When childhood pals meet...

Its been almost nine and a half years we completed schooling and its almost five years, we had visited a place together. After Kodaikanal in 2005, its Pondicherry now!

Its been a long pending item, which we had achieved now. We missed our other guys, but still we six managed to make it. It was like married guys being single for one day and singles feeling even younger and surprised by the mature talks of the latter ;). The talks about our school were still fresh, still remembering and cherishing the good old days we were in school.  It was great to see how we have transformed ourselves from how we were in school to how we are now. Altogether, it was a pleasant holiday! Lets see when we meet up again! Sometimes these kinda activities give us a sigh of relief from our routine...aint it?

I dont recollect how we came to this topic...

...but suddenly one of my roomie commented about social networking especially twitter or facebook, that most often people use it to show off. He also added saying that some tweet unnecessarily saying that they are in the middle of so and so movie or they are in so and so restaurant or bla bla bla... My thought was completely different...I feel we have at least this freedom of expressing our thoughts. If some body tweets something or posts on his wall in Face book, take the one's which is relevant for you and leave the rest. Something which you dont like may be liked by others and vice versa... :) We dont get to talk to our friends everyday and atleast these networks help to keep us atleast aware of what our friends are doing currently, even if we dont respond. Of course, you may or may not be really interested in what he or she is doing at this current moment. But at some cases, it may help recollect good memories. Say for example, you happened to visit your old school recently and you tweet that, it may bring good old memories to your school friends who are following you. May be social networking is a time pass, may be it is useful, may be it is a show off, its how we see it...thoughts ?

Its been a regular routine....

... to start my blog with.."its been a little while i blogged..." i wondered if i could try out some new way to start off with...

Now its been over a month, I am back to namma Bengaluru. Seems nowadays i feel even more lazy to tweet...some how made up to scribble here...so what shall i talk...should i talk about my stay abroad or should i talk about the way they see a guy after he returns abroad or for that matter how you take it....I am no exception..u could atleast find some symptoms of an onsite return..... and whatever i scribble here is the fun teaser my colleagues had to tease on me...

Once when my colleague looked at my playlist - Rihanna's Rated R...thats it gone...they even asked if i changed my name to Kish..or Ken or something...

The lift was really slow in the new building of my office...Should nt i ask about it ? It was the talk of the cubicle the next moment.. :) :)

I was a liitle cautious in whatever i speak...some how when i was speaking to my manager... "okay" turned "k"..and it repeated a few times and he also didnt leave me without making fun.... :) :) I was extra cautious in not using the word 'appreciate'.

One afternoon, I had my parota at the road side opposite to my office. It added more flavour to the talk...They had to tease me somehow and started like "See the simplicity of this US maapillai having parota in the roadside...(now i am not an Indian it seems :( :( ).

Mostly you will find a Cheroke brand in the Mega mart stores here. Is it my mistake to buy that brand? :) :) It had the eagle logo...They were asking if i remember our national bird.... :) :)

..i think its been a month and hope the fun teaser is over...you go away for one month or one year...they dont care...your legs need to be pulled...

What to blog? Why to blog?

Hey ya! This piece may not be something interesting! Its a sort of cribbing at my own!

I have been into this space for quite a while. I was just lookin back at my own piece of scribbling. Either I just pour my thoughts on a movie or exagerate one of the place I visited or contemplate about my wierd cooking or some nostalgic memories to cherish! Is that all ? Why am i doing all this in the first place? Am I self centric and trying to attract with my extended testimonies ? Should I talk philosophical ? Should I comment on what is goin on the surrounding ? Am I not using the space properly ? Should I crticise something on a current hot topic ? Is it like being selfish and not thinking about others? Is it I am single and want to impress ? Who?

Hmmm...I dont know... The one that turns me on or at which I am interested more, drives me to scribble in this piece! I dont say that you judge a person completely by his writing here. It may be partial result. Of course I dont record bad memories or negative thoughts here. So why? Is it because people who read my blog might have a balanced impression on me? If so, should I care? So am I marketing my self in this arena ? Well whatever! At this moment, I didnt know what to blog and wanted to blabber something here! Blah..Blah...Blah!

No offence if this piece is boring and irrelevant or out of the context! I think I had given a warning at the start! :)

Sushi...is not my loaf of bread!

I always had the thirst to try food at different restaurants and different menus. Though I could not remember the name of the recipe, mostly I liked it, at the least I could manage to eat it! But this time things went out of my way and it was really a very bad experience. May be I did not adapt to Sushi!

It was a team lunch with my client! And they are all a very big fan of these Sushi food. Well, I never had this before and I was excited to try it. We were in the restaurant and we were all set to order! I got my menu ! I was totally confused, what to have! The sushi menu had their own Japanese words. Except for the key words like shrimp, crab, scallop...I could not understand anything.

