Washington DC

Lincoln Memorial

Washington Monument

Capitol Washington DC

Arlington Cemetery

Aerial view of The Mall

Well I have been wanting to write about the places I visited while in US and only now the 'mood' has come.
My husband joined me in my trip to US in Baltimore where I had gone to visit anu. This place is an hour or so from the Capital of The United States. I had visited DC few years back when anu was in North Carolina. The Smithsonian museums is the greatest attraction in DC. I visited the place around Smithsonian on my earlier visit but could see the Halocaust museum which is set in memory of Jews who underwent the hardships and ordeals under Nazis. It took quite some time to come back to normalcy after seeing the tortures though in pictures and documentaries, they underwent.
This time being so near DC I wanted to see the places in a leisurely pace.
Hubby and me went to the places for three days in a row. It was an hour's journey by train to DC from Baltimore. The places around the Capitol are very near the train station. There is a well connected underground trains to go from one place to another. Capitol is the Parliament of US of A and it is an imposing building. Great architecture. The road which stretches from Capitol to the Washington Memorial is called The Mall and it is a beautifully laid out road which can be seen from both these buildings which are constructed atop hillocks. Both sides of these roads are full of museums which are generally known as Smithsonian's. Lots of trees and water fountains and Statues, flower beds are laid in these areas. We had lot of time and had taken some home cooked food which we ate under the trees which became an impromptu picnic.

This time I decided to get inside those two majestic buildings. When we inquired about that, to my surprise we could get the entry pass to both the places immediately as it was a week day. Every one hour there is a conducted tour and we got our passes for a particular time and we could roam about till that hour around the mall. The best part about this is the whole thing is free of charge including all the museums of Smithsonian's which is very unlike America where even to go near a small waterfall they charge a fee.
Capitol tour was so overwhelming and I could recall seeing the Parliament House in New Delhi. It has beautiful Frescoes on the inside of the circular doom roof . we could go into the gallery where the sessions of parliament are normally held. The House was not on Session and we just sat for a few minutes in the upper gallery.

Washington Memorial is a tall pyramid shaped building which is built in the memory of President Washington. We were taken by lift up the building to the uppermost level from where we could see the views of DC all around us. I could recognize so many places which I had seen earlier including the Potomac river which I had read about in the Tamil comedy drama 'washingtonil tirumanam' by 'Chavi'
I could see the old town ship of Alexandria where we had gone earlier evening and taken a boat ride on the river. It had such a old worldly charm.
I could see the Arlington Memorial Cemetery about which I had read in the books about American Civil war. This I had visited the previous day. This place had belonged to the Confederate Commander General Lee whose house is Arlington House where he lived before the Civil War for 30 years. This is now part of the Arlington memorial park which is the resting place for the soldiers. Every hour in a given place which is called the Memorial of the unknown Soldier, ceremonious change of guard takes place. We sat and witnessed that. Many many rows and rows of crosses can be seen from the bus which we took to go around the park. We saw the resting place of President Kennedy and his family. We were told to maintain the serenity of the atmosphere, as even now there are memorial services/burials are being held there for dead soldiers. This reminded me of the Chinese Cemetery in Malaysia called Nirvana where a beautiful atmosphere is maintained and acres and acres are maintained well and many people reserve there resting place while living. It has a big Dragon shaped building inside which lots of urns are kept under locker as it is a custom for certain Chinese to preserve the remains of dead in urns.

We walked around the Smithosinan's but had time only for the Natural History museum which has the exhibit the Hope Diamond which was found in Golconda. This is the museum which has so much of information about our planet and some how I never get bored even after visiting it twice.
We did not have time to visit the Air and Space museum which is the most popular museum around there. I had seen it on my earlier visit years back and seen the space ship and other exhibits.
The Lincoln memorial has a big Statue of President Lincoln. I just stood looking at it wondering how he managed to bring the Civil War to an end and how he was the starting point of Free America and brought an end to slavery though it was not his intention. He wanted an United America rather than an America free of Slaves.
We just walked near the White house and stood gaping at it. They have stopped admitting public inside the white House.
I vowed to come back to this place again and see as many museums as possible in my next visit.

Santa Barbara

Here I am living in one of the lovely places in US of A. This is the first time I am living in Sunny California. The weather I am told is the best in the whole of the Country. It is Sunny, but not hot or humid. Cool breezes keeps blowing in spite of the Sun. We live very near the beach. Just 5 minutes drive from the beach.

This is a suburb called Goleta in Santa Barbara. I have always associated humidity with any beach and this one is very different. The beach itself is not big, but the view is fantastic with so many curves and cliffs can be seen from the beach. The water is also not pristine blue but muddy and also dirty with lot of sea weeds. The town is not very big but very neatly spread out with one storey houses (two levels). I am told that there is restriction in building more than one floor, so even the banks and the hotels are not the multi storey buildings but just one level or two levels.

The time of my visit being summer I see lot of flowers and what I see is big 'arali' plants with lovely white and pink and magenta colours. I don't know what it is called in English it is called as 'kanigale hoova' in Kannada. I have seen so many of this bush back home and also in KL where I have one plant in my little garden which, with so much care gives one or two flowers a day. This flower is sold in India as it is used in 'pooja'. These bushes have to be seen to believe it is this flower as the bush which stands on the side of the road is full of flowers completely hiding the bush itself.

I see lot of Eucalyptus trees and also healthy hibiscus shrubs.

Anand's one room first floor apartment overlooks a tree which has a mapelish kind of leaf. I can see the tree from the kitchen window and it is as if it is saying 'hello' to me every morning. He has a small kitchen garden in his balcony where he has planted some cherry tomato plants and also some ladies finger plants. The cherry tomatoes have started yielding where as the other plants does not look as if it is going to yield. I was so thrilled to pluck some eight little tomatoes and use it for my cooking and the dish also turned out so well.

Santa Barbara has a beach which is about half an hour drive from here and it is a tourist centre. The whole place looks like an European town and I need to go by walk in those roads where there are malls which look like some old building. No modern high rise buildings are called Malls which I am so used to in Malaysia, I would like to go and see those shops. I am told the wares are quite expensive over there and so I would like to do some window shopping.

A mountain range over looks this little town and there are few houses dotted in the lower level of this mountain range. We went to a Vedanta Centre which was in such a place . It turned out to be a place which has a meditation hall and the centre is formed by was followers of Ramakrisha Paramahamsa. The hall had a serene atmosphere where no external sound was there being in the middle of no where and it was a good experience to sit there and meditate.

Latest journey to US

Well I am back in US for holidays this time to the West. This time we tried a different airlines Delta airways operated by China airlines. (called co sharing). I was kind of apprehensive about the airlines thinking it might not be good. We had changed over to this option since it was cheapest in this sector that is KL to LA.

While checking in itself there was some delay since the computer systems were down. Suddenly there was a flurry of activities and some personnels from Air china appeared and helped clear the queue. This flight was going to LA via Taipei (Taiwan). The passengers going to Taipei were checked in first and also passengers without any check in baggage and of course first class passengers. I waited patiently(!) in the side lines and was checked in after some time what they called mannualy. I was little worried about my check in baggage. In this milee my luggages were not weighed and just got checked in. Though I had heavy luggages I knew I was well within the limit allowed to me. There was a big queue even after I checked in.

