they bloom...

Dodda Aala Mara

The big banyan tree - on the Bangalore-Mysore road is about 400 years of age. We took a casual drive on the Mysore road this Sunday afternoon. The "dodda aala mara" as it is called, seemed to be a very famous spot for many a families that carried lunch along and enjoyed their weekend eat-out. Only we could not eat in peace due to those monkeys and dogs chasing us all the time :(

Misty mornings...

Rab ne...

Rab ne banaadi hamaari kal ki picture... :-(

With a long weekend ahead of us, guess we had enough time to waste on such a movie... ;-)

Merry Christmas and a very very Happy New Year 2009!

"Survival of the fittest" and morality

Critics of evolution have argued that "survival of the fittest" provides a justification for behaviour that undermines moral standards by letting the strong set standards of justice to the detriment of the weak.[7] However, any use of evolutionary descriptions to set moral standards would be a naturalistic fallacy (or more specifically the is-ought problem), as prescriptive, moral statements cannot be derived from purely descriptive premises. Describing how things are does not imply that things ought to be that way. It is also simplistic to suggest that evolutionary "survival of the fittest" implies treating the weak badly, as social behaviour cooperating with others and treating them well improves evolutionary fitness.[8][9]

It has also been claimed that "the survival of the fittest" theory in biology was interpreted by late 19th century capitalists as "an ethical precept that sanctioned cutthroat economic competition" and led to "social Darwinism" which allegedly glorified laissez-faire economics, war and racism.[10] However these ideas predate and commonly contradict Darwin's ideas, and indeed their proponents rarely invoked Darwin in support, while commonly claiming justification from religion and Horatio Alger mythology. The term "social Darwinism" referring to capitalist ideologies was introduced as a term of abuse by Richard Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought published in 1944.[9][11] When used as a criticism of Darwin's theory of evolution, this claim is also an example of the appeal to consequences fallacy – even if the concept of survival of the fittest was used as a justification for violence in human society, this has no effect on the truth of the theory of evolution by natural selection in the natural world.

The above is just a lift from wikipedia. Today i just feel like a winner as i received an email from Vivek Biyani, Director Pantaloon Group (nephew of Kishore Biyani, CEO, Future Group) who agreed to hear and resolve and put an end to my struggles with the Future Group's Home solutions branch. The Biyanis do have great strategies in the retail market, but they just do not possess the right 'honest' men to execute them the way they dreamt about it, at the consumer end. As Mr. KB rightly said, all of "It happened in India".

Melodious Medicine / Music Therapy

Every morning as i browse through the newspaper with a mug of decoction kapi, i get some feeds for my blog :-) "....Music may “pump” the brain and the body. At Stanford University, near San Francisco, researchers found that listening to 18th century symphonies improved listeners’ focus between movements, when they mentally updated shopping lists". Read more on,

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOI&BaseHref=TOIBG/2008/12/23&PageLabel=13&EntityId=Ar01301&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T

This is nothing new to us Indians - in the land of ancient Carnatic Music. Music Therapy is a special branch of alternate medicine where the 72 Parent ragas are being used to cure various ailments. It is believed that the 72 parent ragas control 72 important nerves in the human body. The Apollo Hospitals have a course dedicated to this music therapy. A few instances are, Raga Todi is said to control hyper-tension, Raga Sahana is said to control anger, slow bhajans are said to relax our mucles and nerves, hindustani ragas are said to have an impact on the intestinal disorders and so on.

This Marghazhi Utsav season, let us all relax, get rejuvenated and become more calm and composed and ease our nerves and muscles and bones and prepare ourselves for a better 2009! for 2008 has been an year of ups and downs with terror attacks, robberies, recession and what not. Lets us all put to use our home-theater systems to hear some melodious Thiruppavai in the mornings and enjoy great evenings with those garma-garam kacheries and Kapis. Chennai-ites - I envy u all, i really miss those Gana Sabhas, kacheris and stage plays!

