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!!

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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!!