Puliyodare

Puliyodare

To serve :16.

Time taken:

For the tamarind sauce: 75 minutes, the garnish:10 minutes, the rice:30 minutes and to put everything together about 30 minutes depending on the quantity being made.

You will need:

For the tamarind reduction:

½ kilo tamarind.

2 litres water

2 tablespoons  Red Chilly powder

2 tablespoons salt

10 dried red chillies

1 teaspoon asafoetida/hing

½  cup sesame oil

1 tsp turmeric powder

For making the tamarind rice/puliyodare:

5 cups raw (uncooked rice)

10 cups water

¼ kilo dry roasted peanuts

2 tablespoons chana dal

2 teaspoons mustard seeds

3 tablespoons sesame oil

½ tsp turmeric powder

½ tsp hing/asafoetida

5 grams curry leaves

Salt to taste

For the garnish:

2 tablespoons coriander seeds

4 dried red chillies

1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

Method:

The tamarind reduction:

1.       Soak the tamarind in two glasses of water for about 5 minutes or till the tamarind becomes soft and mushy.

2.       Crush the tamarind with your fingers and squeeze out the juice. Add water and extract tamarind juice in this manner till you have a thick and pulpy water. You would have used the rest of the two litres of water in this process. Keep aside.

3.       Heat the oil in a large kadai/wok.  Add the mustard seeds. When they start to splutter, add the red chillies after removing their stem. Reduce flame. Now gently add the tamarind water, turmeric powder, chilli powder, hing and salt.

4.       Boil this liquid till it reduces to about a fifth of its original quantity. The oil will surface to the reduction and form a thick layer. This signals that the sauce is done.  This process will take about 45 minutes to an hour.

5.       Cool. Store in a glass vessel with a lid.

Note 1: The shelf life of this reduction/sauce is about two weeks if stored in a refrigerator.  In the freezer it can last longer. It is important to use a dry spoon to scoop the paste from its container. It is also important to ensure that no water droplets fall in it. This will cause fungal growth.

The Garnish:

1.       Heat kadai. Dry roast the coriander seeds, chilly pods and fenugreek seeds till they brown.

2.       Cool. Dry grind to a coarse powder.

3.       Store in an airtight container.

Note 2:  This powder has a long shelf life of a month  or can remain good for six months in a freezer. The powder can be used to garnish vegetables and sundals too.

The Puliyodare:

Retrieve the tamarind sauce and garnish which is in storage in the fridge.

1.       Wash the rice add the ten cups of water and either pressure cook it or cook it in an electric rice cooker. You may need a cup or two of water more, depending on whether you like your rice to be cooked softer.

2.       On a large plate, spread the rice so the grains remain separate. Cool.

3.       Heat oil in a kadai. Add mustard seeds. When they splutter, add the red chillies, sauté for 10 seconds, add the chana dal, sauté till the dal turns golden brown, add the curry leaves, peanuts, hing, turmeric powder and chilli powder. Turn off flame.

4.       Tip the mixture in the kadai on the rice and  steadily work the oil dal and peanuts  mixture into the  rice taking care not to mash the rice.

5.       Add half the tamarind sauce to the rice.  Use a flat spatula to steadily work the paste into the rice.

6.       Add a tablespoon of the garnish on top of the rice and work this in also.

7.       Taste for balance. Add more of the tamarind sauce if you feel the need for a bit more of tartness.

8.       Add more of the garnish and salt to taste.

9.       Puliyodare is ready.

10.   Serve with fried vathals/vadams/fryuums/potato chips.

Note3: Puliyodare grows tastier as it a stands for a while.  This is the reason why it has been made in South India, traditionally, for picnics and long haul journeys. However, like all rice items, this too can spoil. If it is left over, of course!

The gym Diaries-1.

Come September 7^th,  I’d have completed  5 months at the gym. That is something, I assure you. 

Okay, here is the story if you’d like to know my story.  I got plump when I visited my uncle soon after I finished college more than 30 years ago. Uncle and his wife were very anxious to  feed my sister and me with all kinds of lovely food.  I will never forget the Lassi that uncle personally made.  That and loads of lovely lovely food, such as the deep fired auberigines, those deep fried spicy berhempur appalams and many such mouth watering delicacies. I guess I would have put on something like 3 kilos in that single month that we stayed there. Now, although I did participate in a lot of games and sports in school and for a while I played cricket for my college cricket team,  I didn’t really continue with sports and games.  I was the book worm of the family. No singing, dancing and sports for me.  It was all books, books and more books and newspapers,too.  In those days, there was not much awareness about walking for health and all.  So here I was, already at a period in my life where physical activity reduces, eating rises or stays the same and the end result is putting on a few kilos every now and then till suddenly, from a 48 kilo I am  'suddenly' 52, 55 and 58. The worst part of the whole thing is that I didn't even realise it.  From being thin, to becoming slightly plump was highly welcomed in those days. People liked girls to be nice and curvy and rounded, and I guess I was that. Or became that.  All my upsetness and heartburn that nobody-ever-told-me is really all in retrospect.  Then came marriage. We were told there will be hormonal changes, and marriage will cause you to put on weight. I swallowed that whole. Believed that was the reason why the weight was creeping on. But wait; I wasn’t worried about that remember? Then came the children. Another phase in life when a woman will put on weight. And so I did. Grew to 67 kilos full term and was thrilled to come down to 62 soon after childbirth.  That 62 became 69 with the second child, to come down again to 62.  It was around this time that I consciously became conscious of the fact that there was a lot of fat on me. And I remember walking maniacally in the garden of my house in Guwahati and losing so much weight as to come down to a nice 56 kilos.  Well. We are living and growing things, how did I ever think that I can take the body to a certain weight and leave it there and it will take care of itself and keep itself at that level without my having to work at it? And thus began a life of yo-yo dieting and obsessing about eating-food-exercising.  God! I am so filled with mortification at my stupidity! Here I am more than averagely intelligent, well read, with access to any and every kind of information I would have needed to maintain  good health, fitness and appear good too... and all I ever did was think about it and eat. Too bad.

How do they do it, these thin people, I have often asked myself. They eat all they like and look at them, not an ounce of extra fat on them.  All I have to do is look at food and I bloat like a balloon filled with air.  I could go on and on like this. There is no end to this kind of self flagellation.

I am a working woman and have always had an office of my own. From small cubicles to really large ‘chambers’.  During the lunch hour I would go out to walk for a few minutes, and in the city where it got progressively polluted, I stopped going out and started walking inside my office room.  Well, obviously the walk would neither be fast nor as good as it could have been out in the open on the road or in a park, but it certainly kept me moving , and made sure I did not sit all the time.  That went well for a time and I managed to stay at 62.

Then came the Trichy posting. So stressful, so hard, that all I could do at the end of the day was fall asleep.  My blood pressure started touching 130/80. The doctors told me its okay, that is consistent with age. My triglyceride levels went up.  The doctors prescribed statins. Six months of statins, one night I got up with such a severe leg pain, that the next morning I told the doc, this is it, I am stopping statins and will take life as it comes. This is a bit extreme, I admit, but I felt that I'd rather die of a heart attack than live a life where I am unable to walk. For, walking is an activity which though I was not doing temporarily, I was sure would take me back to my good health. My knees were starting to pain. Like I was having arthritis or something.  I went for a bone density test, and came out with flying colours   Another doctor told me to take metformin, even though I had no diabetes as a preventive measure. Preventing what I don’t know, but I didn’t take that. The job had taken a toll on me and I just hoped that I was in a position to reverse the effects. 

