Philosophical Masala Dosai

Before reading this post , I would request u to read my other post on dosais. I relinquish my dosais fully . Especially masala dosais(MD) . The other day when I was munching my MD , I realised that eating MD was an art by itself !! yes ..i then started analysing how people ate their MD..To my excitement it did have a significant way in their way of life too ...
Let me put down my analysis ..
1)People who finish the dosai part and have the masala saved till the last moment. These people save a lot of money and use the money later.
2) People who are of the other kind . The ones who finish the masala first and slowly gobble the dosai part ..These are the people who dont care abt savings ..Spend and enjoy is their motto.
3)People who start from the middle and proceed to both ends..These are the people who like to get right to what they think is their best part of life.
4)People who eat the dosa making sure that the masala lasts forthe whole dosa.. These people are very rare. They plan their life systematically ..
mmm...these are my strange analysis ..Next time you eat dosai , i am pretty much sure
you would think abt this art of masala dosai and eat it carefully and not push it in your digestive tract..

Be careful ,eating Masala dosais reveals your character ..

Madhu
-MD in Dosai Philosophy

Sundal Garam Sundal

Dusserra is a festival which is celebrated in all parts of India for various reasons. North of India , people celebrate on the victory of Ram over Ravan . In the East people enjoy the festival as Durga Pooja with "Sandesh". In the South people celebrate it as victory of Durga over Mahishasuran by having a Kolu ( dolls ) . Each of the regions have their own culture and reasons to celebrate .Navarathiri is most well known for Ladies going to one another's house on one of these 9 days . Ladies sing songs , interact with others . On the whole the whole environment is spiritual . The celebration of Kolu is by placing divine mud dolls on an odd number of steps . The fact that we place mud dolls symbolizes that after death we also become mud .

I being from south have my own reason.I celebrate kolu for a very special reason . Yes your guess is right . I enjoy the sundals . Being from a small colony called Kalpakkam , I used to go to most of my friends houses and eat sundals from each of the houses . Being a good critic of food , I gained popularity for giving genuine comments on sundals .It became well known in a circle of our friends that my certificate was valid for all the 9 days. On the day I certify a sundal to be good , it was like Vasishtar Vayal Brahma rishi for the sundal Mami . Like today's Microsoft certification for MCSE or Sun ceritification for Java, those days were popular for Madhu certified sundals .
My amma's speciality was Puttu . This is made of Arisi Mavu( Rice flour) and generally made on a Friday . My God! , I still remember our house used to be full of people on Fridays. People from 21 street( farthest from my house) used to come to 5 th avenue to taste my Amma's Puttu .
The days are gone , now a days we havent been celebrating kolu for this reason . Its been more than 2 years since I have eaten sundal . I miss my Sundal . Hoping against the hope to start celebrating kolu again atleast for my sundal wishes .

Cheers,
Madhu
Sundalan

Volunteering

This weekend was pretty hectic for most of us from the organization. Not because we had to fix bugs but some of us had volunteered for community service. Some of the activities were enjoying with Specially privileged children, old aged ppl , helping out thalasemia patients ,etc. I decided to volunteer to for a couple of activities.
Chord was one such event. This was the one for helping out bringing in scientific temper among the under priveleged children who had been child labors and who were being taken care a NGO called Chord. We meticulously planned the various activities beforehand so that nothing crashes on the day of event . Ppl were assigned various responsibilities, food committees, science committees , etc were formed to take various roles. Leads took care of the overall arrangements .
Why should I participate in this event , Is it because I didnt want fix bugs on a Sat , was I getting a free T-Shirt , was it that I wanted a change or was it a small step from me to do a small service to humanity in my own small way ..Thinking and contemplating I boarded the bus which took us to the school ( I am not sure if I could call it a school). It was a faraway from Hyd about 25 Kms . We played a lot of games with the children . Musical chairs, some cultural activites with the kids made both us and the children enjoy the event. "Breakfast guys"..called the lead and all of us broke our fast .
After the breakfast , the main event took place.

Science Exhibition.

