Happy Pongal . . .

Today is Pongal, the harvest festival where we pray to the Sun god for the plentiful crop. The festivals highlight is the great eats.. Pongal, made from rice, lentils, milk and ghee (clarified butter) and of course vadais and all the other good stuff.

Had to go to work early in the morning today and it is raining like crazy here. But for a brief moment, the sun did come out and grace us with a beautiful rainbow. I took that as the cue and started the prayer. Here are the pictures.

The little one takes after me for vadai eating skills..


A close up of vadais for those of you who wonder what it looks like .. I just wish you could taste it !! mmmm yummmmy..


Pongalllloooo Pongal to all of you... and vadaioooo vadai too..

And god said . . . "Let there be teeth !!"

As most of you know I am celebrating my first week of health !! That is right folks, seven consequtive days without cold, cough, fever, cold sweats, sore throat, etc. etc.. Our blessed house has been hit by three rounds of flu..

First we owe this to our toddler who has finally learnt the art of sharing. We have been begging her for more than a year to share with friends.. Now that she is a "big girl" she insists on carrying a "chapstix" with her wherever she goes..(for those in India who are alien to this concept, lips get cracked here due to the cold, so we have vaseline in a lipstick tube which you apply on your lips !!) and you guessed it, she has been SHARING her chapstix with her friends in her daycare. This makes the daycare a virologists dream, what with the kids freely sharing germs and mutating them !!

Secondly, we owe this to the baby, cute, cuddly and very kissworthy, she is a biological weapon by herself. Between the two of them they run a germ factory that would put Saddam's men to shame. They also distribute free samples to us on a daily basis to promote their business . .

Finally, the fact that the entire house has internal air circulation, what comes into the house, stays in the house !! Opening the house gurantees you a cold anyways.

In spite of all the odds stacked against me, I managed to have seven cold free days, only to find out that I had to go to the dreaded Dentist chair !!

It has been six years since I sat in the Chair. Dentistry in the United States is more of a flourishing business than a branch of medicine. I still remember my dental visits in India. My dentist was so busy handling serious dental surgery patients that he would say "just keep brushing your teeth regularly.. we will see you if there is an emergency". If there WAS an emergency, he would take a quick X-ray, diagnose in two minutes, fix the problem in another 5 and off you went back to whatever you were doing.

Here, I had some irritation in my teeth. I go to the dentist and guess what ? They took 4 rounds of x-rays, including one where my face is held tight by a machine and it rotates around my head and takes a Panoramic X-ray !!. I got to see all my teeth in panoramic View and then the dentist proceeded to poke every teeth to make measurements on how bad my teeth, gums were. Then came the verdict "we cant fully fix your problem today because this is only a 15 min appointment. In Tamizh we have a saying "siru thurumbum pal kuththa udhavum" which literally means "even a small stick can be used as a toothpick". So imagine the possibility with the latest and greatest dental chair. It reminded me of the godess Kali who has 20+ hands with an assortement of weaponry in each one of them. After some harrowing moments, I was told that some temporary stuff had been done to reduce my pain, but I had to come back for DEEP CLEANING !!

I immediately knew that my wallet was also going to undergo a deep cleaning. They are charging a 1000 dollars for this procedure and I pay 200 bucks out of my pocket!! For that kind of money I can fly to India and get it cleaned (if necessary) for 50 bucks. The funny part is that the irritation is still there. Now I remember why I stopped going to the dentist six years ago !!

Competition in the good old days !!

Remember the post on the naming ceremony ? I had eaten one too many "vadai"s (think of them as south Indias answer to the Falafal) and had fallen sick. I did promise a post on that .. so here is the story that had come to mind.

This story is real. It happened when my grandfather was not boy of 10 or 12. In south Indian brahmin families it is customary to celebrate the death anniversary of your immediate forefathers (maybe two generations) with a prayer (to call for their souls to rest in peace). This is called the "srarth" or "srartham". At the end of this half day ceremony, they usually put 11 big plaintain (banana) leaves and ask 10 brahmins, to eat a feast. The 11th leaf is served but is not touched by any of the brahmins and at the end of the ceremony sometimes a kid is asked to eat from that leaf (the idea is that the 11th plate is for god !). This feast is called "bramanartham" in tamizh lingo. Enough of the details.. lets get to the story !!