Transferred to Chennai, with a job of high responsibility but far less stressful, I just suddenly decided that I would go to the nearest gym to do some weight training during the lunch hour and walk in the beach every evening for half an hour. This would make me thinner and would maybe help the knee pain, which after stopping the statins had reduced considerably, but still existed.  Watching what I am eating would complete the plan.  Sounded good to me and I ran it by my husband and my son. The latter put his foot down to the gym I had selected.  He insisted that I went to his gym, a high end one, which I thought was for sportspeople and not ordinary women like me.  My son told me this. “Amma,”he said, “you have worked more on your weight loss than I have on my Cricket, why don’t you just stop thinking for some time, give this six months time and then, if things don’t work out, then we’ll see.” Well of course it was a manner of speaking, for, I cannot think of another person who has worked so hard and so earnestly as he has at his chosen profession.  Be that as it may, what he said made sense to me. The cost of the gym bothered me a little, but he said he would take care of it. My husband has a knack of putting things in perspective for me.  He said, “why are you worried about the cost? Think of it as a fraction of your monthly salary. Is that too much to pay for what you want?” And of course I was convinced.  I so badly wanted to enroll in a gym, and there was no way I was going to a place my son said no to... so I wanted to be convinced, right. And thus I enrolled.

Possibly, the best thing the two men I love did for me. 

Coming soon:  The First Few Weeks At The Gym.

About Watching TV

Here is one of the light bulb moments of my life. For a person who is constantly and lifelong on a diet with a view to reducing body weight which btw doesn’t seem to budge (witness those people who see you after a long time and tell you, you haven’t changed one bit, you look just the same. And you go uh? Is that right? Then how come I now have 12 kilos, always, always to lose?), its a bad bad idea to be so fond of watching food channels. I always thought of it as gaining knowledge. Well, yes, a bit, why not.  But in reality what all this food watching on TV does is keep food constantly in mind. If you opened my head and picked stuff out of the top of it one by one, what will come out? Food Topic. Food Ideas. Menus. Calories. What to eat next.   Here I am watching my favourite Nigella, or those cute Masterchef juniors, how on earth do they cook these complicated dishes at that age? 8 years old? seeshhh!! And all the time I am concocting recipes in my mind. No sugar? Well... what can I use to make my Falooda sweet without adding sugar or sugared rose water or roohafza? how to get crunch in a dish without deep frying the stuff? You get the picture. So I decided I would stop watching food channels. Full stop. Instead, I would switch to sports channels. This light bulb moment happened as I watched Nigella's Bites yesterday. The program that was being aired was from 2000. That I didn't know at the outset. I thought, what! Nigella? Has she lost that much weight? And then this little doubt crept in... is that an old programme? I waited till the programme came to an end and I saw MMI. Aha. 2001. That explains it. Fifteen years on, she has put on as much weight as I have in the same period.  At least, she's done eating all those fabulous desserts of hers, and I've managed the same fete by doing all sorts of awful things- yo yo dieting, bad eating, no exercising......Seeing her, I thought, well!

I had quit watching sports a long time ago. Which is a bit shocking, now I think of it, for I love Sports. I do believe I am a sporting person, if not a sportsperson! I thought about it. Why did I stop watching sports? Coz at home, the men are constantly watching Cricket. And even though I love cricket for more reasons than one, there is only so much of it that one can watch....Okay, okay, here I go as usual off tangent. So. I decided I will switch to watching sports channels and see all those wonderful things that these young uns are doing in the field, on the track and so forth. And be inspired to get fit and stay fit. Instead of cakes and pastries, I should watch rippling muscles, peak performance. Instead of thinking of eating, I should think of working out. Sit up if you are lying down. Stand up if you are sitting down. Walk if you are standing. Run if you are Walking. Keep moving. 

Millet and Lentil Crepes.

INGREDIENTS:

·           0.50 cup, Millet, raw

·         100.00 gm, Green Gram Sprouts

·         0.50 Cup, Chana Dal

·         50.00 gm, Urad Whole

·         15.00 g, Red Chillies

·         1.00 teaspoon, Asafoetida

·         2.00 tsp, Salt, table

·         5.00 gm, Curry Leaves

·         12.00 tsp, Oil - Sesame

METHOD:

Wash and soak the millet and dal together for an hour.  Grind using enough water to make a thick batter of pouring consistency. Add the salt, asafetida, curry leaves, mix well. Keep aside.

Heat a flat pan. Pour a ladleful of the batter in the middle of the pan, use the back of the ladle to spread the batter into a thin crepe.  Add half a spoon of oil around the edges of the crepe.

Cook till the steam vapor that rises vanishes; this would take about a minute. Flip the crepe over and cook for half the time.

Remove. Serve hot with peanut or coconut chutney.

Lauki (Bottle Gourd) ki subji.

I always wondered how the Lauki ki subji made by some of my  North Indian friends, which they uniformly say is simple and nothing to it, was so tasty. No masala, just a little jeera and laal mirch and dhaniya powder that's all. Finally decided to try it out. And yes, indeed it is simple, there's nothing to it, and yes, even if I say so myself, the subji I made was tasty! Now, Why Did I Wait This Long To Try This Out?

Here's the recipe:

You need:

Lauki/bottle gourd : 1/2 kilo
Dhaniya powder/Coriander Powder: 1/2 tsp
Red Chilli Powder : 1/2 tsp
Turmeric Powder: a pinch
Hing/Asafoetida:  a pinch
Cumin Seeds/jeera : 1/4 tsp
Oil : 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste.

This is how you make it:

Peel the lauki, cut into medium sized cubes. Cook till tender with  turmeric and half the salt. Keep aside.
Heat oil in a Kadai (circular, deep cooking pot). Add Jeera, allow to brown, add the Hing, Dhaniya powder, and Chilli powder. Add the cooked lauki, remainder salt, allow to cook for about two minutes. Remove to serving dish. Serve hot with chapatis/phulkas.

Simple, Right?
Enjoy!

