclosure, one hits the Hazara Rama temple on the way, with scenes from Ramayana adorning the temple walls.
The Royal enclosure is as significant as Zenena enclosure for it confines structures like the King’s audience hall, underground chambers, several aqueducts, public bath, the stepped tank/Pushkarini and Mahanavami Dibba.

Figure below: From L to R – 1) Pushkarini in Royal enclosure 2) Mahanavami Dibba 3) Queen’s bath 4) View of Achutaraya temple from Matanga hill top

Leaving the Mahanavami Dibba and riding along the mud pathway away from these two enclosures, one arrives at the Queens’ bath, with projecting balconies built in Indo Sarcenic style. The dusty track merges with the main Hampi- Kamalapur road and one heads back to Hampi bazaar, carrying pictures of the many monuments, their architectural styles. There are patches of paddy fields watered by small canals on the way and there are huge rocks, heaps of boulders by the side of the Tungabhadra river, the landscape of Hampi offers myriad questions, as many in number as the architectural wonders, it offers for the human eye.

On day 3, one can pack the bags early after breakfast, cross the river to take a tour of Anegondi or leave Hampi, head to TungaBhadra dam in Hosepet. Before heading back to Bangalore, a trip to the Chitradurga fort (200 km from Bangalore), with seven concentric tiers of fortification built by the Nayaks, known for its many temples, watch towers, bastions and secret entrances, will definitely add an element of excitement and rack few muscles.
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Quick Tips
How to reach: KSRTC buses to Hospet and Hampi/Hampi express from Bangalore city junction to Hosepet
Where to eat: Hampi has many restaurants on the main bazaar street and its offshoots. Lot of hype surrounds a certain Mango Tree restaurant. In catering to foreign tourists, Hampi parallels Goa as the menu in most eateries covers everything from Tortillas, Momos, Pita bread, Falafel, Hash brown potato and Pancakes.
Where to stay: Innumerable guesthouses in Hampi near Virupaksha temple provide a comfortable option, rest houses in Virupappara Gadde (on the other side of TB River) are not preferable as ferry services stop at 6pm. Kamalapur and Hosepet hotels may be luxurious but not good options as commute to Hampi will eat away valuable time.
How to go around: Cycle, though it might get a little tiresome. Motor bikes are available and the best option. Please carry a valid ID proof to procure a cycle/bike. While walking to cover sites on day 1 is possible, walking to cover the Royal centre sites is an impossible option even in winter months. It is highly important to carry maps of Hampi sites to ensure you visit all of them without wastage of time.
For maps and more details, please refer to www.hampi.in
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