I casually went in after having the customary milk shake in the Mcdonald's thinking the flight will be delayed due to the confusion outside. When I went to the gate I could see that people had already started boarding the plane. The China airlines staff helped me change my seat numbers which was not given next seats for me and Tejas intially. They changed the numbers for the onward flight from Taipei too. We got very comfortable front seats with lot of leg space which I needed badly as I had hurt my toes earlier and the doc had said it has to heal by itself with rest. Tejas was very happy to see a tv terminal next to his seat with facility to play games. I had told him not to expect that! The service and the interiors of plane was very good and I was impressed.

I was pleasantly surprised that contrary to my expectations the service and the airline was quite good and efficient in spite of being the cheapest. I was given some good vegetarian meal too.
We landed in Taipei from where we had to take on the next flight to LA. The airport was so clean and good it left me the usual longing within me 'when we are going to go any where near these international airports.' I had taken some food with me, for tejas and myself which we ate while waiting.
This second flight was a bigger one a Jumbo and the service was equally good if not better. When we both refused food , the airhostess was really concerned! She offered us some fruits and juices . I have not seen this concern in any airlines for quite some years now.
I found there was a hindi cinema also in the video section of the flight.

Comparitively the journey was shorter than I normally undertake since I was not taking any connecting flight in LA.
We landed in LA and again there was some 'system down' this time with the immigration. I was almost in front of the queue and so we just stood there staring at the immigration officers. After about an hour or more we could come out.

Tejas helped me all through in taking and moving the hand luggage in the escalators and walkalators in the airports and also in loading the check in luggage to the trolley. He has indeed grown into a big boy.
At last I came out and could see anand waiting for us with a big grin. We travelled another one and half hours by road to reach his place. By now I had lost count of time and any way it was night and so I could go to sleep and hence lucky did not get into the trap of jet lag this time. I have started my stay in this lovely place, Goleta in Santa Barbara.

Dasavatharam

Yes this is about The film Dasavatharam. I saw this movie this week end with hubby and Tejas. It is a technically very well made movie and one should see this at least once in the big screen at least for the great efforts put in by one man(ten show). We both like Kamal's movies and mainly we like his comedies. Mostly his comedies will be from the dialogues (ala crazy Mohan) and one should be attentive to the conversation among the characters. The best example of this was his Mumbai Express. Not for him the crude way of making people laugh by a person getting hit by all and sundry and obscene body movements. But unfortunately majority of cine goers seem to like the crude presentation of comic situations.
Coming back to this film, his acting is excellent especially as the Andhra Police Officer. This character is presented as typical Kamal comedy movie type character and the situations where he comes are quite hilarious. The heroine Asin has also acted quite very well. Tejas was enjoying the movie trying to recognize the different Kamals and counting and not ending up with the figure ten and finally when I told him about one of the character, his comment was ' oh was that also Kamal, no wonder I could not get to 10'. Of course the credit should go to the make up artist.
I really hope the movie runs well. I am sure the audience will be there first to see what is so great about it but I am not sure whether it will attract repeat audience which seals the fate of any movie especially big movies.
Kamal looked the best as the 12th Century Vaishnavite in the first few scenes.
Hats off to that man for trying out something so different.

Train Journey

I had the opportunity of traveling by Day Train yesterday from Johor Baru to KL.
Vinu and Family were visiting us. He had rented a car from Johor which is about 365 kms from here . Singapore is just across Johor and if you cross the Cause way the other side is Singapore.
Jayashree had to go back on Sunday night itself and Vinu stayed on. He started back on Tuesday morning. I did not want to miss an opportunity of going on a long drive with my Sonny Dear. The road from KL to Johor is excellent and the drive is always most enjoyable. I had never had the opportunity to go on a long drive with Vinu. I told him I would come with him to keep him company instead of him driving all the way alone. But the question arose as to how I would come back. Hubby dear came to the rescue and said that there is a train starting from Johor at around 4 p.m. which reaches K.L. by 10 p.m. and got me a ticket in the chair car.
All set and we started around 10.40 a.m. Poor kid of mine could not go very fast as we had plenty of time and we had to keep the speed limit to 110 kms which is the normal speed allowed. The roads are so nice that it is very tempting and many a cars just go at speeds more than the allowed limit. We had a lovely journey and had a picnic lunch I had taken in one of the resting areas which is built along the North South Express Way which is what the high way is called.
We returned the rental car and my sonny dear put me in the train and left for Singapore from Johor.
I have traveled from Singapore to K.L. by train quite a few times but never in day time. Once the train started moving I realized the scenic beauty around the Railway track was very very beautiful. I could see some thick palm trees and suddenly there were many banana trees and then there was some patch of dragon fruit garden and then some small streams were flowing. The train was mainly passing through Green Vegetation and not through towns. I had some magazines with me and I was looking out of the glass window from time to time trying to see if I could recognize any of the plants which had grown in plenty.
The train was going quite slow as the Railway system is not that good as compared to the Roads here. I was thinking it could be made into such a tourist attraction if fast trains with lovely coaches could be run from KL to Singapore.
The train reached an hour late but still I did not feel bored at all and was relaxed for a change enjoying the journey.
I was not at all tired and felt as if I had just gone for a lovely ride and back home.
Another thought also came to my mind. I was wondering if I could have done the same in India starting from Bangalore house to Chennai at around 10. 30 a.m. and reaching Bangalore by the night. At this point of time it is impossible to even think of such a thing as it would take 2 hours just to come out of city limits in Bangalore or even Chennai. Incidentally Bangalore to Chennai (340 kms) is a shorter distance than KL to Singapore.

Name and Place

It is really funny how in each region a person is called in a different way.
As South Indians we don't have any last name just some one or two Alphabets of English which is called Initials which is written after or before our first names . It must be very unique to South India where people are addressed by there first names and the first letter of father's name and or the first letter of the name of the place to which they belong would be added to their name as Initials.
So a person would be known as Ramesh P.S. where P will stand for his village and S will stand for his father's name. Many times his name will be written as P.S. Ramesh and when his wife will be known as Mrs. Ramesh which is unthinkable in any other place as the Mrs. is always added to the last name of a person.
Now that people have started traveling every where this confusion of name is more pronounced. In the above example if the initials are put before his name where let us say P stands for some small obscure village in Tamil Nadu in South India say Pachampettai, in airports or hotels or other public places when they want to invite the attention of Ramesh he will be called Pachampettai thinking it is his first name. Poor fellow would not have seen this village even once in his life and will not even be knowing he is being called. When he realizes it is he who is wanted he will be flabbergasted. Of course in due course he will get used to it and life goes on. This has happened many times to my hubby dear and now we are used to his being called by his village name.

Now another problem is when this Ramesh is taken as a last name his wife will be Mrs. Ramesh. When he gets a son he will be named as say Arun and he will be Arun . R, but will be generally known as Arun Ramesh (as these days wisely most of the South Indians are dropping the initials which stands for their village or place and have only one initial) Arun's wife also will be known as Mrs. Ramesh where as actually she is Mrs. Arun. Hahaha very confusing right.

