Winter jingle 2016

Tingling legs, aching head

sneezing all the way

Oh what pain it is to wait

forever in the cold bus bay

 

hey

 

Tingling legs, aching head

wheezing all the way

Oh what pain it is to wait

for three quarters of my day

 

Dashing through the snow*

on an overcrowded day

o'er the pavements we go

tumbling all the way

 

Clutching the yellow poles

shutting our eyes tight

oh, how much we whine and cringe

and hope to get home tonight

 

Tingling legs, aching head

gazing all the way

Oh what pain it is to wait

for the morning's very first ray

 

hey

 

Tingling legs, aching head

snoozing all the way

Oh what pain it is to wake

and find that I have no say.

 

 

 

 

*Plagiarised from the original, thereby sacrificing factual accuracy that I am yet to experience my first commute on a snowy day.

 

P.S: I wrote this at work this morning after what proved to be my most challenging winter commute yet (90 minutes of frost). I'm sure I have had equally bad, if not worse, experiences before, but my brain seems to be adept at erasing even recent memories fairly quickly. I suppose that lets me move on to silly things (proof above) that will distract me from the looming horror of this evening's bus ride back home. But who cares... it is the season to be merry! And so, looking at the bright side of life, I wish you all better bus rides in 2017!

 

:-)

 

P.P.S: Punctuation was thrown out of the window for this post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello from the other side.

Dear one,

 

Yes, you and I are dear to each other, just the way it ought to be for Us to live in peace. Fractious walls between us will come to no good. The day you separate Me from You is the day you lose Yourself. I fear that day is not too far away.

 

Subconsciously, you have begun placing the foundation for this divide. In your heart, you yearn for love and recognition. You have never asked for it. You have never wanted it. The luxury of validation has always been present in your comfortable existence and you have basked in the warmth of that wonderful feeling. That perfect blend of confidence and pride when ego is largely absent defines you. I know You and that's how I know all this.

 

But now, you face ridicule. Even in your perceived self-perfection, there are cracks from a hammer chipping away at your exterior. The hammer serves to destroy you from outside and then will you to build imperfect walls within. Malice is barely concealed and derision works hard to break your soul. In your heart you fear living a barren life- devoid of love (unconditional or otherwise) and appreciation.

 

But do you really think it is that easy to lose love? And do you really believe that a lack of appreciation will kill you? What is this deep-seated insecurity that you are adamant in making your own? That taunts, jibes and general contempt serve to shake your very foundation? When did you find it so easy to lose trust in people and their inherent general goodness? Why would you want to let your ability to love vanish? It saddens me to think that one day, the meaning of the word 'unconditional' will become irrelevant in your psyche. I grieve more to see you go down the road of hopelessness and crushing apathy.

 

You live in a glass house and you lend your help to the hands that throw stones at you. And in those ruins, you seek to build meaningless walls because you fear that you will be naked to the world outside. One day these towering walls will christen themselves 'Ego' and intimidate my quiet voice with their loud rumble. But, you know what they say... "The meek shall inherit the Earth". These walls will, one day, crumble at your feet. And I will be around to see that triumph, just as I am here with you now witnessing the beginning of your downfall.

 

Yours.

 

 

Hi there,

Thanks for stopping by for a fresh bout of introspective gargle on this blog page. It's rather sad that I'm prone to more introspective spurts than most other people. Or maybe not.

 

On yet another WiFi-less long commute to/from work, I got my head going about a letter from my past self. If I had written myself a letter in the past, warning my future self about potentially destructive tendencies that I would acquire, would my life have been for the better now? Will I have been prescient enough to be able to transfer pre-emptive wisdom to an older me? I like to think in the affirmative.

 

 

 

The hypocrisy conundrum.

My friends and I enjoy discussing pretty much everything under the sun. These banters are special for four reasons- 

1. They are a great platform to express our opinion.

2. No one judges anyone else for what they say or how they feel about things. Personal opinion is valued and there is mutual respect and openness. 

3. Some of us love putting ourselves in the shoes of the opposite camp just to get an objective feel of how one might approach the same issue alternatively.

4. It is easy to have an opinion but very hard to form one without bias. Hearing many people out increases one's tolerance for diversity. At best, it hardens a person enough to accept that people will be different.

I digressed just a little bit there. 

I was born into a family that is bound by societal norms to vegetarianism. It is not atypical for a child exposed to such culture to view the antithetic dietary camp (read "non-vegetarianism") with biased eyes. Some children go to the extreme of ridiculing other children who eat meat. Usual behaviour involves retching and other related noise making. Let us, for a minute, ignore the fact that the very same children later grow up to realize that they were, all the while, part of the minority. Oh, and they eventually start eating meat. They all do.