Memories

Growing up in Chennai, my siblings and I spent quite a lot of time, mostly the weekends,   in the “studios”, those magical places where movies were made. In those days, all the Telugu movies were made in Madras, as Chennai used to be called then. Both my parents were in the movie business, father, the famous ‘Sri Sri’ was a poet, writer, screenplay and dialogue writer, lyricist and my mother, Saroja Sri Sri,  was his assistant, the dubbing and music director. What an amazing world it was. In those days there were no gizmos, the high technology that exists now and which perhaps makes movie making easier? Definitely more technically perfect. I remember going to the studios for the song recording, the orchestra in their sound proof room, the play back singers in theirs, the music director sometimes with the orchestra, sometimes with the singers or sometimes in the recording room. I remember the big panel with its moving knobs, the recordist moving them to adjust the bass, the tenor and what not. By the end of the recording the song became so familiar as to be my favourite.  It was such a wonderful experience, what a marvelous time I had!! Similarly, during the dubbing of movies, my parents mostly handled Tamil to Telugu, the scene would go in a loop and the dubbing artistes would stand before the mike in front of the huge screen and speak the dialogues, while mother watched like a hawk for the ‘lip-sync’. My maternal aunt was a dubbing artiste and a chorus play back singer herself. One time, when I was with her and my parents who were working on a movie, there was this scene where there is supposed to be a crowd which says something like” long live the king, or hail the king” in Telugu. There was another little girl like me, the niece of another dubbing artiste who was in the studio with us on that day. It was decided that we children would also speak the dialogues, since there were some kids also in the scene. The ladies pushed us in front of the mike and said we would have to shout a bit because the mikes were high up and we were so small. I was scared and a bit shy. I didn’t want to do the ‘dubbing’. Nevertheless I got pushed in front along with the other girl. When the time came for us to shout the dialogues, I found myself bereft of voice and the other pint size hollered at the top of her voice while all the ladies were silent. It was a trick! The other girl got wholesome praise while I got roundly ticked off for being shy.  Even today, this is one of my fondest memories.  One time, this very famous lady playback singer who was equally famous for singing religious songs and raunchy numbers, arrived for a song recording. She was wearing a finger ring which actually was a miniature watch. Now, none of us had seen anything like that before. The grownups pretended like they always knew that such a piece of jewellery existed. Well, naturally, I was a child and never had I even imagined it. So I gushed at it with my eyes round and large.  Later, both mom and aunt gave me a tongue lashing like anything!! Again, in retrospect, this is one of my fondest memories.  We had to maintain pin drop silence when we went to the floor and the red light was on indicating a “take” or a recording was in progress.  Lunch would be served in the sheds separately for the junior artistes. The seniors or the main artistes got their food from home.  Like my uncle who was then the leading comedy artiste and my aunt used to send a couple of huge tiffin carriers to the sets. I used to wonder how a single man could eat so much; it turned out that others ate the food that came from his home while he ate someone else’s.  And it used to surprise me that he would eat seafood, and prawns. My father was a non vegetarian himself, but he always went to a couple of hotels nearby to eat non-veg food, my mother a super cook refused to cook non-veg food in the house. You couldn’t even order it. Whereas my aunt used to cook it at home all the time. I used to wonder how that was possible. The thing is you have these fundamental questions but were too scared to ask then.  Then again, I imagine had we asked also, we would have been asked to shut up, or would be told you will know when you grow up, or that’s how it is..... My mother is an awesome woman. She used to edit movies too. I remember her sitting in front of what used to be called the movieola, or some such name, my memories are of movieola only, with a white marker chalk and marking out the loops on the negative.  In the dubbing of movies, the entire movie is actually cut into small manageable sections, a white film attached to the section and run in a loop. the projectionist would then go start the projection, first with the tamil dialogue. the dubbing artiste would hear the dialogue, look at the picture, get the 'lip' as he/she read the telugu dialogues along. and when they got the hang of it, the sound would be cut and the artiste would speak to the dumb film and finally a "take'. And my mum was the editor who cut the loops after judging which would be a manageable length, and then was on the floor managing the dubbing. My mother went to 6th standard for three years. My grandfather, her father, the headmaster in the local boys high school would not send his daughter for 'higher studies' to a neighbouring place because it would entail 'traveling'and so she went to the same class over and over again. This lady went on to be a music and dubbing director, an editor, and has written a four volume  autobiograhy of her life with my father!! Proud as proud can be of her!!

Reaching a Plateau in Relationships....

“The first thing our research shows is that everything hits a plateau,” says Bob Sullivan, co-author of The Plateau Effect: Getting from Stuck to Success. “Every good idea, diet program, marriage and professional athlete eventually stops working,” says Sullivan.

I came across the above quote as I was busy browsing something else. I got immediately attracted to the marriage part of it which got me thinking that yes, he is right, this plateau business truly is not only applicable to weight loss, but also to relationships- not just marriage, but any kind of relationship. Got me thinking...yeaaah... well, that is true, right?  Then, what do you do?  There are tricks and tips that fitness gurus give to get over the weight loss plateau- reset goals, step up activity, drink more water and so forth. What of life and this plateau in relationships? Reset goals? Step up activity? I don’t know... maybe let things be for a little while? Introspect? Go with the flow for a while? Thinking back on the 32 years of my marriage, there have indeed been a couple of grim occasions when life seemed to be going nowhere. No, that’s not true. Both the Plateau and downhill part, I mean. Life certainly seemed to go downhill. And I know how we handled those times, those situations, my husband and I.  We rode the storm, in silence. Really sad we were too. Just a leetlle bit ego... why else would we cold shoulder each other even as we could see that not talking to each us was engulfing us with sadness.  We let things be for a while. The first time, over twenty years ago it was I who broke the silence. We talked. Like, look, this is what is bothering me, this is not right, what is bothering you, let’s talk this over.  The second time, it was my husband. What is the matter, why are you giving me the silent treatment, what’s wrong? Well, something like that.  And we spoke and talked and cleared the air.  These occasions are good occasions you know, to get things out of one’s system too; you really can be monstrously frank. Somehow, it is okay to be so brutally frank. I guess because we are just grateful we have “made up”. The other person gets to know what really really is bothering you. Which is all very good only.

What then is The bottom line? Well, ride the storm. It will not last forever. Look inside and watch for that moment when you are ready. It will happen. Wait. Watch. And never forget that you love him and he loves you Or you love her and she loves you. You really have to be committed to each other and to sustaining what you have. Twice in 32 years seems okay, right?  Not that that is a bench mark, but if you seem to be quarreling all the time, not able to find a solution, and the same issues keep surfacing over and over again, then maybe you ask why the same thing over and over again. Why aren’t we able to work this out? Aren’t we talking about this totally frankly? The very Same issues? Then it has to be the mother of all talks.  Life is too short to fritter away. But then again, relationships aren’t easy. You have to work at them. The best results are those that come from the hardest work. 