SRK's Rab Ne in Oscar library (???)

http://movies.ndtv.com/newstory.asp?section=Movies&id=ENTEN20080077093

What has gone wrong at the Oscar Library ? I personally, seriously think - SRK movies are crap - they are more like epics dragging all day long for than >3 hrs - running that one man show, his silly dancing and his 'kkkkiran' kind of dialogues. DDLJ was one of its kinds or the 1st of its kinds in Hindi, it was OK and most of the applauds go to Europe and Kajol and not to SRK, and Chopra's could get it run for a decade - Good Work! but doesn't mean that all of their films have to bo so. Since Y2k - SRK has only rendered epics - all of his same old ramblings - starting from Mohabbatein,KKHH, Main hoon na, Kal Hona H0, K3G,Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, phew! and the duo - SRK and KJ are coming up with My name is Khan - God! spare us. You know what - KJ is just fit enough to team up with Ekta to write and direct their K-series - those boring and never-ending mega serials! Else he should just stick to his Koffee with Karan episodes. A few SRK movies that were worth a watch - DDLJ, DTPH(thanks to M dixit and Karishma who stole the limelight with their dances), Swades(thanks to Ashutosh Gowarikar), Dil Se (thanks to Maniratnam), Yes Boss ( thanks to Juhi) , Baazigar( his 1st villian role)... the rest of his movies - dont ever attempt!

Ladies and Saris

Saris, i love them! The latest that has caught my eyes is the one draped by the daughter-in-law towards the end of the Gold-Winner oil ad. This ad is featured during the 'Gold-Winner Isai Kudumbam' program on Vijay TV. I checked on the commercials page of Goldwinner just to post it for all you folks to take a look at the sari :), but no luck!

Boys are boys when it comes to Cricket & my lady luck ;-)

As a kid, he makes me play with him for hours and hours together - no bowling, only rolling the ball. I would have probably done a 100 sit-ups picking the ball. Anyways, the elder one makes me watch cricket. My luck with cricket so far has been - the match gets suspended or what ever the term is when both the teams share a point each or India always wins :-) This superstition is a booster to Dr. A that he makes me watch the game! My cricket watching history goes way back to 1983 - World cup, when my dad purchased a brand new B&W Dyanora TV just for the sake of watching the matches, anyways, not knowing much about the game i used to watch them with my dad and my uncles - and we all know that India triumphed in that world cup! And the next event i remember is the 1996 - Ind Vs Pak quarter final match of the Wills World cup held in Bangalore, we were a bunch of school goers watching the match at our home, cheering at the top of our voices! There too India won - may be i should have just watched the semi-finals and who knows India couldd have made it to the finals ;-) Sometime in 2003 or 04, been to Chepauk for an Ind Vs i dont remember even remember who, it poured and poured and the match was suspended and the teams shared a point each. After a big break, i resumed my cricket watching with the T20 World cup, and happened to shower all of my lady luck on Dhoni and his men - and they won!

The Ad-War.. the Brand Battle

Its amazing that in India, where junta just cannot stand 'open' criticism it is amazing to me that they have started openly comparing products on their respective advertisements, like the new Horlicks (GlaxoSmithKline)Vs Complan(Heinz) where they display/show the competing products. This Horlicks ad, portrays Complan as an expensive drink and Horlicks being the cheaper with same 23 essential 'oota sathu' i.e vital ingredients! The Complan ad,on the other hand, a mother insults the other one asking when did u start compromising on children's growth as against cheap selling (Horlicks here) drinks. Horlicks'(Rs. 130/- odd) is a malt based product and its punch line goes, to grow, "Taller, Stronger, Sharper". Complan in spite of being a bit costly(Rs.170/-) debates it has all the 23 vital ingredients + 100% milk protein and as well "grow twice faster"!

Moral of the story : Look forward to Horlicks' pay-back ad and a Bournvita (Cadbury) Vs Boost (GlaxoSmithKline) Ad-war soon.

