Kelaakai - long forgotten

They say that the taste and a name brings on long forgotten memories.

It was a long time ago, on the kolikadai street, adjacent

to the Dhoduswamy' s ancestral home in gugai, there was a small petti kadai , a lady selling u won't believe, strings of this kelaAkai all soaked in salt and chilli powder, coiled  on a saucer.

The other thing that lady sold was the ajii paangu mittai, that one could chew and chew and go on chewing till the taste lingers and the sweet melts in the mouth.

The elantha vadai was another of the fruit made into a paste with tamarind that could go great for an interval period between two classes.

The memories go long, and it got kindled last morning at the local market, when i enquired what it was, just hearing the name brought on all this and more.

I don't know the English term for it, or may be our men hid it from the English folks, as a reason to kick them out soon, lest they get hooked to this fruit, and stay for any reason to keep us in slavery.

The green ones are the original and the other colors are the breeds i guess for a change.

A water tap to quench a hunger pang

I was waiting to catch a train, with enough time to have a leisurely lunch on the platform.

Enjoying  the breeze that was,on the crowdless station ,i noticed an old man walk up to a drinking water tap and have a large long drink,  then i noticed  after some time he came back to the tap for another long drink, and then i knew it was no thirst to quench a parched lip.

Strange are the ways of attraction, i walked up and asked him if he would accept a drink of porridge blended with curd, that could be the most difficult moment for a man of richness, but i saw that and felt no pity or bigness as i was only going to share.

I gave him half my portion of the blended drink, and his appreciation was as good as mine later, after he finished his, he felt a oneness as this was what he  normally had at home.


He was on his way to a temple,being kicked out of home, for not being wanted.

He left a line," a dad  can  even take care of 10 children , but 10 children cannot take care of one dad".( he has two sons,and is now a vagabond)

Mushrooming banks with out the rains

Our village is not a village any more, with the spurting of so many banks,each one offering us, services beyond our means.

I have always wondered how could the bank officers get to get paid so much for our money transactions, and with such facilities and area.

It is our money,and we put and take away,how could they get so much benefit, there is something beyond the loans.

We have about 10 banks in our place now, the most recent is the State Bank of India.

The old adage " kadan vaangi maaadi veedu kataathey " i

s no longer applicable.

Loosing one s insanity at the sand pit

I was on the way to the market this morning, and there i saw this sand pit,with some bricks around,a usual site these days of construction work happening around.

What was unusual for these days was the kid in the pit having a dig and playing around.

This had always been a past time then,making tunnels or hillocks and hiding things to be found and such fun.

Vacations times were for this,I can imagine how one would roll over or ride buses of bricks with paved roads,and more words.

Seeing this kid brought back memories,and a sadness kids have no time for this or interest and no parents are interested in 

encouraging it .

May be if this is brought back,hidden things in the mind and sub conscious levels can surface,and heal many an insane child of the modern world with playing.

Nutritious snacks with the morning tea, at the village bench

This gentleman and his family,are serving the village with sprouted grams and  an assortment of pounded rice,with tea for the morning snack.

Many in this area start work from 4 am and they slowly start trickling in here to gossip and read the morning papers,by 7 am it is peak hours and by 8 , it is a stand still quietness.

He had some ailments for which he had recovered with his nutritional changes in his diet with other help, and wanted to share it to his customers.

Sea salt, cold pressed oil and whole wheat buns ,are the other changes he wants to make permanent, in the changes he has made silently already.

Thanks to him and his family for this healthy move for the welfare of the village folks.

A garbage dump for holy pictures

Many a new picture of holiness and soul satisfying contour, gets to be added at home or work stations, and where will the old pictures go?

hidden at dark corners,
left standing where they are,
sent away to praying spots,
but never thrown away .

This is what has happened to this pyramid , it seems to attract many a picture that has served the family for soul support,mental health or preventing an insanity and more capacities of well being.

I who seem to find this pyramid a place of wonder , find this a garbage dumping ground of nervous wrecks who are scared of hurting dieties or too guilty of themselves to throw away,yet not throw away, a family heritage.

I am reminded of a zen story , when a master was found burning a wooden statue of Buddha on a cold night , and scolded, he was then looking for the bones of Buddha

in the wood.

What ever it is a disgrace to destroy the sanctity of the pyramid with our holy pictures, which do not belong there.

Doctors were treated as GOD, and they continue to act as that

In our village, a doctor is next to the deity in a temple, it is not for the subjects that he has studied, but for his acts that are done at times of disasters in health .

 I have always felt that it was a treatment we did not deserve,for it would unnecessarily make us go heavy in the head.