Volunteers went around the exhibits prepared before hand by the students with the help of their teachers. The main idea for around was to help them understand the basic science concepts and their real life implications. Rain water harvesting , Capillary action , Water pressure expts, Salt water synthesis , Electrical circuits , Optics .All parts of the science was touched. We went around each of the exhibits to help them . This was the toughest part. They were not able to communicate with us..And our Telugu was terrible. In our toota foota telugu we managed to tell them whatever we knew and they understood things in their own way (Hope we havent taught anything wrong) .
After this the children demonstrated the same to their school mates and explained them. The children did their work with a great deal of enjoyment and involvement . As we were showing the exhibits , Lunch was being taken by other children keeping in mind of the small kitchen. Biriyani ..Curd Rice ..Kids thought it was festival time ..this was the most relishable time for the kids .
Post lunch was devoted to origami classes. With Papers it was amazing to see of some of our volunteering to teach making elephants, birds..mmmm. God I also tore a lot of papers !..Kids got them correct and I presume they would possess these pieces pf papers as really valuable pieces of their creativity .
Day was coming to a close when we decided to share way the prizes to winners of events whihc we conducted all thru the day like memory game, art competitions ,etc . The kids also performed their part in singing songs, dancing etc to entertain us . Good Show guys... "Tata , bye Bye ..please come again sir/Madams", said the kids as we parted way after a long anjd memorable day.
I boarded the bus with a heavy heart again thinking if I had got the answer ..I believe I got the answer .

Cheers,
Madhu
Volunteer.

Indru Oru thagaval

"Inrou oru thagaval", was a popular AIR program on weekdays at 7:40 am during my school days. I am not sure if the program is being aired even today . its a 5 min program and the agenda was pretty straight forward. A small story with a big message and the program ended with a small joke.
Initially I started listening to the program to keep up my time. The broadcast was my breakfast time during school days. During the course of the time , I became a big fan of the program for its short and sweet stories. The hero of the program was Thenkachi Ko swaminathan whoz there in the foto right above. His voice suits a grandfather's voice who tells bedtime stories to his grand children. the morals and teachings in the program come a long way in ones life.Mr Swaminathan, seems to have retired from AIR and seems to have joined SUN TV . I just happened to see him in the morning show during my breakfast at 9:00 AM the other day and I was reminded of some of the stories narrated by him.

One of the nice stories that I still remember goes like this .

" There were 2 buddhists monks . They were crossing a river. They saw a beautiful woman who was struggling to cross the river. She asked the monks to help her cross the river by carrying her in their shoulder. One of the monks said it was a sin to carry woman. but the other monk carried her along and helped her cross the river. The woman thanked the monk and lleft on her own way. After abt 10 mins , the monk didnt help the female told the other."Our Guru has asked us not carry woman".
For this the monk just replied , "I have left the woman in the bank, but it seems you have carried all until here ". This monk realised his folly .

Sucha small story with a huge meaning aint it..

Madhu

Paati

Do I Blog only when something bad happens ?

Alas , I need to say my paati has "attained acharyan tiruvadi " ( a vaishnavite way of saying she has breathed her last ) on 19 th April 2006 .

Madhu

Eternal Peace

The day after I wrote my previous blog a disastrous event struck my life . I lost my father . He was suffering from PSP ( Progressive Supranuclear Palsy) a nervous disorder which can never be cured atleast for now !!!. Though I was preparing myself for the inevitable, I wasnt yet fully ready to take it on my stride. More than me I felt sad for my mother. The day March 2 , 2005 arrived and it happened. It took me some time to shake me out fo the grief.
Slowly but steadily I started to think about death. Most of us shy away from even talking about death thinking thats an evil. But how many of us thought about the beauty of death.
Death - I would term it as an eternal peace or atleast a journey towards peace .All of us should learn to enjoy death as we enjoy birth. Birth and death are a part of the cycle. How we learn to come out of this cycle is the core philosophy of Hinduism.
If one think with a broader mind one shall start realising that death is not as bad as it is. The way we die is. We all should live this life like this was our last day in this land as we never know when we go away. We should do the best to keep ourselves and our the humanity happy in the way we could.
We should welcome death as we welcome birth. After all death is final place of rest .

-Madhusoodhanan

"Punarapi maranam punarapi jananam" - Sankaracharya