Did I say "Ignore this fact"? I ought not to have, considering that this fact forms an important basis of my post. As a child, my curiosity killed no cat. I, very liberally, defied this expected norm and sampled a piece of meat and to my intrigue, enjoyed the taste. This one-off jaunt did not develop into a lifestyle for a very long time to come (although I did compensate by watching shows involving meat being cooked, sizzled, beaten and subjected to a million other culinary techniques). 

As I grew older and my opportunities of visiting different countries expanded, I realized that it was becoming harder to find vegetarian food. I would go mostly hungry due to my reluctance to eat sticky rice, fruits and boiled vegetables. For a decent while, the thought of eating meat never crossed my mind. 

It was during one such holiday that I, very suddenly, made up my mind to eat meat during travelling. I started enjoying trying out local cuisine (which mostly only involved meat) and with each passing trip, my guilt started ebbing. While I was still wary about trying out exotic dishes (read octopus/ squid/ fried grasshoppers), I found myself growing confident about trying other "acceptable" taboo dishes.

Concurrent to all of this, I would have regular discussions with a good friend about the whole idea of eating meat. Our long discussions evolved from "I don't want to eat meat for ethical and personal reasons" to "I want to eat meat because I feel like it." Suddenly, I felt guilty about a whole new thing- depriving myself of experiences which I could have, if only I had an unfettered mind with no pre-established constraints and sentimental bonds. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like it was the right thing to do. Survival with experience. Fight temptation by succumbing to it.

All this while, I remained only an honorary carnivore. There were no second thoughts about eating meat only once in a while. Things seemed to be going well until the hypocrisy started raising its ugly head way too frequently.

When I watched parts of "The Cove", I was filled with outrage and burst into tears at the sight of thousands of dolphins being butchered for meat. It appalled me that people would have the heart to kill these beautiful creatures for food. Did they not have beef, mutton, chicken, pork and fish to survive on? Why dolphins? This depressive outburst lasted all of two days. I want to say that by the end of that week, I had, perhaps, had chicken wings or a steak. Guilt is transitory. 

Eventually, I found myself signing online petitions to stop seal hunting, bear poaching, tiger killing and twenty other causes. I want to blame Ricky Gervais for half of these signatures (I'll leave this for later, though). And while I was signing petitions, I was also being exposed more and more to the horrors of animal testing for cosmetics. I found myself searching for stores and brands selling cruelty- free products. And all this while, my occasional meat-eating persisted.

The hypocrisy conundrum presented itself in its most magnificent form when I discussed (yes, with the same friend) an article that I had recently read that time on the unethical treatment meted out to dairy cows (http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/cows/dairy-industry/). I was more determined than ever to completely give up dairy and join the cause of suffering cows. Then during our talk two questions cropped up- would I give up curd (first love of my life)? And would I give up beef (almost the second love of my life)? To my horror, I realized that my answer was a knee-jerk "No" to both questions.

I have not understood the reason for my opinion, to this day. While I have gone meat-free for a substantial period of time now, I'm still unsure about whether this will continue for the rest of my life. How does one develop selective empathy towards living things? How does one develop a "biased objective" as a rationale behind certain actions? While I want to reason out my behaviour based on a "Rebellion against the system Vs. Compassion for life" hypothesis, I do not have sufficient ground or substantiation to validate my case. Have we/I lost sight of why the "system" came to be, so much so that it only serves to be a vestige without meaning? The train of thought that has been huffing and puffing for long in the corridors of my cranium has derailed on this screen and lies in wait for a self-induced reasoning to put it back on its wheels. Until then, what works works.

Fin. 

Fitful fancies

This is essentially a long lost scrawl from my notebook put together from song titles.Oh well...

How easy it is for me to escape
with my larger than life dreams!
My own stairway to heaven,
I don't know why I cannot leave all this behind.
I'm stuck in a moment I can't get out of
a landslide stretches for a thousand miles.
I'm fallin', my world left far behind,
I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
My sweet lord, won't you help me?
Time is running out and I wait for the answers promised.
In the end it all comes down to things that matter
because sometimes you can't make it on your own.

Vote for me!

Election time in Tamil Nadu and it's the same story all over again. Promises upon promises and vows to do nothing but work tirelessly for the welfare of the state. This post has nothing to do with political affinities. It only reflects upon the sad state of affairs in our country where bribery and corruption have become an integral part of everyday life. People have been conditioned into convincing themselves that it is not wrong to demand something in return for a favour. In this case, our politicians demand our votes in return for all the "welfare measures" that they are going to implement. The run-up to the election is just a teaser of all the good things waiting. IF voted to power.