Chanti's Wedding- in the USA

Last August, my daughter got married. We went to the USA to conduct her marriage. She married an American. It was an interesting marriage. We decided to have a Iyengar wedding for her even though our son in law to be was an American.. Our son-in-law was game. It was fun, but really a lot of hard work. I must say though, that most of the work was done by her. And my husband. I was posted in Trichy, so was able to make only whirlwind visits for the shopping sprees. We were able to get the Koora Podavai in the first shop we went to; the first sari we saw was the sari she had specified. We wanted a mustard sari. She wanted a violet border. And guess what, that was the first sari the salesperson brought to us. So there was no need to order a sari and wait for it.  We ordered the Thirumangalyam, two sets, one from our side and one from the bridegroom's side and it came per time. We took most of the stuff from here. I had a Manja Veshti made to order for Michael and picked up a dark blue kurti to go with it. My daughter was going to be in her Blue Amman Kolam
Sari throughout till the wearing of the Koora Podavai, so without really thinking about it, the colors of the bride and groom coordinated.  My sister and her husband, my brother and his wife took care of some of the Vaideekam stuff from New Jersey. They also brought along Jangiri, Gulab Jamoon and Kara Sev from there. We used my husband's cousin's building as the marriage hall. The hall is new and Chanti's marriage was the first event held there.  Hopefully, that auspicious occasion will bring good luck to that place.  My sister in law in whose house we landed and took over, spoke to a friend who did the full job of catering of Iyengar food. Imagine that. Paruppu, Vada,  Payasam, Vazhakkai More Kuzhambu, Appalam, the works, in Ames!! There were so many other items too!!  She even made a separate batch of food for Michael who cannot have dairy! You were awesome, Rama!! Another cousin and his wife arranged for an Iyengar Vadhiar, and yet another cousin drove him down all the way from Minneapolis to Ames and took him back.  My son and a whole bunch of nephews decorated the marriage hall. With decorations which my sister in law in Chennai and I went and bought. This sister in law virtually designed the look of the Medai and bought the decorations for it, including the curtains, which looked swanky! The sister in law whose house we took over was the chief cook/ chef, while  I took upon myself to be the dish washer operator and cleaning woman. Other sisters in law pitched in with the work that arises in a marriage-in-the-family situation. It was chaotic, but what fun. How the two of us shopped for food and things. Organizing a marriage in America was a challenge which we took up with gusto and saw through successfully. .
We had a Meet-and-Greet the evening previous to the marriage. On that day, the Mehandi lady came home around  one ish in the afternoon and did the bridal mehandi. My daughter had blocked a beautiful party gazebo sort of place in the local park and the boys and girls decorated it. Food was ordered and we all met up for the first time. We ate and danced and sang and generally had good fun. I certainly seem to enjoy all these marriages no matter how much work or stress and tension which marriages are supposed to cause.
The next morning Vadiyar mama was brought by the cousin and his wife and the Pandakaal Function was held. Yes, in America with all the religious fervour that Pandakaal usually evokes in the family.  My sister in law made this awesome Upuma and Chutney for about 50 of us. After the pandakaal, all of us went to the marriage hall, where the boys had spent the whole of the previous night doing it up, getting the stage ready and so on without sleeping a wink. I never would have believed it, had I not seen for myself how hard my son worked to get the place ready. His cousins were with him every step of the way. My son-in-law's father actually made the Oonjal, unbelievable! with his own hands, just like the Oonjals here in our marriage halls. That too was decorated and Chanti's Kaasi Yaatirai, Maalai Matrudal and Oonjal was done there under the blue sky, outside the marriage hall. The cousin had planted two trees which had apparently been a long pending item of work, and with these and the Oonjal, the place looked beautifula and festive!! It was a bright and sunny day, with no sign of the rain which had come briefly, the previous night.  The open area right outside the hall also our cousin's property was tented up, tables and chairs put and converted into a dining area. Lunch was served there.  The property owning cousins took care of all the permissions and licenses..After the Oonjal, the Poonal Anivithal, Kankanam Anivithal, the Kanyadanam (I wept like a wotnot, it was so emotional), the Panigrahanam, the Mangalaya Dharanam, Thali-kattina-kaikku-Modiram Anuvithal, Sapta Padi, Ammi Midhithal, Metti Anuvithal, the Homam, the Pori Idudhal, the Arundhathi Paarudhal, the Vilayadal, Aaseervadham by the Sabai and all the Perivaa present, all happened kramamaaga Saastrotamaaga.  Grihapravesam was kind of make shift and for form. The marriage forms were signed and my husband's cousin promptly drove to Des Moines to drop it off at the appointed office.  We cleared up a little and then went off home to get ready for the evening.
My daughter had fixed up in a nearby Hilton Hotel for the Reception and Dinner. The girls had two choreographed dances. One from Pavithra's marriage and one for Chanti's. There were toasts and dancing and eating. My daughter wore a peach Anarkali for the first part of the evening and then the beautiful Champagne colored  Wedding Gown for the second part of the evening.  Toasts were raised, Cakes were cut and we all danced till it was time to leave.  The hotel catered the Indian food too, which, right in the middle of the Mid West of America was awesome. The marriage went off without a hitch and considering that we didn't have the advantage of running to the nearest shop to buy some item that is missing, it was amazing that nothing was forgotten.  We even managed an appropriate sized granite stone for the Ammi. That we did leave behind at home, but home was so close, that we could run to it quickly and bring the Ammi  to the marriage hall.
A large number of our relatives including the elderly flew from India and other parts of the world to be present at the marriage.Yes, we did do the wedding in America. Money is, though significant, only one part of it. All the cousins and their spouses of our generation and my son and the cousins of his and my daughter's generation, including the spouses of the two married cousins, rallied around like anything to not only make it happen, but make it happen wonderfully. Thank You. Thank You All.

Maloo Wedding

My son got married recently.  The marriage was held in Chennai.  It was an one-day do.  Or so it would seem.  But no, it actually was not. It was a five-day marriage, almost just like in old days. How so, you may ask. Well, here is the new model of the South Indian Marriage.  It was a five day marriage spread over six weeks. Yes, over six weeks. The proceedings started with our family going over to Lakshmi, my daughter-in-law, ‘s family to formally ask for her hand in marriage to my son.  Just a couple of hours, about 20 of us in all, their and our family members, the closest group, but half a day in the event. But we won’t count this event toward the number of days of the marriage, ok.  A bit of a hiatus after that, with all of us getting into a frenzy of preparations. Dates for the marriage, and the Vaideekam part of the marriage were looked into by the bridegroom’s side, the marriage hall blocked,  the catering, flower arrangements, the music and concert, the Medai arrangement and a zillion other things by the bride’s family, shopping madly by all and so on.  Then we had the  Nischayathartham, (first day of the marriage) the formal engagement function. Half a day on that, with close relatives and friends.  This was followed by another day for  the Pandakaal and Viratham  (second day of the marriage) functions.  Close relatives and friends.  Breakfast and lunch was served. Then an evening of Cocktails, (third of the marriage)- a get together of the friends of the bridal couple- no oldies in this meet. The ‘’children’’ danced their choreographed numbers and had fun. (We got to see the videos and photos later).  The next day,  we had the Mehandi (fourth day of the marriage) function.  All the women in the family were present respelendent in their silks and tussars and jewellery and mogra venees. We had mehandi put on our palms, ate a lot of chaat items and dispersed. The next day, was the  day of the Marriage (fifth and final day of the marriage). Started early in the morning and by three in the afternoon, we were done. Saashveethamananna Kalyanam, with nothing left out......We included the Madi Kattudal soon after the Maapillai Azhappu. the Mappilai Azhappu, Madi kattudal, Bhojanam, Kasi Yatirai, Maalai Matrudal, Oonjal, the Kankanam Anivithal,  the Kanya Danam, the Panigrahanam, the Mangalya Dharanam, Sapta Padi, Metti Anivithal, Pori idudhal, Homam, Vilayadal, Oonjal, Grihapravesam. All the friends of the family, colleagues included, were invited to the marriage. Breakfast was served; Tea, coffee and Fruit Juice flowed freely, followed by a more-than-the-usual- kalyanasaapadu which was sumptousness catered by  Arusuvai Natarajan who  outdid themselves. The senses were treated to the most melodious flute recital by the prodigy  J.A.Jayanth.  Came three o’çlock and we had emptied the hall of our presence and were back in our homes, relaxing. We did not have a reception. And in retrospect mighty glad we are too. I do know that bridal couples in our places do it all the time- standing for four hours receiving guests, smiling non stop, posing for videos and photos with people they haven’t met before and won't probably meet again. And lets face it, for the main actors in the events, such as the parents, immediate family and the couple, the marriage passes in a daze anyway, we are completely spaced out and we “see” marriage later, through the medium of the video, right? This model worked very well for us. It was quite relaxing; of course, the stress and tension of organizing was there. But it did go off very well, without much ado. So many people made this possible. Thanks. Thank you.

Old Age Home

The other day i was talking to my sister about growing old and she said we all had to learn lessons from our experiences for when our own turn comes.. and as we warmed up to the topic, i had this idea... its always a brain storming session, i find whether it is in the office or on the home front. nice ideas do come up...may not be workable, may not be original...no inventions, only innovations....but still....