But, i guess its more to do with the 'recession' trend of ads, where the highlight is on the price. A previous bike ad would compare mileage, pick-up etc and finally when the price is compared, it goes, "bus yeh tumharah jyada hai". The same goes with the recent SUN Direct ad, they compare total number of channels, comedy channels, movie channels blah blah.. and then as they announce the price - the same old, "idu unnudaiyathu adigam".

Berries

"Merry go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush
Here we go round the mulberry bush, so early in the morning...."
goes A Jr. whenever i give him a few Strawberries for a snack. I don't know what makes him connect Strawberries to the Mulberry bush rhyme! may be the fact that they are all berries :-) It just makes him so happy and he goes on and on singing all of his rhymes one after another - Guess this's what is called an 'Intelli-sugar kick' or probably this is what a dash of Vit-C can do to a kid!

The rescue operation!

A quiet Wednesday morning, breakfast time for Dr. A (7:15am), as i take the slices of wheat bread from the toaster to the dining table, "wong wong wong" goes the lift alarm. "Oh no, not again!" So, i just throw the slices onto his plate and rush outdoors yelling for the security, on the way i noticed the diplay was stuck at 7 (th floor). Remember its 7:15am in the morning, the sleepy jugheads come and switch off the lift immediately not even noticing where the lift was stuck. I had to tell them it was on the 7th floor! It was school time and i could only hear some kid's voices in the lift. I was trying to tell them, men are there and would rescue them soon, but i was totally unaudible to them. Few other parents' way back home after leaving their kids on their respective school buses stopped by our block - thanks to mobile phones, understanding the situation, they started calling for contacts who-so-ever they had on their phone, Johnson's lifts, House Keeping supervisor etc . All calls in vain, since none of them had the keys - some Mr. Ashok had them and he was to come to the site only at 9am. I started calling all the CRM folks and woke them all up! I bet, none of these men(electrician, security et all) on site can handle a crisis situation - no drills were conducted and they were totally illeterate about this whole lift thing and how to go about it! Dr. A with an other security fellow, who seemed 'promisingly' awake and a bit healthy & fit, rushed to the 7th floor, thanks to A's gymming efforts - he could pull apart the lift door open/off and found an old lady with her daughter-in-law and her 2 (ready to school) grand children. They almost had a panic attack. They pulled them out somehow and we women downstairs for once put off our cell phones and heaved a sigh of relief @ 7:50am.

The kids missed their school bus, the old lady started blabbering - inspite of our earlier introductions, she had forgotten who A was and started questions like" Neenga tamil-a ? Inga daan irukkela, nalla vela vandel, nalaiku engalapathi paper-la vandurukumnu nenaichen..blah blah...". We can imagine her plight, at her age, she isnt ready for all these adventures.

Guess what - this Johnson's lift installed here, has no intercom and the emergency alarm rings only in the ground floor of that block - there's absolutely no means of contacting the security directly since there's no phone/intercom in the lift. No emergency mobile number or electrician's number or the lift operator's number is stuck inside.

So, moral of the story - dont buy Sobha homes! If at all you get to buy one, get them on the ground, 1st or 2nd or even 3rd where you can survive without a lift, else, be ready for adventures everyday! I really felt like waking up Menon and his wife Sobha for delivering such houses - i really do not know - how on earth does Narayana Murthy trust Sobha developers for all of his Infy campuses. I know the question on minds your now - then why did we choose Sobha - ha ha, thats the whole point, we trusted them by hearing to what people said in Bangalore as we moved here. This being our first home, as said earlier we didnt know much about the dos and donts of real estate here and chose Sobha since he seemed to the best of the worst around - mistakes do happen - we have learnt a lot - so, our 2nd one will definitely not be from these guys!

