Unveil the Other Side

I had a post on this festival last year : Sankranti 2011 So I thought I would not post anything about the significance of the festival. But then why do we have another post with the title Sankranti? Somethings cooking!! yeah really.... Yes Indeed. Sankranti Special this year at home - Rice flour sukha roti and 3 layered kaju katli/Barfi. Rice flour sukha roti : Ayyo! the recipie is not as complicated as the name goes.It is plain and simple. A dough made from rice flour mixed in boiling water with a pinch of salt. Make small ball of them by smearing a few drops of oil on your palms.Roll them softly and gently after a tap on rice flour. Put the roti on the tawa kept on a medium flame for about a minute on one side . Turn it on the other side.Using a spatula hold the roti right over the flame without the tawa so that the roti pops out nice and fluffy. 3 layered Kaju Katli/Barfi: For those of you who had watched the Masterchef India episodes of season 2 the name of the dish may sound fami...

On a casual thursday afternoon, Friend 1 : The roads were crowded today. So I logged in late. Me : Hey today it is Hanuman Jayanti.. That might be the cause. Friend 1 : Oh Yeah in Orissa its Guruvaar(Thursday). My expression :/ and I blurped out : Oh madamji its Guruvaar throughout not just Orissa ... Well she meant it was the Lakshmi pooja that they perform on all the Guruvaars/ Thursdays in this particular month. And that day being the last one of the month is supposed to be auspicious and celebrated with zest and fervor. A good piece of information it was, received in a hilarious way. On searching the net for more, here's what I extracted. The whole month of Margashira is spent in worshipping the Goddess Lakshmi in Orissa.The festival is known as "Manabasa Gurubara" or "Lakshmi Puja" which is performed by the housewives. This festivities include the houses getting cleaned and purified with the plastering done using cow dung, a jhoti[rangoli design] drawn usin...

Today's travel to office was different than usual. No, I am not talking about the weather. It was still the same bright and sunny day here in Bangalore, though we've already hit December. The time I commute these days have been shifted from wee hours (according to this generation - 7 am) to sunny afternoons (12:30 pm), an arrangement made as per my work requirement. What made this day's commute special by the way? Good news!! for new work time I get a company transport:). wohoooh!! I am the first one to be picked up which means the last one to be dropped as well :( However my cab driver, "Babu" who is a localite talks about various essence of life and keeps the momentum going (actually from his perspective). I try to provide my opinions and views whenever possible. This way we learn, share ideas and increase our knowledge. Topics range from Current affairs to an affair between two film stars:) ha ha ha! Today, as we crossed one of the major traffic junctions, Babu...

Budai in folklore is admired for his happiness, plenitude, and wisdom of contentment. One belief popular in folklore maintains that rubbing his belly brings wealth, good luck, and prosperity. Budai is traditionally depicted as a fat bald man wearing a robe and wearing or otherwise carrying prayer beads. He carries his few possessions in a cloth sack, being poor but content. He is often depicted entertaining or being followed by adoring children. His figure appears throughout Chinese culture as a representation of contentment.His image graces many temples, restaurants, amulets, and businesses. He is almost always shown smiling or laughing, hence his nickname in Chinese, the Laughing Buddha. Here is my version of Budai:

Our locality which comprised of 30 homes or less 2 decades ago has turned into a full-fledged layout with over 200 homes and families. Back then, a group of young , energetic and enthusiatic minds churned out an idea - A youth Association. Basically we (the entire locality folks) meet once a year and spend a day with lots of fun.A lot many faces have come and gone in these years, but the enthusiasm remains. This post is all about the cultural activities we organize every year in our locality. Ahhh!This year the day started off with the routine pooja followed by the games for elders - Uncles and Aunties (as we refer them as), concurrently running painting and essay writing competitions for kids. Dumb charades followed by Antakshari for youngsters. There was fun everywhere. A stress free day between the stressful life was what I had been waiting for and la here it was. Lunch was a balance of masalas - Bisi bele Bath , curd rice and the special delight - mysore pak . Evening was a mix o...