Well in some Kerala Christian families the first name of a person will be the last name of the son. So Thomos Joseph's son will be Jeffery Thomos. where as his brother Jacob Joseph's son will be John Jacob . More confusing right.
But many of the North Indian and Maharashtrian and North Karnataka people have this last name which they call as sur name . There will not be much confusion about their first names and last names.
They also do not understand the naming pattern of South Indians and they think all Ramesh's are related to each other thinking it is the family name. When I went to live in Maharashtra I was always asked 'thula nav kai' which means what is your name. What they meant was what was my sur name. I used to jokingly say that I don't have any name as I put my husband's first name as my last name.
In India lot of migration has been taking place in the last 100 years or so. My grand father who worked in Govt.(British) Service went to live in his village in Tamil Nadu after retirement. Where as my father who was educated in Benaras Hindu University ended up being in Bangalore where we were all grew up. But true to being a Tamilian we all carried two initials one the first letter of our Village the other first letter of our Father's name. My father never went back to live in that Village. I never had the opportunity to live in the village which was part of my name but had visited it only a few times. Later after marriage I had to live in many cities as my husband worked in an All India Service which took us to many places.
We happen to get a transfer to Palghat which is in Kerala.
Keralites are very attached to their native place or village and normally they go back to their native place to live after retiring from active service. So the first question they used to ask me is 'Nad Evide' which means Which is your place. I was and am still flabbergasted with that question. I feel I belong to Bangalore but since I had carried my Village name with me I always wonder whether to tell that Village name or Bangalore. So I used to say I don't have any 'nadu'
Thus by the time I reached my late thirties I had lost my place as well as my name from my journey from Kerala to Maharashtra. Now that I have traveled and lived in places outside India, May be I have really become a global personality without realizing it. As they say in tamil 'yaadhum oore yaavarum kelir' Let me add one more thing. What is in a name........

Power of Technology

It is amazing how the power of Technology has influenced in many ways of our life.

I remember about 30 years back when I was selected to work in Machines department.( which was how Computer department was known as. Those days were not PC days and the data used to be stored in big spools which was maintained in the head office in Bombay) I jokingly said when Computers come to Madurai (where my hubby dear was working and where I wanted a posting) then I will work in this department. I never knew that my words were prophetic and hey and presto within a span of 10 years or so Computers did come to all places including Madurai.
Well my sonny dear bought me an Ipod which we all know as a device mainly used to listen to music when ever we want after down loading the songs from the Lap top or computer of what ever.

I wanted a storage device in which I could store all the pictures I have. Now that we have digital camera the amount of pictures or photos we have has become so huge that it occupies much space even in our personal computer. We have the old paper photos, colour as well as black and white which I want to scan and store in the digital device.
It was suggested by my son that I should get an Ipod wherein I can use it both to listen to the songs as well as store the pictures as it has both facilities and has lot of memory. Then in the same shop I found a device which has two small speakers and has a facility where in I can keep my Ipod and listen to the songs through the speakers instead of putting an ear phone. This has a Radio too so hubby dear and me can both listen to radio or Ipod when ever we want. So we fixed a glass stand in the kitchen and set the lovely device there.

Now came the downloading the music part. Though we were taught how to down load (we means it is hubby dear and I have told him I will learn the trick later) he had to find out the proper way by trial and error. He figured it out yesterday and and put me in a website from where I could select the old hindi songs so that he could save them in the Ipod. This site had some 200 pages of listings and it took me more than half a day to write out the names of the songs I wanted. Now I come to the point where I could see the real power of technology.

When we were in Jullundar Vasu's sister had sent her wordings of a hindi movie song , and Vasu and Swarna used to sing it together in the evenings. I remember the first few words of the song and did not know which movie it was from. Vaguely I remembered the tune and some how I wanted to listen to that song again. When I mentioned this to Vasu about 2 , 3 years back she seemed not to remember it or may be just we did not stay in that particular topic for long to bring it back to memory. Since I did not know the movie name or don't know how to sing it properly I just could not find a way to listen to that song.
Yesterday when I was going through the song list I was so thrilled to see a song which was written as 'Payal wali dekhna...' I think you can imagine how I would have felt. It was like finding some long lost person after a gap of about thirty years. Immediately the song was down loaded and I listened to the song and for those moments I went back to the Jullundar days as if in Time Machine.
Now I am searching for another song from Jullundar days 'Jaane o kaise log o kahate phool ko phool mila. If any body finds it forward it to me.

Trip down the memory lane

Yes I had promised myself I would write about the trip I undertook with my family after
Vinu's wedding. It is almost 2 months since the trip but only now I have got the mood to write about the trip. It was sad that Anu could not join us as she had to go back to her work.
Anand, Vinu Jayashree, Tejas, Hubby dear and myself took up the journey in a Toyota Innova. We dropped Anu at the airport and started our journey to Coimbatore from Bangalore at around 5 p.m. in the evening. Luckily for me my brother VA Sr. had told me previous day the roads after Krishnagiri is not good and it is better for us to break our journey at Salem. That was a good idea as we reached Salem by around 10 p.m. and I was told we had to travel another 3 hours to reach Coimbatore which is just around 100 kms or so from Salem. We started the next day morning and by the time we reached Coimbatore it was almost 10.30 or so. We directly went to our newly built house in Cheran Nagar. I was like a student waiting for her results after the exams as the kids were seeing the house for the first time. They were so happy seeing the house I felt I had passed the exams with distinction. We then proceeded to Forest College in R.S. Puram where I had landed as a newly wed. This is where Sham was brought up and children were shown the place where their father grew up in different quarters he lived as a child and also our first home together (another quarters). We just barged inside the house telling the occupants that we had lived there long ago and asking about the sandal wood tree and other trees which had vanished now. Children could visualize both of us walking or cycling around the big wooded colony of forest college which houses the Southern Rangers Forest College and also lot of Forest Research Institution Offices in the center of a posh area called R.S. Puram.
After Lunch we started for Palghat where both Anand and Vinu were born in the Olavakot Railway Colony.
This time the roads were really bad and I had remembered them to be very good and told them that we could reach in less than an hour as the distance is just 50 Kms. That was not to be. Through out the trip the roads showed me at poor light for planning the road trip instead of making a train journey which would have been more comfortable and time saving.
We reached Palghat and went to our house again a quarters. This is where we lived for 8 plus years of our youth and had a lovely time. Anu would have enjoyed more as she did her schooling in this place. Anand and Vinu were quite young when we left Palghat for Pune but still both said they could remember the house very well.
Like Vasu said in her blog the house looked very shrunk especially the drive way which leads into the house. There must be some scientific reason for such perception as the mind might have an illusion of nice and large images of old things.
The house was a bit disappointing as it was not maintained well and the lovely garden which I was so proud of was not to be seen. The lawn which I used to water every day (since a good variety of grass needs to be watered everyday otherwise the other not so nice looking grass will take over as the ants will eat away the roots of the good grass) looked pathetic. I had a big ever green tree in front of the house and it had also gone . We could not go inside the house as it was locked and the people living there had gone out of station. I just roamed about the garden area full of leaves now which used to be so clean and neat thanks to my Gardner (who attended Vinu's wedding and can be seen in the Vinu wedding picture) and was looking at the coconut, mango and jack fruit trees and I could virtually hear Raghu, Chinna swamy , and Kunjambu speaking to me while plucking the fruits when ever I wanted. It was so cinematic that I almost laughed at the idea of hearing their voices.
We went and saw the club where we used to play shuttle and many housies on monthly club days and watch movies in the VCD and TV in the club which used to be a very great event then.
Since it is almost 20 years since we left the place we did not know any body living there as it is all Railway quarters where people live while posted at that place. Luckily for us our very good friends and neighbours Dr. Mahalingam who used to be a Divisional Medical Officer then had come back to the place as Chief Medical Officer the head of the Railway Hospital. I have a very great attachment to this hospital as both Anand and Vinu were born here within a gap of one and half years. We went to the hospital and when my hubby went to the CMO's room to tell him that we have come (He had also attended vinu's wedding with family and was aware of our program though not the exact date) he came running out with great enthusiasm to receive all of us. It must have surprised the people of the hospital seeing their great boss greeting us with such child like enthusiasm. We exchanged memories of the great times we had together and the many picnics we had in and around the Railway colony together. The best moment for me was the photo taken in front of the hospital with both my sons next to me.
We visited another doctor friend who have settled in the nearby town of palghat and had a great cup of coffee.
We visited the school where Anu did her schooling and also where Anand did his K.G. classes. I showed him the class where he used to sit and which had big window from which he used to see outside longingly to get out of the class as if he were in a kind of a jail. The classes were over and only few kids were waiting to go home and so he went in and sat in his class with his little brother who never studied there and also with some kids and took a picture!
It was a hectic trip but it was worth all the trouble and I have promised my Doctor friends I would visit them more leisurely on my next trip to Coimbatore.
The trip would not have been complete without our eating at the Annapoorna Restaurant especially the Vada Sambhar which no other hotel can match in quality. I had promised Anand he can have the Vada Sambhar which he used to love as a kid of just 3 years. We had missed having breakfast there as we could not reach Coimbatore in time for breakfast but made good by eating Vada for Lunch and also for Dinner.