Of 'broken' links & roads

Almost every other day, the broadband conks - reason - somewhere in Bangalore they are laying roads and hence... There are always roads broken and relaid in every nook and corner of this town but why does it have to affect these lines. Bangalore is on a major metro and under-pass construction spree and guess where these constructions are happening - only on the so-called good roads like - MG and the Outer ring road. My guess is probably they are trying to match the quality of these 'good' roads to match with the rest of the roads in the city. This city is going to the dogs as far the roads & traffic is concerned! What can best explain the current scenario is, when Dr. A walks to work, he would reach in 8mins and when he decides to drive he would reach only the 20th minute :-)

A weekend - well spent!

We had waited enough for the builder to pave our 'red' sand garden and to get a sand box done for the little one. So, this weekend, as Dr. A was trying his hand on carpentry yet again i got to make a mini-temporary sand box for little A and he enjoyed whole of the windy Sunday playing there under the sun!

Coming to Dr. A's hand at carpentry II (Part I) - this time i did help him a bit and we had graduated to the next level or lesson rather - on how to make use of the hinges and A was more like a pro and very economical in changing the bits on the drilling machine this time. After some 2 hrs of well spent time, we came up with this laundry basket :-)

Cookie monsters!

Going down the memory lane...Zzzzz... for a flash back - those school days when we were only exposed to the very few available Britannia biscuits - Marie and Milk bikis, Bourbon's were a boon at times when a vistior arrived with those packs. Then came the college hostel days - in the 1st year we only had - Bourbon's and Hide n' Seek and Jim Jam(s) then slowly 'realised' - looking at our mess bills "kattubidi aagathu ma" and opted for those Tiger biscuits with tea. Mind you, only while in hostel were they our elixir's - before that they were low quality low budget biscuits! Later came the 5k stipend period and then to the 30k salary stage - we only used to talk about Sweet Chariots, Coffee day, Nilgiris and a bunch of Italian cookies or even Cookie-man cookies for that matter. I tell you, that was the period we enjoyed! Those 5k stipend and 30k salaries are all peanuts to today's youth! They buy a Nokia N-Series and khallas the rest of their salary today goes towards their bills and movie tickets! This is dragging me altogether into an other topic. Let me come back to the cookie story line, but now, we have plenty of options, that whenever i go grocery shopping am half the time perplexed as of what to buy for my little brat - the in-house Cookie Monster.
I seriously do not know if those cookies are really healthy,however labels like - Oats, Sugar-free, Zero-trans fat etc definitely sound healthy. We even get those Mcvities and Hob-nobs at such affordable rates these days. Once when our little one was down with travel diarrhaea, the doc precribed Arrowroot porridge,apple and Marie biscuits for his daily diet. A month later - when i went to pick up some Marie biscuits - i found the usual plain Marie and a new variety labelled - Nutrichoice Thin Arrowroot Biscuits. For a minute i was impressed! But, as a matter of fact - all such biscuits only constipate a normal kid and come in hand only when they are otherwise. So for now am stuck with those biscuits and cookies that have Oats(high fibre) as an essential ingredient and you know why.:-)

Biggest, Brightest Full Moon of 2008

As said on Nat Geo news "Although a full moon happens every month, the one that rises tomorrow will appear about 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than the other full moons seen so far this year.

That's because our cosmic neighbor will be much closer than usual. The moon will be at its closest perigee—the nearest it gets to Earth during its egg-shaped orbit around our planet."

No sooner did we hear this news (around 9pm IST) we rushed to our garden, and we could only capture this, that too only in a sepia effect can we at least spot the 'white' moon.

More of the same news,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7779294.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3722203/Biggest-and-brightest-full-moon-for-15-years-will-illuminate-the-night-sky.html

Our new home - a quick glance on Karthigai

Not much to write, too much work at home :-O and hence only pictures for today. Actually, uploading the pictures took away most of my time ;-)

HaPpY KaRtHiGaI DeEpAm!

A mouse's best-friend ?