The sushi style is something like small rolls where in they will have the meat wrapped with several layers containing rice and sausage. I finally managed to order shrimp and crab tempura with rice....I could nt recollect. Another thing was the use of chopsticks. It was the first time I am using it. Ofcourse I had to ask how to use it. Its not as easy as it is for them.

My food was served. The first shock for me is it was a plain rice, along with this main stuff I had ordered. I cannot eat plain rice you see. We always gulp it with Sambhar, rasam, curd. It was the first unusual thing. I had to mix it with soya sause and eat it. That was horrible! I managed to take one of the roll using the chopstick and dip it in the soya sause, and managed to dump it in my mouth. What happened next is the most embarrasing moment! I felt it was a raw shrimp, probably they just boiled. I was sitting before my client.. neither could I spit it out nor could I swallow. Unwillingly, daringly gulped a few and left the remaining.

It was probably not my choice of food. We are always used to overcook the food with all masala spices added to it. I am not complaining about Sushi but it is not my loaf of bread!

May be a better dining experience next time!

Good Start...

We were just thinking how we can celebrate the start of the new year!

We are totally nine in number including me here out of which three are married. Six of us are staying in two adjacent apartments. We thought, why not we arrange for a "PotLuck" gathering!? It sounded good! We had an agreement to meet in one of the bachelor's apartment on the New Year afternoon for lunch. Each person must prepare some dishes and bring. And then we would have a collective variety of lunch.

From our apartment we had agreed to prepare Aloo Bajji, Drumstick Sambhar and Vegetable Khurma. It was a different experience. I googled the recipe for Aloo Bajji (Google for Aloo Bajji....sounds funny huh!?) and tried that! Beginner's luck! It came out good if not excellent! Actually it was a collective work with all my inmates involved. More or less, I have become a master in Sambhar these days and it was a cake walk this time. My other colleague prepared the Vegetable Khurma.

The other dishes from other apartment included Vada, Gobi Manchurian, Puri, Vegetable Pulao, Vegetable Biryani, Tamarind Rice, Paratha, Papad and Kesari. It was fully a vegetarian menu! It may sound crazy to write the dishes here, but it would make me feel content when I read this after some time especially when i am lazy to cook and I end with ONLY dhaal and rice! He..he!!

It was a different experience. Not only the variety in dishes, but the variety in persons involved - families, kids, bachelors. Its also like South Indian states coming together - Karnataka, Andhra, Tamil Nadu & Kerala. The families had a chance to taste the bachelors' preparation. And we had a chance to taste theirs. It was fun altogether.

We had a good start! Happy New Year!

Cooking Confessions !

Its been a great cooking experience these days, though painful sometimes. I have been cooking almost all evenings since I landed here last month and I used to cook for the next afternoon too. Its all new for me. I have never been like this. Usually, I dont eat the food cooked the day before. Things had to change now. If I want my native lunch, I had to cook. Well most of the days, I prepare rice and sambhar. Sometimes, I go to a lighter version, Rasam! I have almost tried dumping most of the vegetables in sambhar. One reason is I dont want to waste time cooking a side dish or I am lazy rather. Sometimes, I start cooking sambhar and end up in dhal. Being my only judge, my colleague has no other option...be it tasty or not, he has no way to go. Mostly I get a positive rating on my Sambhar though, the taste is unique each time I cook. :)

I am getting used to the open-heat-eat concept. Whenever I go to the stores, I look for the most possible ready-to-eat dishes that are available. It actually helps when I am very very lazy. :) I now wonder, how my mom got used to this all time cooking activity. Its indeed a tough task in the long run.

Above all, whatever it is, I feel satisfied and content when I eat what I cooked. Its because, when I do something and expect an outcome, my mind tries to console and also appreciate it .

Happy Cooking!

I am in a world...Experiencing the change!

Its been a long time, I blogged here. I was lazy, rather. I have been experiencing a lots of transformations in self for the past one month. Been seeing new things, people, workplace and of course the culture variance. Sometimes its nice, sometimes its difficult, sometimes wondered, sometimes excited, sometimes bored, sometimes no thoughts...

I am in a world where people believe in rules be it in roads or anywhere. I am in a world where I feared to travel alone. I am in a world where I did not eat idlis or dosas in the morning but corn flakes. I am in a world where I rely on the internet and GPS. I am in a world where I was cooking full time. I am in a world where I am not @home.