Music Concert

Last week I had guests from India. It was Ms. Vasudha who is Bamini manni's niece. She is a Carnatic Music Vocalist and she had been invited to Singapore to perform in Shree Sivan temple. We wanted her to sing here in KL too and invited her over. She came with her dad.
I have heard her sing before in Chennai in Sabhas as well as at home when ever I happen to be in my brother's place and she visited.
I knew she could sing well, but I never knew she could sing this well. It was an experience to hear her sing. She is a young woman in her early twenties and is doing her MBA in human resources in Loyala college Chennai and she is like any other youngster, enthusiastic and cheerful and excited about her first visit to a foreign country. But once she is on stage she is completely transformed.
I never saw her practice or doing her sadhana early in the morning. She was just quite casual about singing. One local artist was to perform with her as the violinst as the pakka vadhayam. Since the violinist was not very experienced we were asked to meet up with her in the organizer's house. I was just watching their interlude and how Vasudha was asking what Ragas that girl will be comfortable with, so that she will do her alapanas in those ragas. Since my mother had also done the duty of a tamilian mom of putting me in music classes when I was young and the concerts I have heard though not many, I am quite aware of the kutchery format of Raga alapana, swaras and neravals and thukkada and all that even though I can not recognise any ragas. Vasudha told us later that she will decide the songs she is going to sing depending on the audience and she will roughly have a list in her mind.
Here I have to mention that my hubby dear loves carnatic music and I am no music buff.
On the kutchery day she started in a slow tempo and slowly the tempo increased. I could see that she was singing a lengthy song and then a smaller faster song followed. I could see that she was by far better than the accompaniments of mridangam and also gangira who just managed to follow her. She was all the time encouraging the Violinist and was smiling at her all the time. After the kutchery every body was praising her choice of songs she sang.
In the next place she chose songs which were completely different and the theme was 'muruga' songs even though it was a Devi temple. Here a srilankan tamil (of course malaysian) music teacher attended the concert. She teaches some of my friends devotional songs and they sing in murugan temple every sashti day. That teacher is not keeping very good health but she sat through the 2 hours and I could see she was moved almost to tears. The songs really moved the audience. One of the songs was my husband's favourite 'kanda va va'
I had arranged only these two kutcheries and after hearing her, she was invited to sing in another temple. Here she simply excelled herself and we could see that she was doing complicated thalas and while doing swaras she was excelling in her thala control. This I could understand as she did it on purpose and told us before how it is all mathematical calculations and how she is going to go about them. Anand had also once told me that the percussion instrument is just mathematical abilities when he learned tabla for 2 months in India and still he is at it when ever it pleases him.
She is good at purandara dasa kruthis and all these three concerts she could not sing that, she wanted to sing them for me alone. I wanted her to sing for my friends too and so off we went to my friends place where few music lovers had come and it became a chamber concert. (This word I am hearing for first time. may be that is what they do in America where lots of artists from India go, Invite all your friends for grub and then have the kutchery at home) . Here she sang purandara dasa and also kanaka dasa and also basaveswara vachana all in kannada. Her diction was so perfect. It is no wonder as her teacher is Dr. Manjula who is a kannadiga. There were lot of 'neyar viruppam' (audience request) she sang them too. Of course there was no pakkavadyam for her here. She ended her kutchery with a tillana every time. Every time I hear the tillana I can visualize some body dancing nicely to the tillana. Every where she sang she did not have any note or book and just sang from her memory and each time she did not repeat a song sang earlier.
I really wonder why she has not become quite famous as yet in Chennai. Is it that she has no God Father or Mother to support her. Is it that she is not a child of a famous artist or a 'sisya of a famous artist.
She does sing in the music season but not at the prime time of 6.p.m or 7p.m. slot.
I am convinced that with her caliber of music she will be one of the great singers in Chennai if not in India.
She wants to take up a job with her MBA and does not want to depend on music as her profession as she feels she does not want to get desperate and it will affect the way in which she sings. She loves to sing rare thyagaraja kruthis which are not that famous but which are very good.
We want to organize a real big concert for her here and may be we will be able to do it some time.