G l a s s P a i n t i n g ! I am obsessed with a new art work of-late and that's of course kept me pretty much occupied over the last couple weeks . I dont repent about it as I know my precious time was spent in something really useful. Before I proceed further I'd like to share with you some research I made to find out the origin of the Art of Glass painting. "The origins of the first stained glass windows are lost in history. The technique probably came from jewelry making, cloisonné and mosaics. Stained glass windows as we know them, seemed to arise when substantial church building began. Before recorded history, man learned to make glass and color it by adding metallic salts and oxides. These minerals within the glass capture specific portions from the spectrum of white light allowing the human eye to see various colors. Gothic stained glass windows are a complex mosaic of bits of colored glass joined with lead into an intricate pattern illustrating biblical stories a...

I will not bore you all with the facts about this festival cause there is plenty of information about it on the net( Wiki ). Here I like to describe how Onam was for me this year. Though had heard a lot about Onam from my Mallu friends, I witnessed the real spirit of Onam at office this year. Main highlights - officially declared to be a traditional day and a competition for vegetable carving . Well before you guess anything more. No I did not participate. Now that I have seen so many great artists , glad that I did not compete :). Some pictures I'd love to share(some captured by me and some not) . They are very interesting ,have a look. This was the welcome each employee recieved at the reception in office - Pookolam(Rangoli of flowers). The first prize winner - A beautifully carved "Eco system"! The typical Kerala Onam scene - Boat race won the 2nd place Another Carving of a pookolam out of vegetables An interesting scene from Kerala. It was fun to watch ...

Say primary school or exams - it brings back memories of lot of fun filled activities along with the normal syllabus. Languages, Basic math,science and social studies are the ones included in the normal stream. The ones out of this are - General Knowledge, moral science, story telling, project work - these become the building block for a child's growth in a complete way. Last week an evening as I returned home, a neighbour's kid was waiting for me the enitre afternoon for help.He needed guidance to complete his project work. The school had come up with a concept to bring the creativity out of a child's mind.It goes this way - use the waste materials and create something useful - Socially useful and productive work(SUPW). SUPW is another learning area falling under the non-scholatic domain - This ensures that the students develop better understanding of their social and environmental issues. It also encourages students to take up varities of activities,which are productive a...

Today was one of those monotonous mornings, however with a surprise element. On our way to office, sis and myself happened to sight an individual riding a 2 wheeler. As this person was ahead of us at first we could just see from the back. We started debating on whether it was a he/she for obvious reasons. We had to halt at the signal with the seconds counting down from 120 (Yes! some traffic signals are a complete 2 minute wait here in Bangalore) and our converstation continued. Look at that neatly permed long hair - I definitvely said it should be SHE . After a moment I noticed the way he/she was sitting and riding the bike - pretty straight and macho - I redefined my statement and said it was a HE for sure. Now, with a body hugging Tee and a skin tight jeans which had a floral print on the pockets. - What do you say I questioned? - Both me and sis in chorus said "It's a SHE" . (Also to add the helmet worn was so girlish!) The seconds blink 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 .. and we zo...

Kruti was blessed with wonderful parents and she got the best of everything in life. Education, extra-curricular activities like dance, singing, painting, skating - she was a brilliant kid all through and now grown into a beautiful young, intelligent girl. The statement "Beauty and Brains" fit the highly ambitious sweet girl aptly. Ramu kaka's ginger tea is the key ingredient to start her day with the lingering freshness. Aroma of the chai kept her going all day through. Excellency in all fields, specially remarkable academics recognition landed her in a high profile job. Living her dream in a city that offered the best of bests, she couldn't have asked for more. Roshan Joshi, her immediate boss, appreciative of her achievements, proposed a new opportunity abroad, only if she was interested. Kruti's response was immediate and negative. She did not want to leave the city that gave her everything in life. Roshan respected her decision, quit the proposal. As she mo...

It was a normal day when I was doing my usual work at office. A known tune started ringing on my cell phone. Without even checking the number/name flashing on the phone I knew it was from home - [Ring tone is set to the song " masakkali masakkali "] Dad on the other end wanted step by step procedure to logon to my laptop and then he needed to logon to gmail. We've (Sis and me)been telling him to learn this bit from quite some time now. Not that he is unaware of the keys,he does have first hand experience working with Url's and other computer basics while he was in his tenure. But this techie stuff is something that doesn't get onto his heads now at this age within a go. I proudly admire his attempt to learn and excel it. Now, it was a day when sis was still in Australia and Dad wanted to catch her online. Why now? Can we do it tomorrow .- Asked I. No we have some relatives at home, so it would be nice if we can get her online now - came the respone. ( Some relati...