A strange coincidence - We all know that 'mooshigan' or the mouse has been the best friend/steed of our dear elephant faced Bal Ganesh - but this is as per our Indian mythology.Yesterday, Adit and I were watching a few videos from Enid Blyton's Noddy - surprisingly there too the Clockwork Mouse pronounced Jumbo Elephant as its best friend! http://www.noddy.com/uk/watchnoddy watch video tagged "Clockwork Mouse’s Wish "

Is the elephant a mouse's best friend on this Universe ?

The whole 9 yards story

One of the most important rules of Tamil Brahmin orthodox families is to wear the Madisaar or the 9 yards sari on occasions like - Upanayanamas (the son's mother wears one), Weddings ( the bride and the parents of the wedding couple), a Maavilakku day, Kaaradaiyan Nombu , Varalaxmi Nombu, Karthigai Deepam, death anniverseries... - the list goes on and on. But with our generation - the Gen X or the Gen 2k, during the times of occasions esp, Sumangali Prarthanai - we always have a queue in front of a room where 2 Tanjavur/Cuddalore maami(s) help all those newly wedded brides to drape the 9 yards, this is also the case with a few America/Mumbai /(or) cosmopolitan maami(s) too who have also lost touch with the art of draping a sari!

Tomorrow being Karthigai , i thought i would attempt the Madisaar while lighting the deepams. So, the usual thing - i started Googling - " How to wear a Madisaar?". Lucky me, i hit this site - http://www.nilacharal.com/anjarai/alangaram/madisar1.html
Somehow, to me how many ever times i wear it, i dont seem to have learnt it properly, i just forget! And always do with the usual 6 yards saree. This time am making a serious attempt with the 9 yards and i hope to master the art - the art of Kung-fu, manage that long saree - those twists and turns and bends and what not!

Thats the female part, the men's plight is even worse. The dictated dress for men during such occasions is the 'equally complicated' Panchagacham. The situation for all those 'Vi'dheshi boys, on the day of their weddings, standing shirtless and below is no better - the transy dhoti's Panchagacham. I very well remember a colleague of mine (in UK) asking me this qn as he browsed thr' our wedding pics, "You women are so gorgiously dressed, why is your husband half naked ?" :-) If ever i get a chance to meet the MD/CEO(s) of Ramraj Veshti or as a matter of fact - the Nalli Silks owner, i ought to ask him, "Poor boys - why can't you manufacture the non-transy Dhoties or the one with some lining..." ;-)

911 in India ?

The one question that has been eating my brains - " why don't we, in India, have a 911 system ?" Just then my husband reminded me, even if we have one, we ought to have good/better roads or rather a proper road in many places for all those ambulances and fire engines to get to the target spot! A very very valid point. When will we have better infrastructure, better roads, better security systems, better blah blah blah...?

my good old roomie & her little one

PG, her parents and her little 'mini-me' visited us yesterday. Thanks to Bangalore traffic, they were all drained by the time they reached our home. After a coffee, we all got to the usual yapping grind. Mini-me refused to come to me :( She would hang on to me as long as she picks a cookie or a toffee from the boxes , and then she would just jump over and run to PG or her granny or Dr. A - that was the most-J part for me :-( She stuck to him as if she knew him for years, so cozily, almost about to doze off enjoying his pat-pat on her back! My little brat and mini-me had some fun painting. It was lovely to watch them both play in A's room. Mini-me just loves sweets, best was when PG swallowed the son-papdi, mini-me put her fingers into her mom's mouth trying to take it out and was all about to sob when she knew her mom had eaten all of her share :-) She is a darling!

here a tile, there a tile...