Fitness Run

There was a Fitness Run organized in Tejas's school here in the nearby lake garden. I had heard about the fitness run through Ayeysha my friend who is from Maldives and whose daughter is in the 9th grade in the same school. So I kind of made my routine walking to jogging for the past month or so. I never knew jogging will be tough. Usually I can walk many rounds around our condominium which is approximately 650 meters. But Jogging I found is quite tough. Even one round I could not jog continuously and had to walk in between. It is another matter that Tejas used to beat me walking while I was jogging. My aim was to complete the run whether walking or jogging.
Finally the D day arrived which was this Saturday. There was this continuous rain from morning 5.30 a.m. The irony was there was practically no rain at all for almost a month here and rain Gods had to see us running and arrived on time on this day. We all reached the venue on time at 7.30 with all proper running gear with hubby dear with a camera to shoot all of us. It started pouring. we were all standing under the tents erected for the purpose of the run. Finally they announced that the run will start as per schedule. It was class wise for the students and there was separate race for girls and boys. Tejas's class had to go 3.2 kms which was two rounds around the lake. First round he did quite well and was in 3rd place but once he started second round I could see him walking talking to his friends!! If I had a mega phone I would have shouted to him to run. It was quite a tough run for the kids (4th ,5th and 6th boys and Tejas is in 4th) and Tejas was able to finish the run in 6th place. I was quite happy that he did that and came within 10 places. But poor kid did not get a medal as only first five places were given medals.
In the Category of 9th , 10th 11th girls who also ran 3.2 kms., Ayeysha's daughter Noor came first. She was way ahead of all the other competitors. We were all very happy.
All this happened amidst drizzling rain.
Finally it was the run for parents and teachers (women). It was 1.6 kms that is just one round around the lake. I started and completed and am happy that I completed within first 10 ladies and also I never walked and jogged the whole round. Ayeysha came 3rd. So mother and daughter both got medals and it was really great.
Tejas was disappointed that I did not get any medal. When I told him that I was the only grandma who ran and he should tell his friends that, he said ' why would I tell that you are my grandma?' That it self was like getting a medal for me. Only few of my friends knew that a grandma was running but I felt elated and told Tejas that I would run a fitness run with his kid too.
All this was made possible because of Anand. One of his dreams is that we should be running the small charity runs with him and he bought me a running shoes when I visited USA last time. So I have made a beginning and has run with the shoes he bought for me. Now I will run better and has decided to practice in the lake garden which we never knew existed so near our house.
Hubby dear did not run as he is not practicing and without practice it is not advisable to run at our age.

oil bath and grand mother

Recently when I had been to Chennai, I had the opportunity to get a Facials, Pedicure etc done from a beautician. She had told me that I need some oil massage for my hair for it to be healthy. When I raised my eyebrows, she said heat some oil and once it is warm massage on your scalp and wash it with a shampoo.
Today I remembered that and heated the 'nallannai' (sesame oil) with some whole pepper and curry leaves. That triggered lot of memories especially of my grandmother.
When we were children it used to be a weekly ritual to have what is called an oil bath. (which is nothing but what the beautician called the oil massage) . Every Friday it was our (girls) turn to have oil bath. Every Saturday it was the turn of my brothers to have their head massaged by my grand father. I vividly remember my grand dad making the sound of a moving train while massaging my brother's head. My brother used to say" come on let the train move faster" and it used to be such fun watching them.
This oil bath ritual if I remember correct continued in my family too, with my kids on Fridays and Saturdays till we were in Pune. My hubby dear took over the 'train' part. I don't know when all this disappeared from our life.
Coming back to my childhood, I used to be so impatient with my grand mother to finish the oil massage faster so that I could wash with what was called 'shiga kkai' ( a kind of nut powdered and used to clean the oil on the head) and go and play. Half the time I never had the patience to wash the hair properly and used to look too oily.

The other traditional ritual was the combing of hair. We all had plaits and my brother's wife used to have a long plait which I used to look at longingly as I just had two pigtails for plaits . (which my dear brother used to tease as 'elivaal pinnal meaning a rat's tail) . My grand mother used to sit and comb our hair nicely and put a tight plait(which I used to hate) and I had to wait for my turn as she had to comb my mom's hair and then my sister in law and then it was my turn. As usual I was impatient and used to say 'come on make it faster'. She told me once that one day you will feel sad that nobody is there to take care of you as this is part of taking care of you which truth I realize today.
Some how all these thoughts came to my mind today. We pay money to the beauticians to take care of our hair, our nails and face and what not when in olden days the grand mothers used to do this adding lot of affection and love apart from the massaging and combing.
May be our Society was fully evolved and we never realized it and changed all that in the name of Modernity and losing our support system which gave us physical support as well as mental support.

Vinu's Wedding

Well it is almost three weeks since Vinayak and Jayashree got married. Come to think of it, those two days just passed wonderfully that it seems like a dream.
The preparations, expectations, waiting etc etc turned out to be a Happy occasion which is what I wanted. It was more a get together for me especially as so many of my friends attended the happy occasion. Almost half of my lady College mates attended. My child hood friends took the trouble of attending it visiting from far off places. My school mates too joined the fun not to forget my friend from my work place (can I say that having worked just for a year). It was nice to see my many friends who happened to be with us as family friends in the Railway Colonies.

It was a great moment in our life as all my siblings attended with their spouses and also my husband's siblings and their spouses. I was so happy seeing the children of our families mingling with each other and exchanging notes with my kids about themselves as they were all meeting my kids after a long time. There were my cousins and their kids and many of our relatives and it was really a very happy occasion.
But as it always happens when I think back about the wedding I feel I had not done enough justice to the guests who had come as I could not spend as much time as I wanted to, with each of them. I did speak to them but I would have had more to talk to them, had I not been called to do this or that or meet some other guests. Hope they will understand this. This is what happened in Anu's wedding too.
One thing I realized is that so many rituals are there in our custom as it was done as a get together and entertainment and social gathering and a leisurely pastime. But all that is lost now a days with every body busy and having many more ways to have entertainment and get together that even leisurely pastime has to be enjoyed in a hurry.
I was happy that the essence of the happiness was not lost in this occasion and we were all genuinely happy to meet everybody.

It was great to see our Gardener and Helpers from Palghat who had helped me so much in bringing up the kids and who knew anand and vinu since they were born in the Railway hospital Palghat. Anu, anand and vinu were so happy to see them all and were hovering around them and taking pictures with them which was so nice to see.
My Doctor friends who had helped me in various childhood ailments of my kids came the next day just to see my grown up kids whom they had not met for ages.
The great heroine of the wedding ( apart from Jayashree of course) was my aunt who is 80 plus of age but has the enthusiasm of a little girl and was hugged and pampered by one and all.
I was happy that Tejas got the opportunity of being a child in an Indian Wedding where children generally run around making new friends and be on their own without any adult controlling them as the adults are busy talking to each other. Only thing was that unlike all the other kids (like us when we were kids) he did not know how to enjoy the tasty food served at frequent intervals. So we had to chase him and force feed him some food which he likes when ever we had time .
Thanks to Jayashree's parents the arrangements were very good and the Wedding was performed in a nice way.

