Mexican Sambar

It has been a long time that I had sat down to write a post. This post Childhood and those Slow paced days was written a long time back, but I had no time to publish it! Yeah, I know it is too much, but that’s how it was.

C# training kept me busy all the time and in between my mom was not doing well. And most important of all was - we started to cook at home! At last we re-defined what cooking was.

Our instruments were simple-

• One electric rice cooker

• One burner LPG stove (We are planning to book for a gas connection and purchase a proper stove – two burners!)

With this, till now we had cooked many items-

• Vathakozhambu (Vendakai and Murungakai)

• Sambar (All varities – Murungakai, Kathrikai, and the list goes on…)

• Urula kezhangu roast, Vendakai, Podalangai varuval…

• Dosa sometimes! (We buy the instant mixes)

• Podis (Courtesy – Grand Sweets): Poondu, Paruppu, Karu veppilai

• Paste: Vengayam, Vathakozhambu, Thakkali, Pepper Rasam, Gongra

• And finally Vegetable Fried Rice!

One month has gone by and we are still cooking. I thought the temptation would die down, but guess what we are going on to make new dishes (Aray vekkadu – Half boils; kozhanja soru – over cooked rice – kanji; Kozhmbu becoming Sambar!) These dishes doesn’t happen everyday, only when we invite someone over dinner or lunch. It has started to become specialities for the guests! [Thana varuthu... hu hu hu]

We spend half the time of cooking on phone to converse with the experts, who are based in Madras (Our Mom). Their opinion matters a lot for the outcome of the stuff, else it would head directly to the dustbin [Or we might as well keep it till guests arrive]! We owe them a lot. Just imagine- It takes huge amount of time to prepare, cut, wash and cook. Three of us combine together to keep one sambar, but our mom wakes early, does all the dishes [we never had the tendency to wash our plates after a sumptuous meal nor had the courtesy to thank them for the wonderful delicious food]. Here, we just cook during the night.

What happens to those moms who wakes early, cooks, and then leaves for work?! Trust me it is difficult to wake early and to top it – cook without anyone’s help?! It is next to impossible!

Amma, this is for you! You just rock! Salaam! No words… [Amma enru azhaikatha…]

Apart from the cooking, we watched huge no of movies. C# was also played, but only during night shows; ASP.NET was such a horror movie that I saw the movie closing my eyes! Terrified, I’m still sweating!

As a whole, I had become too good a resource for any girl to resist. [Nenaippu than pozhappa kedukkuthu… Sigh!]

Time and again when you do something or when something unfolds before you, we tend to relate it to the past of our lives-

How it would have been back then?

What was it then? (Cheran's Nyabagam varuthey nyabagam varuthey... Playing behind!)

Today’s fast paced life is too fast for me to cope up, and thus many a times I get blamed as tube light. I can never think on the fly or make decisions instantly. I need my own time and energy to do stuffs. And now I realize that life back then was the perfect place for me to be myself.

School was a paradise and it continued even after the specified era, but on different notions.

When was the last time you were enchanted-

• To see a pink coloured trio device consisting of an eraser, sharpener and a brush?!
• To see a Big Sized Pencil that has a Hand as its cover/cap?!
• To see a long plastic stuff that wraps around your wrist when you bang it on the wrist?!
• To have a diary as your rough note book, while the others had a bound notebook made out of the empty sheets of their previous year’s CW, HW and Test Notebook?!
• To see your mate using a pen-pencil that had a transparent plastic body and was filled with cartridges of pencil hooks or a thick-leaded (With a steel thing to sharp the lead) pen pencil/thin leaded pen-pencil?!
• To see yourself being the COA (Centre of Attraction) on your birthday (With the coloured_non_uniform dress), with the rest of the class hanging behind you for the chocolates you are about to offer?! Yei yei… Oru chocolate kudupa…
• To buy you a WWF/Cars/Bike trump cards? Or the stickers of WWF/Cars/Bike or the glowing ones?!
• To see your neighbour’s son/daughter showing off with his remote controlled car/Glow-worms/Barbie Doll (Dai/Di! This is a gender-neutral post)?!
• To see a multi compartment school bag and pencil boxes?!
• To see your mate wearing the Disney Character capped watch?!
• To see your mate owning a BSA Champ or a Street Cat with Rock-Shocks?!
• To go in the open type rickshaws?! (Nowadays it is autos, vans and matadors! Slow disappearance of those beautiful three wheelers, we had either with motors attached or those ordinary pedaling stuff!)

Or the dreading moments-

When you had to face your dad to oppuchify the 7/8/9 tables? Appa! Anything other than those… Dangu! Oru kottu!

• Or you had to oppuchify series of long answers to your mom/dad and you go on to say “Just tell me the first word, I shall continue then!”
• Or you had to bring in that day’s question paper to tell your parents where you had gone wrong and why?
• Or you had to show the answer paper which you had done miserably!
• Or you need to get the signature on you _RED_FILLED_ report card and you are ranked almost last or cannot be ranked at all!
• Or the beatings and lashes you get when the next house kid (studying in the same class) performs better than you!
• Or getting whacked for losing the pencil that was the size which Gandhi says in his Autobiography, yeah yeah... that small one which cannot be held in one hand and requires the help of another to hold it!
  
• Or your sibling doing better than you and they doubt whether you’d born to them and planning to put you in a hostel or make you bread and rear cows!
• Or the PTA meeting!
• Or getting black and blued for uttering one of the ‘bad-words-u’ like bloody fool, stupid, idiot, donkey and sometimes arivu-kettavan!
• Or getting near to the end of that day’s playtime, cycling time and it is going to hit six ‘O’ clock and by which time you should have been to study a chapter from which your dad will ask questions (If you answer wrongly you might have your dinner delayed (Hey! No worries, you’ll be finally fed as no parents want their kids to starve to death, but we always believed that they are our first enemies!!!))!

We were innocent then and never thought of places out of our house/school and the street we lived in. Don’t know about you guys! Once I was black and blued for taking my BSA Champ to the main road which was three lanes away from my place. Funny, I was given everyday some hours to play (after coming from school) and in that I can ride my cycle, and it should be around the park, my house faced!

I was also mischievous, but not clever. [*BLUSH*]

[Vadivelu Ishtyle] Appo, enakku oru pathu vayasu irukkama…

There was once this incident which involved a tri-cycle (yeah it was bought for me and then passed on to my sister). Me and my sister went to the park (The same, opposite to my house) carrying the tricycle. In the park I sat on the cycle and made her push it… This went on for sometime till someone (A boy, a year older than me…) came and stopped by advising me-

He: Dai! Unn thangaiya vachu nee thallama, nee ukkanthukittu unn thangaiya thalla sollara? Asingama illa?

Me: Hmmm… (Got up and gave the tri-cycle to her! Namma ellam appadi than, yaara paathalum oru bayem! Hay hay... chingam-la! Achingam aiyuduvom!)