Usually they pick priests with big potbellies because at some point in history, people started equating the happiness and contentedness of the priest at the end of the feast to the amount of rest that the forefathers poor souls get !! So, you can imagine how things evolved over a few hundred years. The priests who started performing srartham ceremonies started developing superior bellies that could potentially house a family of three or four kids inside with room to spare.. I am talking bellies that were genetically passed on from father to son and the ability to eat enough to fill those bellies in 30-45 minutes. It is rumored that these priests used to teach remedial classes for camels and cows that used to fail the "chewing the cud 101" course !!

Naturally, they were much sought after, even more than the ones that could actually recite the prayers because their belch at the end of the meal could directly be heard by the forefathers souls, faster than the recited hymns and prayers !!

In one such feast in the village near Mayiladudurai (where my grandpa grew up), there were two priests who were famous for both their knowledge of the scriptures and their ability to eat ! (I cannot name them here because, who knows, their great grand kids might be reading this post !!).

The poor womenfolk, start cooking for the feast as early as 3 -4 AM and they get no rest till the last priest has had his fill. That said, in one of the ceremonies, one of the priests challenged the other to a contest. "I can eat more vada's than you !!" and I will prove it in todays feast !. When the ladies heard this, they were of course alarmed. They had not prepared enough lentil dough to make the vadais.

Keep in mind that usually the lentils are soaked in water the previous night, then they were ground in a stone grinder manually !! There was no electricity or Osterizers or Griders available 70 years ago ! At the end of the grinding process, they added some ginger, chillies and peppercorn to this dough, some curry leaves and salt and deep fried in oil, in the shape of a mini donut.. The end result was and is usually divine both in smell and taste. Today, even a novice like me with a mini belly can eat 10 vadais in one sitting..

When two veteran priests have decided to contest and especially on one item in the meal, the ladies panicked. What if there is not enough dough, and the priests curse them ? Luckily a village elder (super granny) calmed them down. She asked them to boil water and accelerate the soaking process for the lentils. This helped, but still the ladies were in the frying process when the priests started the contest.

In 15 minutes both priests had consumed all the vadais that had been made for the morning. The other priests and the family who had to eat after the priests all decided to forego their share of vadais to help the ladies in their noble cause !! They had finished 50-60 vadais each !! and were asking for more. While the frantic ladies were parallel processing vadais on multiple stoves, the priests were going about demolishing them even faster!! I can only imagine them beating their chests, a la "king kong" style with every additional set of vadais safely tucked in their tummies.

This keeps going for almost an hour and a half and by this time they are both pretty full. But their "bloated" egos, wouldnt let them concede victory to the other and they keep asking for more. In those days, the priests word was absolute and the family had no choice but to oblige. But by now, a crowd has gathered to witness what has now turned into a local sporting event !

The local medicine man was put on standby as the family did not want a dead priest to commemorate their grandfathers anniversary! They were both in the nineties (I mean the number of vadais, not their age)and struggling. At this point one of the priests makes it to a hundred vadais and stops. He can hardly speak. But he looks at the other one for a response and starts to throw up violently.

So the other priest wants to top the 100 with 101 vadais. He finishes it (picture it in slow motion) and collapses right there ! His pulse starts to drop and pandemonium breaks out.. What happened next ?

The local doctor (medicine man), asked the priests near lifeless body to be taken to the river. He then asked two or three guys to hold the priest by the shoulder, facing the river where the currents were strongest.. 15 minutes later (as my grandfather tells me), the priest burst his "over pressure relief valve" located in his rear and out came the vadais (digested or otherwise) and with a choke he woke up !! The local doctor saved the day !!

Luckily both the priests survived the competition ! Even today you can go to south Indian brahmin family "srartham"s and watch the priests in action. At the end of the day there is something to be said for watching a man eat and show how happy he is.. When they bless you, they bless you with all their heart, or should I say stomachs ?!?

Sorry dear commenters ...

I had removed word verification last week after Balaji, raju, mukundan and Witchyangel told me that spammers are backing off..