Mega Mall

These days going to a Mall has become a tiresome exercise.
About ten years back it used to be such fun to go to these big shopping malls and just roam around window shopping.
Now a days we go to Mall only if we have some specific shopping to be done. But this post is not about the shopping experience. This is about some construction marvel which I am witnessing at this particular mall.
This Mega Mall came into existence about five years ago if my memory serves me right. It was just some vacant space filled with lot of greens and hubby dear remembers seeing these vacant places, while he was inspecting the nearby railway track by foot.
Suddenly lot of construction activity started and first a big mall true to the name mega came into existence. Simultaneously a big hotel came into existence and within few years a big housing Condominium came into being. There was a Railway station built near the Mall. (yes same old railway track inspected by hubby dear). Then people started pouring in by different modes of transport and mainly it was by car.
A big underground parking was built in the beginning itself and there were some A/B/C/G and E/F parking areas with two levels P1 and P2. I don't know how many cars, these parking lots could accommodate but it was real huge. Then it became impossible to get parking on week ends unless one went to the mall in the morning itself. So we stopped going to the mall on week ends.
Now comes the construction marvel part. Then suddenly one day a few months back we noticed a new entrance saying parking and we drove through it. Hey and presto they had virtually dug out under the building so to say and constructed new parking lots. We could see the walls on both sides without plaster (looking kind of rock) while going inside. It was kind of eerie. But there was quite a lot of parking spaces. When we went there next time, to my surprise I could see them linking these new parking spaces to the building above by building escalators. (kind of reverse building order) . Everything was plastered and coloured and painted neatly. All these days we had to walk through the old parking lots to get into the escalators in the northern or southern side of the mall. Probably the new escalator will lead us to the east and west of the Mall. The mall is kind of linear and it extends from North to South with a Centre court and this centre court has small extension on Western and Eastern Side.
I am curious to see now where this new escalator will lead. I really appreciate the kind of building activity going on without causing any disturbance to the shoppers and the crowd seems to grow bigger by the day and it has an appearance of a fair or Mela going on every time we go there.
We always wonder how much the Mall must be making money by way of collecting the parking charges. Previously it was just a standard charge without any time limit. (may be that was why it was full all the time as parking charges are really high in a city like Kuala Lumpur). Now wisely the parking charges are levied based on the time of entry and exit.

Language

Tejas is learning Mandarin. A teacher comes home to teach him. I watch him learn the language. It appears very tough as it does not look like any other language which I have learnt.

I know quite a few languages. Tamil being my mother tongue I can speak fluently and can read very fast, but when it comes to writing I am not very comfortable and I wish I had learnt to write my mother tongue well. Still I have time and I will learn how to write properly soon. Kannada an Indian language I can read, write and speak very fluently as I learnt that language till my High School in Bangalore. I can understand and read and write Hindi our National language well. I am not that fluent speaking hindi since my accent gives others creeps when they hear me speak . Sanskrit is another language which I learnt in school/ college as second language. (the reason being it is a scoring subject) I know the meanings of many words in Sanskrit but I can not form complicated sentences of my own, but can make out the general meaning of a sentence if you know what I mean. Reading is no problem being the same script(Devanagari script) as Hindi and pronunciation is perfect. Malayalam is yet another language which I can understand and communicate quite well and read bits and pieces as my daughter studied the language till she finished her school. Of course it goes without saying I am quite comfortable in English, though again my pronunciation gives my kids creeps some time, though not always.
Well after all this background let me tell you that when I first came to Malaysia I was kind of surprised to read boards written in English but the spellings were really horrible. For example a clinic was spelled as klinik. I thought they were poor at spelling the words. It took me couple of visits and a serious thought to this subject to realize that it was not English but the boards were written in the local language the Bhasa Melayu. The language Bhasa Melayu had adopted the Roman script and the words were Malay words written phonetically. For example 'c' was to be pronounced Cha all the time and K is Ka sound and so on. Even though I get very little chance of communicating in Malay, I know the meaning of many words since I can read them because of the Roman script.
Coming back to the beginning, I find it easier to follow Tejas studying communication malay as I can read with him and test him, it just floors me to see his Mandarin. I understand that each character represents words and the meaning changes diabolically when the characters position is changed in a sentence.
All this set me into thinking. My children and many children in India do their schooling in English medium. They have second language as Hindi or many times, Sanskrit for reasons said above and never get a chance to learn their mother tongue. My children can speak Tamil my mother tongue very well. But when it comes to reading and writing they don't know. Every summer holidays when they were young, I tried to teach them some words and we never proceeded beyond writing all our relatives names in Tamil! So now they can recognize some letters and words in Tamil. That is all.
Whenever I read classics in Tamil and some lovely articles, it saddens me that I can not share the experience with my kids. We discuss many things we read in English and these are the conversations I enjoy most with my children. Some of the Tamil articles make me feel like wanting to share with the kids, as they being brought up in India and being Tamil, the artilces are very relevant to them and they can give me so many different ideas about the article or books or what ever I read. I feel sad and feel guilty for not teaching them how to read and write properly.
This again sets me in thinking that if Tamil also can be written phonetically in Roman scripts, my children and many like them can enjoy so many things written in Tamil which is a very ancient language like, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek. I know that even such an idea will make the Tamil scholars to pounce on me for even thinking like this.
I feel since German and French have Roman scripts many people are able to learn them fast and there are so many German and French classes going on in India. A thought can be given to the idea of Romanizing the Scripts of Indian language.
Coming back to Mandarin again Tejas has to cross many hurdles before he even can speak the language since writing it is so different from other languages.

Mother

One of my mails to my friend about my mother triggered lots of memories about my mom. Suddenly it dawned on me that the coming sunday is mothers' day.
Well all moms are special is an often used cliche. My mom was also very special in her own way. As a child I was very close to my dad. Even though I loved my mom very much, it was always my father to whom I used to run for every little thing.
When I completed my high school, like any other school girl I bought an autograph book so that I could get the signatures of my teachers and friends. I wanted the first page to be written by my mother. She wrote lovely advice in tamil asking me to be a nice girl. In school one of the teachers, who knew tamil read the lines to whole class and said it was very nice of me to have made my mom write. (it is an another story, that my brother took my autograph book without my knowledge and made my dad also write which I some how did not want , and he had written a 'tirukural' and which made me so angry with the lovely brother of mine). One of the professor in college wanted to know if my mother was a famous personality as I had taken her autograph. she had signed Lakshmi and within brackets had written ,amma, in tamil. I was so livid with anger just like any other teenager getting angry for no reason and said proudly ' for me my mom is a famous personality'.
I could see our relationship changing and I became much more closer, after I got a daughter of my own and I felt I could understand her better.
The real mother I could see only when she went through lot of crisis in life . The mother who controlled her cries, when my dad died in hospital so that it would not disturb other patients.

The mother who took care of my kid when I went away for training in Mumbai Jullundar without any complaint.

The mother who had lost almost sight in one eye due to glucoma and wrong diagnosis of a doctor, never complained but continued her simple hand works and reading of magzines.

Then suddenly without warning , she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She took it in the right spirit and listened to the doctor like a dutiful pupil and went through all the cycles of chemo thearapy and radiation without complaining, of course with great help from all my sisters in law ( 'mannis' ) and sister(God bless them). I had lost my father by then, but my aging grand parents were alive and my mom was their only daughter. She recovered remarkably well and became normal. I was so proud of her, that I took her back to our railway colony where she was diagnosed with the disease, and showed her off to the world , that my mom was well and most normal. She never spoke of her ailments and except for the near relatives and friends many did not even know that she was treated for cancer. So she lived to take care of her aging parents very well.
She was diagnosed with secondaries thirteen years later. By then she had seen grand kids from all her children and also great grand kids from a daughter as well as a son. This time also she bore the disease very strongly. But I never understood that she will succumb to it and I thought like first time she will recover fast. My sister in law and myself always joked when we took her for chemo saying no body will know who the patient is as she looked more healthy and cheerful than us.
I had seen her on January 8th when she was perfectly ok without knowing it was the last time I was seeing her. She was deteriorating by end of March, but was moving around the house on her own. I had my own family to take care and last time when I spoke to her over phone she insisted that my kids are more important to me, and I should visit her only when I was free which was just ten days away. But that was not to be. She died on April 4th, and was conscious till almost the end and died very peacefully. It was a miracle that she did not feel much pain which is so dreadful about cancer and did not even take powerful painkillers which was given to her. I was told that she must have been aware that she is losing time but she never showed it or spoke about it. But at least I was fortunate that I could come to Bangalore before cremation, which I could not do for my dad.
Only one thing I regretted. Even though I made her feel that I loved her very much, I still don't know whether I told her HOW MUCH I LOVED HER. I should have told her I loved her as much as I loved my father if not more. May be she knew it heart of heart.
I learnt from her to face the crisis of life with smiling face, and never to let her guard down and keep her sorrows to herself. amma at least let me tell you now loudly that I love you very much.