It would separate us at home too with the professional status continuing to act in the subconscious.

Reading  on God, i have found many an expansion, and i liked two,
1  it just means  "that which is" , no objectivity , but a present moment.
2  G - generator , o  - operator  , d  - destroyer.

My god this sure got me thinking if the health care workers were looked on as this in the modern world , it would be scary to take on that title and role.

Like a clause to many a bill that is passed, i shall add a link on vaccines.

Many a fertility clinic is cropping up, as the happy couples cannot seem to bring on issues, i did read on quite a few, and the link on this opens up more regions to explore.

http://www.naturalblaze.com/2013/07/vaccines-can-cause-infertility.html

Shhhhh - cancer is a taboo word.

In our village  there are a few things which are not discussed in open, one is sex and the other is death, but now another thing is added as a side track of death and that is cancer.

The number of deaths in our village due to cancer has become so much noticeable

, that folks are asking why,where and how?

Any thing and every thing is hacked and repackaged , but this is never out, as it is mysterious and threatens everything, and brings on darkness.

The scientific world is and has been trying to track it, but we are happy with the few survivors, other wise we could be as ignorant of it as the public.

Many have their own researches, and with time may be they would all come out with their findings and save mankind.

There are some secrets from the virus in the tobacco, and other virus that cause a contamination and cause  cancer, who knows u may find your own links, and spread the truth.

Find the causes and halt spread cancer.

Bitter gourd helps to keep away worries of sweetness

The news on the screen told me that the seeds of the bitter gourd helps a diabetic and some one got interested in marketing them, only to find himself chased for his good fortune, of making the folks healthy by the companies

Strange , but it sure is confusing with the text booking and study of the marketing world even for health care, with the MBA degree everything becomes a business.

The morning marketing found me attracted to the small kutti kutti bitter gourds, and with no bargaining for the double palm full for a sum of 10 rupees, i returned after picking up other things .

The afternoon lunch  was goody with millet balls and the bitter gourd curry, rice, rasam and curd .

Pineapple slices were wonderful  before the lunch itself .

The bitterness is adjusted with the addition of jaggery, try them tomorrow.

Their preservatives are ( our ) killers

Cancer is a taboo word in our village, yet it is slowly surfacing to be discussed at village gossips spots like the tea shop benches and dark low brick walls parkers called as "thinnais".

It is as mysterious as it is for scientists, but with practicalness, as what has happened to us that we are being given this, the village elders and working middle class all seem to be affected .

There are no very high and low class, all are middle here.

Every thing seems to boil down to food , with few side channels .

A happy healthy home is one which has its folks spend much time and thought regarding to food and its preparations.

Now  food preparations are not a topic for discussion , unless it has come up on the tv screen with  some one else trying out our local dishes.

Any food that does not get spoil t soon , needs to be looked at with caution, we had seen some pictures of them here made at fast food joints and  forgotten and seen again after months still in tact and not smelling.

The things that are used to keep away the fungus and other scavenging things of nature, are our cancer causing chemicals , reading them may scare u too, my words are just to get u to search them to become  more aware of our Health.

If u want a clue for the start, try sodium benzoate.

http://wholefoodrealfoodgoodfood.com/sodium-benzoate/

A trio at a tricycle

Most cyclist start at the tricycle to become competitors of games or artists at a circus,may be the ones i saw through  my camera lens would go to be one of them one day

It was another of those cool breezy afternoons at  the temple grounds, and the entertainment was a kid being given a ride on his own tricycle, as he had not yet found the clue to make the pedal turn with his feet.

It was an up and down trip with their grand mother at the closer end , watching them with an eye of caution,lest they run to fall , which in-spite

it happens as there are no brakes and no speed breakers.

All in all it was a single race competition, and the  finish line was me with a trophy as a click and a smile.

Loosing our lunacy to the full moon

They say that the word lunacy come from the lunar - moon, it has been blamed as one that brings on those effects in a person.

It is like the broom being  blamed as the cause of  the collection of dirt in a room.

May be that is one reason why our fore fathers decided to  get one to do exhaustive physical work on those days, so that the lunar effects could be channeled to a sweat and its mental effects not noticed, and still bring on an inner cleansing.

A walk around a hillock or a self proclaimed  project, on those days.

Strange but good reasoning,  better than being taken to a psychiatrist or for an exorcism  through an exorcist, or more things, of subjugation

May we get to use the loony days of full moon, for the beneficial effects of  liberating hidden resources within, by mystics who have worked on such channels.

Tied - to be free

It was a walk along the country side, and the scenes was picturesque, but one thing caught my lens and that was a kid tied to his waist with a rope to a window sill.

