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 Ootta from Namma Thotta ( food from our garden)  It has been a slow and steady progress , what with these incessant  and unseasonal rains attracting the pests, rotting out the seedlings and making sowing and harvesting so unpredictable.  A big shout out to all those small farmers whose livelihood oscillates and depends upon mother nature's mood swings. Mother nature seems to be showing menopausal symptoms.... But ye shall not complain about the incessant rains... we need to soak in as much water as we can, because the summer is going to be scorching without all those trees that were sacrificed for the namma metro. And to keep us urban monsters fed and hydrated is getting to be a tedious tasks year on year.      The harvest has been slow and steady.  The conventional vegetable plot has been yielding some harvest although it has now massively slowed down.  The circle gardens are a new experiment on the adjacent plot.  This is my home...

 Being gender neutral ...  I always associated the term  Batter to 'idli' and 'dosa'. The other day I was watching an interview where Sachin would constantly repeat the term 'Batter'.  I put it down to bad english although this was not the Sachin from the 1990's but a very mature, well heeled, sightly middle aged but the usual baby faced Sachin talking about how he and Rahul Dravid foxed bowler Chris Cairns with some of their shrewd and rather funny antics while Rahul was at the crease and Sachin at the other end at a match in Mohali.    Interesting piece of story telling that one.  And a must watch.  That is when I learnt Batter is the new gender netural term since the gentlemen's game has now caught on with the ladies as well. Although with the ladies' version the fanfare and bankrolling is nowhere near to what the gentlemen's version of IPL commands.  Talking of gender neutral terminology, here is one one such place - the play arena 9 badm...

Ootta from Namma Thotta ( food from our garden) July 2022  It was a lovely morning and the Road to Khajisonenahalli was lit up with the bright morning sun as I drove back from the farm . On that early morning drive from Bangalore to Chennai, I looked forward to rejunevante the vegetable patch that eluded me through the 2-3  COVID filled years in Chennai.  Harish was kind enough to take care of the plot while I would still be serving my notice period and then return to Bangalore.   Everything seemed perfect for the new beginnings.  On the  way back on the NH47 Alexa aided the driving mood and blared Subramania Bharati's  'Kaani Nilam vendum' perhaps more than 100 times by several different musicians until the city traffic hit us out a put a stop to the mood.    That was indeed a memorable drive filled with the promises of the new beginning.  Here is the blogpost by Raja Thatha from where I have picked up the lyrics and its Engli...

 That quaint red box at the end of the street with a flap that said next clearance by 5:30 pm or whatever. How faithfully they were delivered ...carrying messages of love and longing...of loss and hope... of news good and bad... The cream coloured postcards and the blue coloured inland letters that filled up even at the flaps... And for those wishing to write longer epistles there was the envelope again cream in colour with a brownish Ashok chakra embossed there.   And they came affixed with the postal  stamps... And because there were stamps there were stamp collectors... Pictured at the back yard of a dilapidated post office this morning...

The world is looking forward to the light at the end of this long tunnel called 2020...        Here I was., Spotting the silver lining behind the clouds... It promises to be a day with rain and thunderstorm. Atleast , says the weatherman.    Being watchful of the weather forecast is because  the terrace farmer is making some new beginnings    This was almost 10 days ago... Seed of snake gourd  bitter gourd   bottle gourd and ridge gourd. Soaked and sown with a lot of love and care   Join me on this journey to see them grow.    

It is a Sunday and everyone in Tirunelveli knows that ‘ Iruttu kadai ’ Halwa is closed on Sundays.   If you are a visitor to the town, you will have to wait if you want to taste their original fare. But other shops claiming to sell the original ‘ Iruttu Kadai ’ halwa are sprung across all over the town and even online.    And their claims are not entirely spurious.   When the original ‘ Iruttu kadai ’ Halwa is open for business, they stock up knowing very well that the customers that visit the Nellai town on Sundays would not be disappointed. There is also the claim that the ‘Master’ (i.e. Chef) that ‘ Iruttu Kadai ’ halwa employs also runs this as a side hustle and that is the reason you get the original Iruttu kadai halwa even if you do not buy it from Iruttu kadai . The name ‘ Iruttu kada i’ in itself isn’t very appealing as any brand marketing professional will tell you.   Literally translated, in English it means the dark shop . And th...

To call it a structure symbolizing classic minimalism would be an oxymoron. The Harmandir Sahib or the Golden temple of Amritsar is not only a photographer’s delight but also a place that can evoke feelings of serenity, awe and humility in you. As you approach the main square of the city which is the main thoroughfare and the   entrance to the Golden Temple, you realize that the chaos, haphazardness and lack of aesthetics that signify ancient and crowded parts of most Indian cities including Amritsar, suddenly disappear and a new world emerges.       The side alleyways skirting the main precincts of Golden temple are a complete contrast to the main square. They, like any other ancient part of Indian cities are crowded and crassly commercialized. Pink brick architecture and marble sculptures adorn the commercial outlets that lead to the Golden temple.   The signage of the shops, big and small are all uniform and aesthetically displaye...

More than seven decades after that bloody and Chaotic Partition that left the landscape and more importantly the mindscape of the Indian subcontinent torn into pieces one would assume the fate has been sealed and people have healed. By now the survivors of that horrific partition have either died a natural death or are now too old that time should have healed them. Photo courtesy : Google free images In 1947, before the British left India, they added the fuel and fanned the fire for carving out a separate state of Islam from the Indian Subcontinent. Sir Radcliffe who was commissioned to redraw the map of Hindustan and Pakistan, that separated the two countries apparently had no idea of the complex diversity, demography and the dependence that people living out there across faith and religion had. Nor did he understand the kinship ties that spread far and wide across the sub-continent and the havoc that his carelessly drawn out border lines would create.    ...