ASHANKURA

This again happens to be an article written and sent to me by Dr. Ramamani. She wanted me to publish it in my blog. So here it is.

I happened to receive an invitation card from Ashankura school for inauguration function of Annual sports. Ashankura is a special school for spastic and mentally challenged children. I had not really made up my mind whether to go or not as I had work. But arrival of a friend and common interest of we two, tilted my decision in favour of attending the function.
I never regret going there for it turned out to be an experience of different sort. The inauguration was arranged in outdoor space of Ashankura School. There was a dais meant for Chief guest and other dignitaries. School children both boys and girls in the age group of 8-16 were dressed up in sports uniform of red T-shirt and black shorts.
I had a look at these children with faces so different, faces with different features, faces with different expressions. Some had slanting eyes, some had mouths gaping, some had their tongues hanging out, some had a funny grin. Many children had a different bone structure, loose limbs, thin weak legs and walked with halting gaits. One boy had a mass of tissue in place of right ear. A boy perched on a chair had both his legs in knee length braces. His supporting walker had fallen off by the side. He drew my attention to get him back the walker. With the help of walker he joined the crowd of other children.
Probably not aware of the world, not aware of what is in store for the future these children just giggled .
These anomalous children are innocent victims of errors. Errors not of their own but of nature, of nature passing on the genes wrongly coded, of genes which do not give the right command for development of brain, bones or muscles, or errors during the birth process, often stranded while coming out of mother’s womb resulting in brain damage.
I went up to them and said ‘hello,’ wished them luck in sports and extended my hands towards them. Out came twenty hands with eyes peering curiously at me, some smiled also.
Apparently sports teacher was trying to arrange the children in columns of three for March past. A lady teacher who was holding the hand of a boy to keep him well with in line.
Chief guest and dignitaries arrived and sat on raised dais . They were welcomed and there were speeches. Lamp was lighted and sports was declared open.
Sports oath was taken by a tall girl on behalf of all children, oath meant for special Olympic participants. "I want to win, if I dont win I want to learn". She looked so normal and even graceful. I asked teacher how this girl happened to be a schoolmate of Ashankura.. I was told that she looked quite different some years back, now with training she has mastered many body movements and speech. That was an optimistic note.
A tall boy who had many medals to his credit from Special Olympics in Europe was leading the group for march past. It was proudly announced that he was expected to go to China for special Olympics later. He was the flag bearer.
The march past moved in a circle. All children marched past to the rhythmic beat of band and ‘ left right , left right’ command of leader not so rhythmically. Their hands flailed forward and backward as their legs stomped in strides of different lengths. March past was so asynchronous, yet looked so beautiful coming from them! As it went on, column of children grew wider and wider. Finally the leader saluted the guest of honour and planted the flag in front of him.
There was a sense of achievement in children’s face as they looked at their parents and onlookers who smiled back with encouragement. I could see the pride in parents eyes.
Then there was a drill. It was fashioned in accordance with different movements of cricket game. A girl brought a placard written ‘ bowling’ and children swung their arms in circles bowling an imaginary ball. Another girl brought another placard written ‘batting.’ Children batted virtually from both sides as a left hander or a right hander would do. Then came the placards ‘four’ ‘six’ ‘ catch’ ’out’ ‘ lbw’ ‘ wide’ ‘out’ ‘catch’ Mimicking of all these actions were done by children.
Spectators and guests clapped On the whole inauguration was a great event.God bless these children. God’s children .

Aeroshow 2007

This article was sent to me by Dr. Ramamani, who is the CMD (Chief Medical Director) with BEL Bangalore. With her permission I am publishing this as a blog.

I witnessed Aero show 2007 on .8.02.07 with the free pass issued by our management. Jet aircrafts Manufactured in USA, Russia, France, Syria and of course India were on display. F16, Sukhoi, Grupine, Suryakiran were some of the aircrafts I saw. There were exhibition stalls from BEL, HAL, DRDO and some foreign companies. BEL had displayed warfare equipments like distance target measuring, night vision equipments etc.
Coming back to Aero show, even though I have been witnessing the spectacular event for the third time, I never feel tired of watching it any number of times. Aircraft exercises and aerobatics are simply awesome. Just watching leaves my pulse racing with excitement, with fear whether the pilot can control.
While in Aero show it so happened I met a senior executive officer from BEL who was good enough to take me to a sit out meant for VIPs and customers. It was a vantage point as I could watch the jets right from take off and witness the breathtaking and awesome events.
There was an initial hiccough though. The first jet had a tyre puncture while landing. Smoke started rising from the ground which gave rise to panic among watchers. Actually nothing much had happened and the runway was cleared in an hour
The first display was that of Sukhoi. It took off., was air borne in no time and zoomed up vertically. As it went up it became a speck, took a vertical backward U turn and came down at 2 MAC speed in addition to gravitational force. Later it changed to a horizontal course, rolled and somersaulted from left to right and right to left .It zoomed up again and repeated the aerobatics before it came down. The show was a perfect harmony between man and machine built on perfect technology and a perfect co ordination between man and machine. What a combination in defying the laws of gravity and aerodynamics!! Man made split second decision and controlled the machine which in turn responded obediently.
Then there was the spectacular show of fleet of Suryakiran consisting of 9 aircrafts/jets all painted red. It was a beautiful ballet in sky by the Suryakiran fleet.- dancers in red skirt against blue sky. The fleet went up together, arranged themselves in various figures keeping a distance of 3 to 5 feet, changed the geometrical figure from V to arrow, from triangle to diamond. As they flew they left a trail of tricoloured smoke of green, white and saffron in the trajectory. Then four of them separated from others and flew towards each other in opposite direction criss-crossed their paths giving an optical illusion of touching .
Then other 2 jets flew in another pathway separately and each left a heart shaped smoke in their trajectory. One more aircraft cut across the path of these two leaving a horizontal trail of smoke which pierced the smoky heart in air with an arrow !!
Finally the parachute jumpers!! A helicopter took 8 of them high up and paratroupers jumped with the help of tricoloured parachutes. Each one maneuvered the parachute by moving the legs and descended slowly from a height of 30,000 feet .
It left me exhilarating and breathless

Pongal

Today is Pongal. Yesterday I had been to Brickfields to buy some Groceries. That is the place here in KL where majority of Indian (read it South Indian) shops and eateries are situated. Here there is a concentration of Indian population both locals and expatriates.
The main thing which struck me was the crowd and the wares which were on sale. First there was plenty of sugar cane (karumbu), then lot of 'manjal kottu' (turmeric leaves) whose leaves were the size of a small banana plant. There were, the new pongal panais (earthern pots), fruits, vegetables, betel leaves, sweets, plastic thoranams, flowers, garlands and so on.
Few years back garlands meant some jasmins tied together here and there with a woolen thread. But now the garland making has been mastered and each garland vies with another beautifully done with so many lovely flowers available here. There were temporary shops all around the platforms in front of the grocery and magzine shops.
I remembered the days when I used to search and search to get betel leaves for navarathri festivals. There never used to be so many wares sold for any festival. Now I can see every year the wares are also increasing and so does the crowd.