See, my mother has given the four of us, my three siblings and me, 4800 sq. ft of land each and all the four 'plots' adjoin each other.(now dont go correcting the grammar, thats indian-english, ok? i write as i speak ok? gosh, i have become more aware of my english and this is making me commit a lot of mistakes, both grammatical and spellings!!theek hai, kya karen?) as usual, i digress!hmm, to continue, where was i..? yeah, well, these plots being adjacent would make a nice big single plot, we could build a nice ashram like structure, plant trees (we have done that already i think, my mother has... mangoes, coconut, guavas, lemon....?). we could have a separate annexe like structure for our pooja-paath. all the siblings-cousins, and the elder generation, could stay under one roof. the children of these siblings/cousins could sponsor a couple of doctors, round the clock nursing care, a general handyman to take care of the garden and shopping, a cook, couple of housemaids and so forth. we would have our own home theatres, music systems, telephones, cell phones and what not. we would have our pension, we could grow our own fruits and vegetables. the grandchildren could come any time they wanted and spend their vacations with us. the children could visit anytime they wanted, or only call or do whatever they want to do-no hassles. no complaints.

All of us would have each other's company. we would all be in the same boat. our daughters would be at peace, our daugthers-in-law would be the happiest women on earth. i firmly believe that the biggest stake-holder in a guy is his wife. she would take care of her husband the best; and with no mother-in-law trouble the young wives can get on with their lives.... well, yes, when one has this much one will want some more, and when one has some more one will want a little more, its endless, really, but ....again kya karen?easy to say: like it or lump it, but it is better though not easier, to like it. more peaceful.

I expect there would be a lot of 'politics'..what indian household is free from household politics... we are, in the end, one big joint family and we feel it is our bounden duty to poke our noses in the affairs of our relatives, near and distant. given that, sure as anything there would be much discussions, divisions and so on every single day... but we would have our own rooms with attached bathrooms to retire to, if we want to stay away in a huff, right? its not such a bad idea, but whether it is workable, I dont know... why because (now that is a typical indian way of speaking, you ask the question 'why' and start answering it with a  'because', and it is a total translation of the vernacular 'yendukku?yendukanntey'(telugu) 'yen?yennanna"(tamil)), all of us will make an exception of ourselves...I dont have to stay in the ashramam, my son will take care of me, my daughter will take care of me, I have two sons, my sons-in-law are like sons to me and so on..... Oh I  understand...

Its not that our kids will discard us, wont take care of us or anything like that... its just that they may not be able to do what they want to do for us.... life is so different from what it was even 40 years ago.. its not going to be slowing down in the future..

This is just an idea, a thought.....right? lets see. time alone will tell.

Old age is not just creeping on us, it is racing, as my husband laughingly says. That means, we will know sooner than soon....

Varnajalam of Suryan FM

This Trichy is a place full of activity. Something or the other seems to be constantly  happening here. And given my official position, I get keep getting invited to inaugurate this event or preside over that one... I find this place full of schools, colleges and higher educational institutions. Quite the academic centre of the State. And know what? The number of girl students in schools/colleges is mind boggling. I remember the first time when I went to one of the colleges to preside over something, I was stunned to see the auditorium full of girls, young women. I discretely counted the number in each row and number of rows and easily the numbers exceeded a thousand. And there were many, many more standing. And this was only in the auditorium; we could see some leaving the campus having finished classes for the day. The principal told me the college had three thousand girl students. Three thousand!! And there are many such colleges in Trichy! The city, due to its strategic position being quite in the heart of the state caters to the other districts for higher education. The headmasters/mistresses, the principals, corresspondents, all of them seem so passionate about their jobs....

But wait, I digress..yeah, realised it after several hundred words had been written, now I drag myself back to the topic I wanted to write about, namely the Painting competition that was organized by Suryan FM for school students starting from kindergarten to class XII. Yes, kindergarten no less, three and four year olds!! The topic given to them was something like 'what I like'. The drawing and the coloring some of the kids did was unbelievable!! No, they weren't given outlines to colour in with crayons. The kids drew the stuff they liked and filled in the colours. The clean lines, and colours inside the drawing, the neat execution. I couldn't just, at first, take in the fact that this was a tiny tot's work. What do these mothers feed their kids?

The inauguration was something novel for me. Yes, the usual welcome speeches were made, the bouquets given as also the 'token' of affection i.e., a momento as well as the traditional shawl. I had been told I would inaugurate the event by lighting the kuthuvilakku, the traditional lamp. As I entered the auditorium, and climbed the stage, I looked discretly for the kuthuvilakku but found none. Oh, well... I thought. There was an easel that was set to one side, with a chart paper pinned to it. One half of the chart paper was blank and the other had a lead pencil drawing of a kuthuvillakku on it. It looked somewhat incomplete to me, but I thought, hey, this is a charcoal drawing sort of thing, this must be the fashion or whatever. Never for a second did it cross my dumb head that that was the kutthuvilakku to be lit by me. Not for one small second. All of a sudden the welcome speeches were over the felicitations were done, and I heard the compere inviting me, the chief guest, to inaugurate the event by lighting the kuthuvilakku... I was invited to draw the flame. I cannot begin to explain in words the utter fascination I felt at the idea. And of course my joy knew no bounds. Maybe this sort of thing happened all the time in this amazing city. But it had never happened to me. I could barely control my excitement. And of course I was nervous. I am not a painter, can barely draw a straight line and here I was in front of what seemed a mass of humanity being asked to paint. Never say die, being my motto I went to the easel. More delight was in store, as a young woman approached with a tray bearing water colors and brushes. She asked me to pick any colour that I wished. I used red to draw the first flame. Choice of colour was instinctive. I never thought of yellow. Then the other guests followed, these being the heads/representatives of the sponsors of the event, and soon, the kuthuvilakku was all 'lit' up in a rainbow of colours!! How pretty it looked with those colorful dancing flames!!

I thought this was it, we were done now, there was going to be a vote of thanks and we would all be off. But no. The cup of joy was nearing brim, but not overflowing and how could that be allowed to happen, not overflow? The mystery of the blank side of the easel was solved, no marks to me, when I was asked to draw something.. anything as a mark of setting the competition ball rolling. Believe you me, at that point in time, I must have been a two year old just given a toffee!! I made a rangoli, I think. Its all hazy, except the happiness, which was pure.
After that of course, we went to the section where the babies made the drawings. And I've already told you how awesome that was!

S I M P L E Pleasures of Life,  all the more wonderful for being unexpected.
What a day that was!

Anbil temple visit.