Its almost a month since I flew all way from Bangalore to San Diego here in the United States for a short term assignment. Its been a new experiment through out. Be it the flight travel or landing in a foreign land or travelling alone in a taxi to a unknown place, the FIRST experience is always a mixture of all the expressions I could think off. Now things are settling slowly and I have started to explore in this world. I am now trying out the different varieties of food here - American, Mexican, Thai, Chinese etc. Of course, I had these flavours in Bangalore but I had preferred or relied mainly on my native rather. I still have a long way to explore out here!

See you then!

Unnai Pol Oruvan - Kamal's flavour of the original !

I had not scribbled anything on “A Wednesday”, but some how wanted to for this tamil version. May be, because it’s a dual Padma shri movie, may be I saw the original version a couple of months later its release or may be this is something new to the “Tamil” audience.

This movie should be enjoyed in theatres as I did. This movie which has been released with hardly any hype unlike the previous venture “Dasavatharam”, is a fast paced political thriller involving five to six characters with absolutely no songs and the total duration winding up in less than 2 hours. It’s also very un-common in Tamil cinema to flash the hero’s name without a title, and this movie is one such. There is no “Ulaga Nayagan”. There is no “Padma Shri”. Of course there is no publicity required for this proven star. The whole movie is about a series of incidents happening in 3-4 hours duration of time and Kamal Haasan raises question on every one's mind about his portrayal of character in this movie until a few minutes before the end credits. His only company being a set of hi-tech gadgets which includes laptop to routers to cell phones and others. He has only phone conversations with two characters, except for the climax scene. Neither his name nor his religion is revealed in this movie though he gives hints in a few scenes. It’s always difficult for me to understand his dialogues which most of the time has an inner meaning. I saw Dasavatharam twice to grasp some. I think I should do the same here too.

Padma Shri Mohan Lal is the serious and responsible commissioner of Chennai, who speaks Tamil in his own Malayalam accent. His character just shows how, who and what kind of decisions will be taken at the time of an emergency situation and its impact. No doubts to his performance. He has done this role like a cake walk. The other guy, worth to mention was the clean-shaved-smart-rough cop. The interrogation scene is one of the scenes which just shows the attitude and power of that particular character with less action and dialogue. They have showed the female press reporter as a smoker in this movie. To avoid controversies, they never show the lady smoking. I am still not very clear on the point of such a characterization. Is it the job that is stressful or I don’t know why?

I enjoyed the dialogues in this movie. In fact the dialogues play a prominent role in this movie. It had a good number of sarcasms and revolves about the current affairs, especially the conversations between the both legendary actors. Unlike “A Wednesday” the character of Lakshmi was an addition in the Tamil version and was interesting too, especially her political heated arguments with Mohan Lal.

Shruthi Haasan’s background score was apt. I liked the song “Unnai Pol Oruvan” which was played at the background during the end credits. It remembered the end credits of ‘The Matrix’, when this song started with the lines from the holy “Bhagavad Gita”.

Finally, I felt it’s a welcoming movie for the Tamil audience and I do like to watch more such fast pace movies with no songs. It’s just like the T20 version of Cricket from the conventional 50 over ODI. It’s more thrilling and exciting you see!

Conjeevaram - More than a movie!

Last week, I happened to watch this movie in one of the Tamil Satellite channels "STAR Vijay". It's really a nice experience watching this movie. The movie is setback in the period of 1940's. Personally I am excited when i see movies which are of unusual genre and this is one. You get to know lot of information about the past. May be its true or not, its told and we see it.

Conjeevaram, as Kanchipuram is originally spelled before independence is famous for its silk sarees. Saree is a traditional costume wore by married woman in our parts of the state. And Silk sarees are so special and are considered to be of a superior value, which is usually wore by Indian women on any important occasion or festivals. The other fact is this silk saree is hand woven by the people who have been in this place for centuries.


This movie talks about one such person, who weaves one of the finest Silk sarees. Though he weaves silk sarees, he could not own one such saree or even see a person wearing it. And this is the case for all the weavers in the place. After all they are just labours and the zamindars take credit and do the business. In this movie, the weaver dreams and promises a silk saree for his daughter at the time of her wedding. The movie takes through his journey on how he manages to weave and own a silk saree and was he able to succeed?

There are other aspects which is shown in this movie. It shows how communism had its roots in Indian soil and how it emerged. It shows how important a government job was when a constable feels restless when he finds his hat missing the government emblem. It shows how the present Co-operative society for the weavers in Kanchipuram had formed. It shows how the English were fascinated with hand woven silk sarees. It shows how the labours were charged in return for their marvellous work. It shows the Zamindari system that prevailed then. And there are more! I just watched and admired!

Admired the way it is filmed by Priyadharshan with Prakashraj in the lead role. Its not a movie and its more than that, may be awareness or education!