I think the media (visual) has a role to play in this consumerism. (yes I do equate these festivities to consumerism) I find the tamil programs which are aired in the TV , (previously there was no separate tamil channels only some few tamil movies aired thrice a week or so) showing great emphasis on these festivals. Every now and then I see advertizements shouting for some wares and talking about 'tamilar tirunal' ulavar tirunal' . There is an indirect suggestion that being a tamilian one should celeberate this festival with gusto, following certain tradition. Again and again they show people making pongal in new earthern pots, shouting pongalo pongal with a background decorated with fresh sugar cane, turmeric plants and what not. This in effect makes people throng to the market to buy these things.
I am not saying all these are bad or good but this is just an observation.
Any way I did feel I was in a Chennai street especially 'ranganathan street' in T Nagar, jostling around people to move forward. There was one more similarity which made me sad. Like the little India of Singapore and the market places of India the whole place needed lot of cleaning and maintenance.

week end trip to singapore

We had been to Singapore last week end. Singapore being a very small country, I thought I had seen every thing which a tourist/visitor should see and so would spend time with my son at home.
But this Singapore never stops surprising me. Last year when I went there and visited Sentosa Islands for a fifth or what ever time, I had not expected to see so much change and new things, but I did see lot of things , which really impressed me. Singapore is short of land, being a small island and it's space being limited.
This time when my son offered to take us to a new mall I thought it will be yet another mall.
But this vivocity which is near the harbour is really a different one. This was opened just two months back I was told. First the structure was very unique with so many curves and levels added to it. The location was also very good. It is just facing the Sentosa islands. In each level there is an open terrace from where you can just sit and watch the island and the view is superb. These terrace(s) have eating places, some small water parks for kids and lots of place to sit and relax.
The Sentosa island was connected to the main land by ferrys and ropeways when I visited it in the 90s. Later two or three years back it was connected by road and we could just drive inside.(by paying entry fees of course). Now this time from this mall Sentosa can be reached by monorail. I sat in the terrace and was looking at the rope way on one side going up and down, the mono rail moving like a caterpillar, the ferry fetching and dropping people, and also some cars and buses moving along the road. What improvement over the years. Who said malls are places where you shell out your hard earned money. It is a place to sit and relax also. Of course you do spend for reaching there and the drinks and eats you have also cost money, but that is not wasting your money. The concept and the execution is superb.
My blog would not end without comments about railways. We went and came back by train, managed by Malaysian Railways. The coach in which we travelled was AC 2 tier compartment. The berths are very uncomfortable. It is perpendicular to the coach unlike ours (in India) which is horizontal. Both sides are berths and there is place in the middle to walk. (our trains have space in the side for a meter gauge train also) The berths here are fixed unlike our side berths in the broad guage which can be folded. So the upper berth person has to be in his berth all the time as the lower berth is designated to the person travelling in it. Even though it is over night journey invariably the train is late and it reaches both ways only around 8 a.m. There is no space under the berth to keep one's luggage (as the fixtures for fixing the berth abstructs the space, bad design) and so one has to keep it in the next to the berth in the walking spce provided. We both were appreciating the design of our coaches back in India (though there is lot of things to be said about the maintainance of these coaches back home). Looks like it is a great period for Indian Railways and its minister too, getting appreciated all around.

pot-pourri

It is quite some time since I wrote anything. This heading gives me a liberty to jump randomly from topic to topic which I tend to do while talking.
Well I had been to India and thanks to Vasu could visit Mahabalipuram. It was sort of illogical that I , who has seen many places, like Great Wall of China, the Terracoata Warriors of China, the Angkor Wat in Cambodia to name a few, had not seen Mahabalipuram just an hour's drive from Chennai. I have been visiting Chennai for so many years for summer holidays as a little girl and later had the opportunity to live in the city for nearly 7 to 8 years, had not seen this place in spite of having a deep desire to see it. May be that is what happens to places near where we live and we tend to think we can do it tomorrow and the morrow never comes.
This was the first trip to Mahabalipuram for hubby also , who has seen much more places than me,
Well the structures really impressed me. I could very well understand why this place has been considered as a school of architecture rather than a place of worship. I could really hear the sounds of 'uli' the instrument which is used to make the 'shilpas' (stone icons) . I could understand what the great writer 'kalki' wrote in his famous novel 'Sivagamiyin Sabadham' where he describes this place as having many ' shilpis' working under a great master.
Though the place is quite well mainatained to our Indian standards, one thing which was very much lacking was the place for parking. Since now a days many Indians own cars, more and more people come to these places in their own vehicles. Organized big parking areas would help the visitors to go back from the place with the euphoric feeling rather than with a bad taste in the mouth having caught up in one of the worst traffic jam of one's life.
I did visit another place in Coimbatore which is called Isha dyana yoga centre. This is a place which is set up by 'jakki vasudev' whose writings in ' anandha vikatan' are really good. The writings have made me feel he is not just another guru who talks about God , but rather talks about the way of living. Here in this place there is a big dyana linga in a circular hall which has a big dome constructed just by bricks without any support and the hall itself is considered as a civil engineering marvel. Any body can go inside and sit there and do meditation. A strict silence is maintained there.
There is a mercury lingam which is submerged in water. They said it is about 625 kg weight and it is about 2 ft. height. We all know mercury is a liquid metal and I wondered how it could be stable in normal temperature even submerged under water. I did try to put some questions to the person sitting in the entrance who gave some explanation which was not credible. But when I discussed it with vinayak he said it can be some alloy with mercury which made it a stable structure in normal temperature. This is what I had also thought. I was mainly impressed with the green revolution they are brining about by planting lot of trees,
( lakhs of saplings and making arrangements to water them) there by trying to save the environment.
Well I did read two good books in my India trip. One was Tuesdays with Morris by Mitch Albom. It is about life and death and a teacher and a student. It reminded me about our hindu philosophy, though the book was not a philosophical book, the ideas I felt were very much in line with our ancient writings. The book takes only a few hours to finish and it is very readable.
The other one is The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. Again thanks to Anandha vikatan which is publishing the translation, I wanted to read the original.
I understand the book was written about 20 years ago . I read the original and it is a book on management written like a novel. It is really good. All complicated problems indeed have simple solutions but to find out what these simple solutions are, is the key to management. (managing one's life is also included in this.)