Last week my husband was visiting me in Trichy and as we are wont to do during his visits here, we went to a temple. We picked Anbil temple, of Vadivazhagiya nambi or Sundararaja perumal. Lovely temple, serene, and we had a super darshan and prasadam-Puliyodarai and chakkara pongal had been offered to the presiding deity. Holding the donnais of prasadam, we  came out of the temple; I started distributing the puliyodarai and chakkarapongal to the driver when  all of a sudden  we were surrounded by  three urchins. I promptly handed over the remaining prasadam to the oldest looking boy and got into my car asking one of the men to buy a packet of biscuits for the boys. Now, while the boys may not have understood what I said in English, the word 'biscuits' must have registered, because they just hung around there and wouldn't go away. I saw one  of the littler boys  gesticulating; I rolled down the window to catch what he was saying; he lisped to me that the older boy wouldn't give him the food to eat. Worried that the little boy wouldn't get a share and a  bit upset that I hadn't myself distributed the food to the boys, I told the older fellow that he should share the food with the others. He looked calmly into my eyes and told me he would give it to.... I didn't catch the relationship he mentioned, and at that point I didn't understand what he said. Meanwhile the biscuit packet arrived. This time I gave all the kids there two each, keeping behind a few since I saw a couple of little girls sitting  under a tree with an old woman and I thought once they saw biscuits being distributed they would come running for them.  But they didn't. It was these boys that ran to the three ladies sitting under the tree. I saw the older boy hand over the food and biscuits to the old woman, who shared it among all the kids. Even the younger child who had lisped to me had handed over his biscuits to  the old woman. It was then that I noticed that one of the girls seemed to have a problem with her legs. She couldn't have come running to the car. I then realised that the older boy had said he would give the food to aatha/aaya? He knew she would give the food to all of them. They were to beg and take whatever was given, to her. It may be a huge racket, this using of children to beg, and in no way correct, but still,  this incident has left an  impression on me for different reasons. I don't  know if the poor kids went to school at all. Who taught them that sharing is noble? Who taught the older boy the calmness I saw? How was he not tempted to eat even a tiny bit of the biscuit? Was he not hungry?

Maybe it is a rule that if you get any food you can't eat it all by yourself even if you are tempted. Or hungry.

Why am I disturbed?

Young women and then again, Young Women.

The other day I passed by the DAV school which is situated on the Avvai Shanmugam Road; i want to immediately digress to the movie but i am not going to, and am going to write about the day i passed the school. I found a large number of young salwar-kameez/ jeans-kurtis/ choodidar-kameez clad women sitting on the pavement. It must have been about 11 AM on a working day and I was on my way to an office for a meeting. Looking at those women, some of them busy talking animatedly into their cell phones set me thinking.. what must the women be waiting for? who were they talking to? what were they talking about? and i imagined them to be young mothers waiting for their offspring to emerge from the nursery classes, which surely close around 1130 ish?  The little ones may have just started school and i wondered who missed whom the most? The kids the mothers or the other way around? Were the women there to pick up their children to take them home? Were among the mothers those that were waiting for admissions? Were they talking to their husbands, the young executives who couldn't get away from office that day because of an important meeting, briefing them about the wait either for the children or admissions? While I sat thinking about these things, the car had obviously moved forward and had taken a left turn on to Mount Road. Now anyone who is from Chennai knows what important place is situated there. The American Embassy!! And know what I saw? Another set of salwar-kameez/jeans-kurti/Choodidar-kameez clad women. These were standing in a 'Q' clutching folders to their bosoms. Their mothers, now slightly grey, their fathers a little balding, stood under the huge tree there, some close to their girls, others away. The offspring of the away must have already been admitted inside the embassy for their visa interviews. This lot of 'children' was aspiring to go to America for higher studies.
And the thought flashed in my mind: the mothers up the other road waited for their tiny tots to finish the day at school to take them home; years down the line, they still stood waiting on the road while their children went for a visa interview. Life is like that only, no?

The Raw Onion

I thought I wouldn’t eat lunch today. At 8 am I had a set of pooris, that is two pooris with alloo ki subji and a cup of tea. Feeling full and all, having drunk a lot of water from then on, thought I would just go without lunch. Did a lot of work between bf and 1pm. I call it repair and renewal. Of self. Then went to mom’s room, thought if I was going to take a nap I might as well do it in her room. Oru kal irandu managa. (One stone two mangoes).My nap and company to her and me. So I went. And lay down. And guess what, as I went on saying the Dwayam, as I am wont to these days, what should pop into my mind but the raw onion.

Now to digress a bit…. two days back, I accidentally came across a book on meditation. I get up from my chair once in a while and stroll around in my office room. (It is impossible to be sitting around for all kinds of hours.) And as I walked, I just pulled out a book from the book shelf and started flipping throught it. And came across transcendental meditation. It sounded so simple to bust stress, that, that very day in the evening after I returned from a game of badminton, spruced up and all, I tried it. And it was like magic. I thought I would try it for 2 minutes and before I knew it ten had passed. I must have, somewhere in the middle fallen in some kind of sleep, I certainly remember the beginning and the end. The middle is what I don’t remember. Well, anyway, this seemed to be working. (Hey, come on, it was the meditation, not the badminton game!!)  So I decided the Dwayam which I anyway utter now and then can be my special “word”. Its not a word really, it’s a full sentence. And I started to use it in my modified form of TM. Working for me, it is working for me. (*gleeful). This job is one heck of a job!  Most stressful. I have put on weight despite forty minutes of walking a day, badminton thrice weekly and generally keeping active. My cholesterol levels have gone sky high and the sugar levels are barely normal. I am sure the blood pressure is also not what it used to be. I attribute all this to this job. But here I am. No one forced it upon me. And let me face it, I am rather enjoying it. And wouldn’t quit for the world!!

So then, going back to my mother’s room.  Here I was trying to get that catnap and there it was the onion leaping into my consciousness. These days I attribute everything to Sriman Narayana, so I didn’t resist the thought of the onion. For some reason best known to Him He has planted the onion into my mind.  I have not eaten a raw onion in maybe two decades. I think. I don’t remember. But what I do remember is my childhood and how onions were inextricably linked to every meal. The onion and tomato chutney was a hot favourite of my father’s. It went so well with idlis or dosas or atlus, as we called them. And come summers, the chaldi kunda and chaldi annam with cut onions… for those to whom these are strange terms, here’s the jaankari… chaldi kunda is the earthernware pot mom used to buy every summer. Largish. After proper cleaning and all, it was half filled with water,  and then rice by then cooked and cooled used to be dropped into it after propitiating all the Gods in heaven. The kunda, or pot would stand overnight. The next afternoon,  the rice would be removed, mashed thoroughly by hand, some “wowam” (ajwain/ omam/ oregano?) salt and a dash of oil would be added to it.  The chaladi annam, chaldannam said in one go, was ready…Dollops of this would be ladled on to a plate, a small katori or two of the kunda neelu, (the pot water) would be added, and medium sized peeled onions would be handed out. Oh how I used relish that meal. A mouthful of the rice, a bite into the onion… my nostrils would twitch with the pungency of the onion, but amazing that one didn’t want to avoid it, one more bite, just one more bite…. is how it went.  And how about raw onions with gongura pacchadi annam? My mom never cut the onions and served them. She would just peel the onions and hand them out. We had to bite into the onions. I remember that so well. And always, I associate the incisors with biting into whole fruits. Even to date, I prefer whole fruits to cut fruits. Come now, how can one bite into a papaya…?