Last evening my cousin sister came home with her son Samarthan . He is a darling, smart, handsome cutie pie. Today the generation of kids go " out of the box " to figure out the world better. Their questions range from the degree of embarassment to technically not possible to answer kinds, serious to fun. Most of them are so very curious to know about developments happening at home to what is rocket science all about ???... Aaahhhh! Kids to be Kids but sometimes they behave like a grandpa and grandma when they start with their set of questions - Why? What? Who? When? How?Where? ... My dear nephew is no exception. As soon as I reached home ,parked the car and stepped out to greet him a smiling "hiiiiiiiiiii...." . He was waiting at the gate and was eager to reveal how he landed at our house telling all the modes of transport he had used to reach his destination - our home. His words literally went like this: Me: "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii... Samarthan"...

A friend of mine has been a keen observer when it comes to computers and technology. Today afternoon he told me something about his observations, which usually goes unnoticed by majority of us, but indeed he was cent percent true - so is this post up here in my blog. This funny friend turns around states aloud : " When they can't find a right suitable match for this girl for more than a year now, how can they find one for me????". We were all as confused as you are at this point of time. How many of us give attention to those tiny pop ups that pops up on our computer screen when we open up a browser for searching a piece of code, or to watch something online, or to connect with the social friends or something different. Everyone would have come across the advertisement sections in most of the pages we browse, but we give little or negative attention to these details. However this Gentleman, a friend of mine , about an year ago opened up Yahoo homepage and guess wha...

This happened yesterday afternoon when a colleague sitting next to my desk dialled a number on the landline AND.... ( I could hear what this Colleague XYZ was speaking of, however the dialogues from the other end is assumption thats been made based on the context. My intent was not to overhear the conversation. I had just then returned from the pantry with a cup of hot cappuccino in my hand and while sipping it away,each word delicately slipped into my ears. It wasn't intentional at all! ) The conversation started off like this. Colleague : "Hello , this is XYZ calling and I hold a credit card from your bank" Bank rep: "Hi XYZ, This is MNP , how could I help you with that?" Colleague : "Actually I have this card with me from about 2 years now and I have not used it at all. I want to close this card" Bank rep: "Sure sir, could you please hold on for a minute ?" Colleague : "yeah!" : His face goes straight when the music ...

Can anyone beat the Movie-4 challenge ? This was a target set by my cousin and myself long ago. Years have rolled by but we illustrate this achievement of ours very proudly whenever someone says he/she has just comeout from a movie marathon. How did this all start ? Well when I entered my 10th standard - board exams around the corner,there was a kannada movie of this hero named Ramesh Arvind - the then super hero of industry. It was " Antargami " - a story about a girl and her psychological illness. I am not sure why did I ever make it to that movie inspite of my preparatory exams falling the upcoming week. Cousin,her mom(Aunt) and myself had ended up there on a saturday matinee show. Mom had not watched the movie in which my cousin had acted and so she walked into the neighboring theatre where the show was on.The shows ended at around 1:15pm I guess and we still had time to make it for the classique - " Dil toh pagal hai ". This was our actual movie plan. But ...

[ A home where everyone loves and cares pets is something I have been blessed with. Some incidents I have been hearing for years now of the pets who belonged to our family way before I was born inspired me put down an whole tributed article about them. Every time when the story is told I picturize each of their pranks and deeds. There was a cat that was brought from the legend of Kannada saahitya " Gopalakrisha Adiga's " house . Do you know what the cat was named as ? - Venkataramana , not a name given in our household, it was the legend himself who had this passion for cats and named it so. There was a Boxer by name " Ali" . He was one of the best dog at home to this day as per what has been heard of his deeds. Can you imagine a dog bringing an egg from the shop holding in its mouth without causing a single crack. Wow I would want to watch him do that again. He would play with my cousin who was a kid then - the games he played - hide and seek , b...