For all those debut home buyers - make sure you choose a tile that gives you the least gap/grout line between them. When the grout lines are supposed to be less than 2mm in a normal domestic house flooring, Our dear dear Sobha folks have given us a happy 3mm to 4mm gap between the tiles. This makes the grout line appear really thick and the flooring is yuck! It only gives the whole floor a dirty look. When you rub and try to clear the dirt on the grouts, it only peels off which gets really high on maintenance later - since one has to re-grout the whole floor once it peels . Here's a pic of how grout lines look in a Sobha home. When asked why such huge gaps , they say, the bigger the better when you change a tile, but how often do we break a tile and change it ? And they blamed the tile saying its the characteristic of the tile that leaves such gaps between them (???) We even went to the extent of checking a house that had chosen vitrified tiles in place of ceramic, even there the gaps were ridiculously large! We were so illiterate (in Aug 2006, soon as we moved to B'lore) about these nuances that we didn't even bother -(thinking, "Sobha is a big guy and knows the best and would render the best!" - my foot they know) and by the time we learnt - it was too late to suggest a change with Sobha developers! We have learnt a lesson (many chapters within though:-))!

To make it even worse, we have a private garden, which is filled with red sand at the moment. In a couple of days, its gonna be a month since we moved in, no landscaping or paving is undertaken. I can't let Adit play out there, however at times when it is sunny and the red sand's not damp, i do send him out to play, and the result - all the grout lines are painted red by those tiny feet :)

But you know what, when 2 or more men or women get together, the one topic/question that binds them all in Bangalore - 'Whose builder is worse than mine ?'

Dr. A's hand at carpentry

I ought to post this pic - A's 1st hand at carpentry (from the left over pieces of our modular wardrobes) and he came up with this tiny little open shelf, which i judiciously put to use as a stand for our water dispenser & the tissue box and some decor in the open area below! Carpentry is the most recent add-on to his list of hobbies and weekend to-dos, so me gonna have fun with his creations henceforth :-)

supper time...

Thanks to my mami, who introduced this easy & healthy recipe for us - the Ragi Sevai. In our school days, Upma used to be the least desired breakfast/tiffin/ dinner or whenever it has to be made or eaten during the day. But when i took control of the kitchen, post marriage, i realized how 'easy' on earth it is to make an upma! and geeeeeeeeeeee i started liking it :) But i had to convince A & A too that it is ofcourse a good one to have for dinner. Then i started exploring various means of making it eatable / edible for the boys!

In Oct 08, my sis and I visited our mama/mami and who had made an amazing tiffin for us, we instantly fell in love with it when we know the preparation time was hardly 5 minutes :-) less utensils used too! It was the ragi sevai - we get those ready made ragi vermicelli or ragi sevai sticks. One has to just soak them in water or rather wash it in running waters, steam heat for 3-5 mins. Then comes the fun, stir fry how many ever colorful vegs we got at home just the way we do it for the 'upma(s)' and ta-Daa - as you mix the steamed ragi sticks - delicious - ragi upma - ragi sevai - ragi vermicelli - whatever on earth one has to call it - is ready!

they were...

Only from the papers did i get to know today that they were not stars, but planets - Venus and Jupiter!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7759146.stm

Perfect Smiley!

Nature smiling at us, lovely positioning of the cresent and the 2 stars, a perfect smiley :). Caught as A & I played some badminton this evening...

Vaaranam Aayiram....Aruvai aayiram

++++ Surya's boyish looks & all of his gimmicks - He's damn impressive in his school boy looks, he should be the lead in "Kanaa Kaalum Kaalangal" on Vijay TV
+ Sameera's costume as a grad student, her subtle role
+ Dad Surya's make up - very realistic!

- The sis is a big waste, i mean its not really OK to say "Its OK" to your own brother when you lose your father!
- Divya Spandana too is a waste
- Bad costumes during dad surya + simran's college days
- Too much dad/mom/kiddo calls in a middle class family (???) Mummy, daddy is OK, mom and dad seems too refined for a movie that revolves around a middle class family - who keep stressing the point - "kaila kaasu illa"
- The drug part was a little gory.
- When Sameera Reddy says, "nee epo Berkeley University join panne", when did the school's name change ? How could Gautham Menon do such a blunder ?


On the whole, only Surya is impressive! Probably the last movie that filmed a song sequence in front of the Taj Mahal hotel! The Taj hotel and some NSG jackets reminded us of the Mumbai massacre!