  I have to admit that I'm saddened deeply. Not just because of the state of affairs in TN but the country in its entirety. With revelations of countless scams and corruption cases being opened each day (only to remain unresolved for decades), it is quite obvious that we are not a poor country. Heck, it is a disgrace to call ourselves a "developing" nation. We could have already become a superpower, what with the resources and intellectual abundance we possess. But there is something fundamentally wrong in the way our system works. Most of us close our eyes to the flaws in its fabric. We see the frayed edges, the gaping holes in the center, yet we either choose to ignore them, or, like in most of our cases, we feel helpless. We search for avenues which will help us look for remedies to these problems and in the end, it only feels like a futile attempt to walk straight with eyes closed.

  Elections come and go but our leaders don't. They find ways to stay at the top and things remain the way they always have. Problems of bogus voting, death threats, and of course, freebies being doled out in massive generosity are the highlights of elections these days. It is truly astounding to list out the promises made, just to be voted back to power. Petty issues are given importance and the causes that truly matter remain sadly forgotten. Instead of giving out food mixers and laptops, a lot could be done to promote free education for underprivileged children and possibly, improve the existing midday meal programmes which will prove to be a positive catalyst for poor parents to send their kids to school. Money could be put into improving the infrastructure of cities and towns. Healthcare facilities could be prepped up. There is no end to listing things that could actually improve the standard of living of a state's population.

 There are some things that I just cannot understand. In a state where electricity is as unpredictable as rainfall in the Sahara, air conditioners are being promised. Laptops for students, free gold, free rice, free clothes, free bus passes, free housing, free pension- it is nauseating. People who don't have money to eat three decent meals a day cannot afford to make use of mixer-grinders and air conditioners! The absurdity of the current scenario prevailing in the state is simply overwhelming.

 As responsible citizens we are encouraged to exercise our right to vote. And use it to vote responsible leaders to power. Very few independent candidates who are qualified to make well-reasoned decisions contest in elections. In general, we do not want to enter the murky waters of politics. Not because we are apprehensive but because we think it is too hopelessly corrupt for us to actually attempt effecting a change. There is a lot of debate among the educated, responsible circles, but is there a way to find a solution to this disease that spreads like cancer with time? Can there be a revolutionary social movement that will instill some fear in our leaders and poke them into leaving their corrupt, anti-social ways? It is time we were given some answers.

Chronicles of a hungry student

I'm so into cooking of late. I search for blogs on cooking. Youtube downloads of Srirangam mamis cooking Pongal and Vatha kozhambu cramp my RealPlayer library. The weekends that I spend at my cousin's are dominated by 'Nigella's feasts'. For someone who used to consider holding so much as a ladle an offense, this is big time transformation.
Like so many other changes happening in my life, this change is also attributed to the fact that I'm staying alone. Away from family. Eight months of survival owe it to curd rice and home made pickles and podis and appalams. Making something for myself to eat was the last thing I wanted to do along with the battle against homesickness. The weekly calls home made things worse. Hearing all my favorite dishes being spelt out as "sadharana samayal inikki" only made the starving demon in me stronger.
Still it was not strong enough for me to feel inspired enough to enter the kitchen. The curd rice saga continued. Monthly trips to Komala Vilas and Murugan Idli shop were meticulously planned. A couple of thayir vadais and a dosai transported me into a state of euphoria. Ashamed as I am to make this comparison, it was my weed.
My friends/ neighbors in my on-campus accommodation had begun full fledged culinary experimentation. Cross breeds of established recipes were unleashed by the day. And their questions of "What did YOU make today?" stopped with time. The answer was only too obvious.
Seeing myself in the mirror one fine day jolted me to my senses. I had reduced to a quarter of what I was in high school and a sickly looking person stared back at me. Enough was enough.
All it took was one long distance phone call two weeks before Diwali.
"Chiti, sambar podi anupungo!"
I can swear I heard jubilatory screams on the other side from my aunts, my grandmom and possibly my little cousins, too.
"Ippovadhu unakku thonithe!"
Erm. Survival of the fittest.
"Enna samaika porai nee?"
Good question.
That's when Srirangam Radhu entered my life.
Seeing her bony hands with throbbing veins in close up, churning out all my favorite dishes on Youtube served as a big time motivation. Oh, and throw in the software professional Iyengar father of two little girls making the most endearing video on how to make vatha kozhambu. Next find, the Eatomaniac blog.
Time to get into action.
My first attempt at keerai kozhambu was a disaster. The tamarind was too much in proportion and the spinach had been boiled to a mush like consistency, which was not of the approved state.
Rage boiled inside me. What does it take to be a good cook??
Involvement. And the love for what you do.
That was my answer.
Pyar se pakao aur anand mein khao.
Akin to the jaadoo ki jhappi this worked wonders for me. The compliments from my roommates was proof enough.
Now I can't resist cooking. What I cook may be simple, but I love what I'm doing. And turns out that makes a world of difference. Not only in cooking but every small thing that we do in our lives.
Maybe I will ask my dad for that really expensive cookbook off the bookshelf for my next birthday.