Ah the room again…like I said, I had stopped eating raw onions soon after my marriage. In retrospect all for the wrong reasons it seems. And then by and by I got it into my head that the onion was the culprit behind a lot of stomach problems. I wish I had more sense to think the whole thing through. But then I was trying so very hard to fit in. And the convert, my friend is more zealous than the original thing. Ask me I should know, I was among the best. The top percentile. Anyway… going back to the room and the nap and the forbidden fruit… in a manner of speaking because onion is not a fruit right, it’s a vegetable right? Well, whatever it is, it certainly was intruding big time into my thoughts. And then I thought, well, why not? Why not have that lunch. Well you see, the thought of onions, and the possibility that talli would at long last break the onion fast and actually bite into one  had started making me feel the hunger pangs. I asked my mom a couple of times…. “are you sure you aren’t going to eat food now? “ , “Coming? “ and she told me, “for the last time, I am not having lunch. I had a late breakfast remember? Around 12 noon. How can I possibly eat anything? You go…”

“how can I possibly eat anything?”  Hah! Ask me. I am always ready to eat. Always. Not anything. But norukku as we call it at home. Meaning snacks. Food doesn’t hold a lot of fascination for me. But junk? Oh man, lead me to it!! So then I told her, ok, here goes I am going to have lunch. She said ok, there is the greens sambar , lentil chutney, fresh curds and cabbage curry. I will come and serve your lunch. I hastily said, no no, you stay put, you read, watch tv or read paper or write or whatever , I will get my lunch. No problem.  While I would have anyway said that and got my lunch, today I was especially anxious to be my myself. Because after twenty years I was going to eat raw onions. I prayed and prayed there would be a medium sized one available at home. What a tragedy if there was none or a huge one only, available?  What would I do? In the event there was a medium one available. I cannot begin to explain the anticipation I felt when I peeled that onion and washed it. I considered for a moment for old times sake to leave it whole and bite into it. But… I am now grown up and work hard to be able to buy onions, I just could not imagine wasting it. After all I was eating raw onions after two decades, what if I was not able to tolerate it, what if I couldn’t eat it anymore? Why throw out a perfectly good onion, uh? So I quartered it. Thought I would have a quarter and then see how it goes.

Now in order to relish raw onions, it was crucial that the perfect dish be chosen for consumption. I wanted to eat all of it, right? The onion I mean.  What if I ate it with some cabbage curry and then found mazaa nahin ayaa? So it was that the Collards sambar won the day. A childhood dish, that and one which is made in the inlaw’s house also. Much relished. A favourite of course. And then again, all that quantity, and not much calories in it. That I cannot miss, right. So I heaped three tablespoons of white rice, and poured a generous quantity of the collard broth on it. Mixed it using fingers, south Indian style and …Narayana….one mouthful of the keerai saadam, and a tentative bite into the onion quarter…and…….By God!! It still tastes the same!! Wow!! That was so amazing!! I cannot remember when I last truly tasted a food item, chewed so carefully, relishing every bit of it. That meal certainly counts among the best I have had in recent times. That was one heck of a meal, and I so thoroughly enjoyed it!! Wow! I cant stop saying that!!

Having finished the onion and the rest of the meal, I came back cleaned up my mouth thoroughly, cleaning tongue, swishing mint flavored mouth wash etc to get the onion smell out.  Need to find more ways of freshening up the mouth post raw onion. Because, onion, now that I have found, I’m not letting you go!! Now the reconvert!!

**********

Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea are among my favourite flowers. I am desperate to have a whole wall covered with bougainvillea of all colors possible. I look with longing at all those houses which have these creepers climbing walls, other trees, the trellis on the compound walls everything in sight. And wonder when my garden would look like that. It takes time you know; years, in fact. I have made a start. About 6 months ago i bought about six plants, randomly picked really. I relied entirely on the lady in the plant nursery selling the plants re the color of the flowers. She told me, this is white. and white it was. the plant bloomed a month ago, and i was delighted to find white flowers. Another plant also flowered, the ubiquitous majantha colour. Since then i have been in an ecstatic expectant state imagining white and majantha flowers blooming majestically over the frangipani tree onto which the bougainvillea plants are slowly climbing.

Squirrel Tasted Mangoes.

I usually 'do' my daily walking in the front yard of my house. Yesterday was a holiday, Dr. Ambedkar's birth anniversary; also, the erstwhile Tamil New Year's day and also Chitra Tirunaal. It's the season of mangoes and one of the three mango trees in the front yard has lovely green mangoes hanging enticingly.
As i walked, an autorickshaw stopped next door and a lady alighted. She walked into the house. I expected the auto to drive away. But no, the driver got out too and started wandering about. Clearly he was on "waiting". After a little while, out of the corner of my eye I saw that he had stopped walking and was gazing at the mangoes.
Just then a mango just fell. Having seen the auto driver looking at the mangoes, I thought that the mango had fallen just for him. I picked it up and gave it to him. He was surprised and happily took it.
We also have a number of squirrel eaten mangoes falling on and off. we believe that these semi ripened mangoes are about the tastiest- the squirrels know best. I found one such mango, which i washed and after cutting away the bitten portion, cut the rest of the mango into bite size pieces put it in a carry bag and gave it to him, telling him of the squirrel eaten portion the washing etc. He not only took it, but ate up the fruit as he waited for his "sawari" to return from her visiting.
In our chennai, eating squirrel tasted mangoes is quite the done thing- i have eaten kilos and kilos of them myself in the last three decades. In fact during summers, this is very much part of my afternoon salad. The sweet and sour taste of the semi ripe mangoes adds a tang to the carrot and cucumber salad which is part of my lunch. And makes it very pretty looking too. The girls I have lunch with love it.
Why eat the Squirrel tasted mango at all? You may well ask. It is not as easy as you think, to trash what looks to be a perfectly good mango- well 80% of a mango, anyway. I find it very very difficult to throw it in the garbage. And you know what, when you pass small wayside shops that sell fruits that are a bit rotten, but from which some portion of the fruit can be retrieved, the cost of the fruit depending, naturally on how much of the fruit is edible and retrievable, and there is a market for such fruit, then you will also find it difficult to chuck squirrel tasted mangoes.

Insight

Yesterday i wrote that i have been ping ponging with weight loss..i have been thinking about that. for pretty close to two decades i have been on a diet...basically either starving myself or working out like mad, feeling totally deprived and pretty soon giving up, telling myself, all this isnt working, i just cant do it!!
i am beginning to wonder if i dont know the reason why it is so difficult to lose weight and keep it off. the reason is got to do with my mind. its like, i start on this diet, lose some weight, maybe even a lot of weight, and then end the diet.. meaning go back to original way of life, eat a little more than what i need and work a little less than what i need to.. being busy and all, time flies and before i know it a year has gone by and i look at myself and say, "what happened? i thought i had lost weight".
its like this: as long as dieting is a "course" one is taking, once the course is complete, and one has been graded and one forgets about it, the weight will come back. its not something finite, like a course of antibiotics say- 500 mg twice daily for five days after food!! 5 days up, course complete, the symptoms are gone, the infection is taken care of no further need of antibiotics... its simply not like that.
one puts on weight when one eats more than one spends.. a little at a time, even 100 cals extra a day, and it adds upto 5 whopping kilos a year.. its the difference between being slim and comfortable, between being plump to overweight, and overweight to obese.. ask anybody who is 5 kilos over the desired levels and who is trying to drop those 5 kilos...
i have read that in many many books, magazines, on line anything you can name- and also that diet has to become a way of life..(just dont call it a diet and dont think of you being on a diet!!) the eating and working has to be a habit and has to be followed all the time, the whole life. you slip up sometime, you get right back on. its not like i can say to myself, my body, "look body, i have made the effort and dropped 5 kilos, you are at the desirable weight, now keep it that way". no it doesnt work like that, coz, its the mind that needs to know that in order for the body to stay that way, it has to control itself and the body.. i know all this is coming out all confusing and confused. but what i am trying to say is that, it is so much simpler to just follow a set pattern of eating and working out, just some simple rules that are not some physics formulae (i am a sociology major)which anyone can remember effortlessly... like the NO S diet which i have started recently. i am into the 25th day today, although i have to confess i havent done it strictly, i have been sort of doing only 2/3rds of it, no sweets, no seconds... but even that is helping me a lot. i dont need to remember the calorific content of any particular food...no food is offlimits or forbidden, no worrying about carbs. nothing. no worries. no stress. i just eat a good breakfast, my stomach is full, i have eaten real food and to my heart's (and stomach's!!) content, i am happy, not deprived, not starving... i have a mid morning tea, dont eat the 2 biscuits that go with it, thank you, no eating in between meals coz that is snacking...lunch and a good lunch, colourful, nutritious, filling and a real lunch. same mid evening tea, no snack, and a dinner fit for kings, brush teeth, no eating after dinner. and it is helping; i cant see it. yet . but i can certainly feel it. and after a long long time i am content and not obsessing about food. i am not thinking of the next meal before this is over..i know that in a few hours time i will be eating, and eating well. i know i will be full, satiated and happy. i still log my weight in calorie count, i still maintain a diary both online and manual(being extra careful!!) and do count calories, but i dont need to do it. i know that now. i walk 10000 steps and run 2 miles thrice a week... i know why this is going to help me this time, more than anything else,this time, my diet is not for 4 months only, 6 weeks only or any fixed period like that. it is going be a 21-day, life long cycle. since yesterday, i have stopped the third S also.. the snack.. i hope i can do that too...
lets see how it goes.. i dont mind failing once in a while, if that is the way to success, so be it...