Something just seemed out of order, there was even a comment later, "the child is tied and the dog is let loose."

The families of old had a string of offspring , the elder child always  baby sitting the younger ones, may be this child is the first in the family and the next is on the way .

I have even heard of workers giving a dot of opium to the kids and sending them off to a blissful sleep while they worked, but this sure caught me .

Recalling i  have heard stories that i was an infant vagabond loafing the neighborhood

during my days, and my mom used to tie me up to that window bar too, limiting my area of spread to a radius of a few meters.

What ever, the children of now are so quick and hyper active that they cannot be contained in a play pen, or tied by a rope, may they be allowed to roam and bring on their creativity for the benefit of the world and the comfort of us all.

A dialogue with a crow

It was another of those days of wonder and travel, waiting at a station for the train,they all seem to be running to time these days.

There was this waddling child, careless and free, seeing things with multi - senses, and yet alert.

It seemed to be talking to itself and making faces, and then we noticed there perched on the iron rails on the top was a crow.

The crow seemed to carry on the flow, as it has found one who could reciprocate its feelings, without shooing it away , and  not imitating its own non- voco chordal

sounds.

This went on for some moments, and looked like they had settled to carry on  later as they had got some audience with disturbance.

I wonder where we had lost this rapport we had, on our way to knowledge and degrees of certificates.

May be there could be a way of getting it back, and yet retain the sciences.

Down to earth water dowser

The modest dowser for water had arrived 10 minutes before the auspicious hour , he had got the traditional lime and his " y " shaped dowsing twig and incense sticks, and camphor.

After a ritualistic prayer of a minute, the dowser started to move with his twig and lime attached by means of a small rope smeared with turmeric.

Within a minute at a space of a few steps the lime started to twirl on a circumference, and  wow it stopped as quickly as it started , like the movement of  the needle on a meter reading.

Moving up and down the plot on his feet he seemed to be in thought and he asked us to identified some spots with a collection of stones.

Finally he selected a spot, rammed down an identification metallic length, said u will get water at 200 feet, go further till u can , good supply and may u use it without waste.

He collected his fee and away he went.

He said he will return when the bore well machine comes and will confirm his findings then.

Such swiftness and his findings are never wrong, he had been for my building a decade earlier , and now for this cousin of mine.

He has nothing to confirm his qualification for this , no family tradition, no meditations , nothing of speciality , just his being.

hot dogs to cool cucumbers

I have always wanted to taste the hot dogs ever since i have seen them in comic strips and western sites, we dont get them in our place so it was the way it was.

This afternoon while getting the cucumbers and plantains ready for lunch , a sudden wave came, so  the shots and the words.

It is the season of cucumbers and i have been told it is best to slice them north south than at the equator rings, with the lime , or plains , they are cool

The plantains are like i said earlier , a fruit for the every day man, goes great with the bread too.

Masterpieces on the road

The pongal morning finds our village streets with colourful rangoli kolams, i walked our street and had taken a few snaps.

It is a sharing event, the kids, mom, grannies and aunts all take up , to bring on a colour to the designs.

A measure full of onions from the heart - for a price

The early morning slanting rays of the sun, was just trying to get to her serene face at the vegetable market, the lady selling onions was an elderly  person with a pyramid of small onions for sales.

I had just crossed her and looking at the onions , it seemed a rapport was built in a second and was pulled to purchase them .

Like all purchases it was made in a matter of  a few minutes with the lady making enquiries of home ,and adding more onions as a gift from her palms, after some ooing and aaahhhing i left to make a few words and share the feelings of the onions, the buyer and seller to all.

A washing with whiteness for the season

The white washers were two women of the neighbourhood  and they were came in with a  balancing hook to white wash our home.

A preliminary sack of white lime was got with the sticking fevicol and royal blue to add a blue ting.


  A few buckets of water to mix , the women went to work with our utility man Palaniswami, whom i had written about some time back, a man of all seasons, to help them .

Up they went on to the rungs of the ladder and , it was so nice to see the whitening come on to the dirty walls, as they broomed it with the liquid lime .

Chewing the pan in between to keep them active, the women gossiped and by evening the simple home was made pious and pure of its walls.

masalaed beans curry for the margali winter

Sitting lazily,gossiping and peeling the beans of the season can be a wonderful time of togetherness, for those who do not have the betel pan chewing habit of romancing.

This is the season of this variety of beans, that floods the market, and each home has its own way of preparing them .

We had them peeled and soaked over night to decap them, the next morning

We had the spicy gravy type of the curry made,with all the masala powders blended together, and made in the traditional pot,it goes great with rice,with no left overs for the evening or the next day .