The NOS Diet

hi!i have been ping-ponging in so far as weight loss is concerned. somewhile ago, maybe a month or so ago, i remembered that i had, a long time ago read about a diet called a NO S diet; since nothing seemed to be working for me, i thought i would read up a bit on this new diet and see if it would help me. i have been at it for the past four weeks, and here are the results.
in terms of weight loss as such, counting in pounds and grams, i may not have done all that great... i didnt weigh in before starting this new diet... but i do know what other benefits i have derived.
mainly, i used to constantly, constantly think of food..i think i was mostly semi starved, and so right after breakfast my dreaming of food would begin, planning the next meal, the next snack and so forth, and worrying i would overshoot my calorie allowance and consume too many fat calories and so forth... but now, once i am done with breakfast, i do not think about food... it is not something i am doing consciously.. you know what i mean? i am not persuading myself not to think about food, its just that i dont need to think about lovely delicious things anymore with guilt and longing!! the no sweets and no seconds on n days has, now officially, become a habit..while i dont miss sweets at all, i of course, do miss chocolates and ice cream, but you know what? a s-day is always only 5 days away at the most...so if my mind wanders to chocolate or icecream, i just tell myself that i would treat myself to it next s day.. and like a child really, i am satisfied. today i have started the third s also.. no snacks. the light bulb moment occured a few minutes ago.. i dont really have to give up on those things either.. i will just add it to my plate either at bf or at dinner.. i know it is going to be dinner...
well, for a few days i guess my dinner plate is going to be ghastly loaded. but never mind, once i reassure myself that even ompodi/mixture/thattai are accessible and are snacks only when eaten in-between meals, i am sure the plate will ligthen.
i am able to eat well and everything in parties.. eating out is no longer cause for heart burn...i do look a glutton when i take a plateful of food, it does look horridly loaded, but i dont go back for a second helping..my colleagues during our official lunches-out have begun to notice that...and also that i do not help myself to any quantity of the sweets or icecream served. since i am not "on diet" as usual, i dont need to give out a lot of explanations nor have my leg pulled for always being on a diet!!
at this point of time, i must be aware of the virtual plate and not allow that to become a habit!!

my obsession to lose weight is gone (i think). certainly, i have begun to believe that if i continue with this, that very thing is going to happen. and wont that make me ecstatic?!!
wish me luck, all!!

some decisions

i wondered for a very long time how it was possible to lose several pounds, not just 2-3 but tens of it in one week? without great application of mind i tried out the maths of it all and for the life of me i couldnt see how it was done. and then the light-bulb moment...i thought i would write that down here so some neednt reinvent the wheel so to speak...

see its basically like this: supposing i am very heavy and have been consuming a lot of calories and not really been moving as much as I should have been in order not to put on more weight, then what happens when i decide to go on a diet and start walking for say 30 mts a day?

where i have been consuming 5000 cals, say a day, my intake drops to 1500 since i am on a diet.. the difference of 3500 cals which my body suddenly doesnt get but is used to has to come from somewhere and since i am not supplying that, the body takes it from its reserves.

secondly the 30 minute walk would cost me something like 150 or so cals maybe even more- that too has to come either out of what i am consuming or from the store house that is my body...so we have a daily deficit of about 3650 calories, a clear one pound...think of the water loss and if one also went on an exercise regime....thus it would be possible for me to lose a lot of weight in the early part of my diet programme- so i could see how it is possible to lose a lot of weight if one was seriously overweight. but as i lose weight and get slimmer and there is less body to sustain and the calorie deficit is not as huge, then is when i find i am not losing as rapidly as i used to, and then is when i start hitting plateaus...

and that is exactly what happened too, you know... i was 69.5kgs, and in the first four months i happily lost about 6 of them with seemingly no difficulty.. since then it has been all uphill...

with my current bmr of 1300 cals, and a moderately active life style, if i go overboard even at a single meal, i am set back by a week.. so at this point of time portion control, and physical activity is something i just cannot afford to lose sight of.. of i can forget about losing..

what i have done is this: i have made some decisions such as:
1. not to skip breakfast..but not to gorge, at the same time.
2. a mid morning/mid afternoon snack is a must.
3. no eating heavy dinner.. preferably not after 730 pm anyway.
4. log 10,000 steps, minimum, everyday.. it would be ideal to log 15,000.
5. jog for 20 mts a day.
6. stationery cycling-40 mts a day.
7. calorie-burn on extra exercise should be 600 everyday... they can be through walking, jogging, cycling, anything.. but that 600 must be done.
8. try, try, try, not to eat more than 1600 calories.. that plus an error allowance of 10% would take it to 1800 cals/day almost.
9. no rice after 6 pm.. not even idlis/dosas even though they are "light tiffin items"

i hope all these show results... i have managed to lose 10 kgs and have another 7 to go.. oh but it is so difficult not to eat!! i could walk eternally, but where is the time for an office goer?

still.. it took a long time for the fat to come.. i shouldnt fuss that it is taking a long time to go!!

a simple recipe-poha

here is a simple recipe made of 'poha' (beaten/pounded rice, aval)



for best results, use hand pounded rice. machine pounded is also ok, but you need to be really quick in working with it, coz it can end up very gooey.



ok, here goes.



wash a cup of poha a couple of times till the water runs clear. drain in a collander or in a largishchai ki channi (and if u dont have that either, then just an ordinary chota channi, or just use your fingers as a sieve, for heaven's sake, u need only to drain the water!!).keep aside.



add a quarter tsp of salt and a pinch of turmeric. (there you go again; turmeric powder if you dont have, then what to do? make it optional. its just that the powder gives the poha such a pretty colour!!)



now add a teaspoon of fresh lime juice, and mix well.



voila! ur poha is ready to eat! goes well with dahi u know. if you add the dahi and skip the lime juice and turmeric powder, u can mistake the whole thing for thayir saadam.

making time? 5 minutes, max? i should think so.

ensai, as we say in kollywood!!