But I had to turn it back on yesterday because I started getting spam comments from people selling me duffel bags, body bags etc..

Funny thing is that the clutter on my gmail was comments being added to posts that are from july, august of last year !!

Sorry folks !!

Bushes that move ...

Have had to work round the clock again.. to top things off I have the flu! So the posts are going to be few and far between for the week..

Anyways, I woke up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat and couldnt go back to sleep. So I switch on the TV to the Tamizh Channel and they were playing old movie songs. These movies are at least 20-30 years old..If you think Tamizh culture is sexually repressed today, think of it 30 years ago. The portrayal of the hero and heroine sharing a kiss, still cracks me up when I watch it today.

To give you a visual, the hero and heroine are in the middle of a song and dance sequence, typically with the hero in a tuxedo and the heroine in a white silk sari or a two piece (which was considered modern clothing in those days !). They are singing, running around trees, climbing up and down elaborate staircases, chasing each other around water fountains and towards the end of the song, IT happens !!

The heroine covers her face with the back of her left hand, and bats her eyelids a few times (she is shy now, in case you dont get it!).

Next she runs behind a huge bush with dainty feet(if the scene is in a wooded forest in an outdoor shoot) or potted plant (if the song and dance is in a park in a movie set).

Our Hero, follows her behind the bush with a swagger and a crude smile on his face, song still on his lips !

Once he goes behind, the bush shakes violently like no bush can naturally shake. This is the key differentiator. If it was the wind blowing the bushes, adjacent branches would sway in the same direction, but in the movies, the adjacent branches move in a scissor motion !! This would violate all of Newtons laws of physics unless of course, the branches were being held by the hero and heroine and are being moved. What is the idea here ? They are suppossedly kissing !!!

Then the hero alone comes out at the end of the song with a stupid grin on his face and he wipes his mouth , NO wait, his entire lower face !! He pretty much uses the entire surface area available to him on his right hand from the wrist to the elbow.

Naturally, an impressionable boy of 13 like me would automatically think that the heroine slobbered all over our hero's face behind the bush !! I never had a dog, but my cousin had a huge alsation named Millie (if I remember right) and I have seen it kiss him. His face used to be covered in saliva and he needed a towel to wipe off the KISS ! To borrow a word from my toddlers vocabulary, I always thought kissing was "yukkie" based on the Tamil Movies of yore, and moving the bushes seemed like hard work . . .

Then came the late eighties. Movies had improved in the kissing portrayal and they usually showed the hero covering the heroines face (you see the back of his head) and the heroines eyes go wide open. Most of the heroines open out their eyes so wide that I got the feeling that they were reacting to a proctology exam more than a kiss. But the portrayal was far better, because there were no moving bushes that blocked our view. We also get to know that the hero is in direct contact with the heroine and the bush is just an unnecessary third party !! Save for a few movies and a few daring heros and heroines, Tamizh cinema still sticks to the hero cupping heroines face, turning his head, heroine opens eyes too wide routine..

If kissing is shown like this, how do you infer the hero had sex with the heroine you ask ? Well, that is even more hilarious..

Most sex scenes in Tamil Cinema (if you can call it that) are very dignified. In a way this is not bad because most western movies have too much unnessesary nudity. This basically makes it impossible to watch engish movies with your mother or mother in law because the one sudden nude scene spoils the entire movie going experience. Tamil movies tackle this awkwardness rather nicely. Usually, the sex is "marital night sex" or in desi parlance "first night sex".

The hero (groom) is waiting in his room in a new outfit. The bed is all decorated with jasmine flowers and rose petals.. They show a basket of fruit and some incense sticks burning by the little table near the bed..

The heroine, then walks in with a glass of milk (she is usually accompanied by giggling girls till the door). She is pushed in and the door is locked from the outside. After she goes to the bed and her giggly friends walk away from the door, the heroine falls at her husbands feet first to get is blessings !! Why on earth a girl would want to get blessings from her groom before sex is still beyond me !! Maybe it is a turn on for the macho guys who grew up in those days..(some kind of subjugation fetish ?). Anyways, I digress and it doesnt matter. The hero usually blesses her with a few kids before the end of the movie anyways..

Once the heroine falls at his feet, he typically lifts her up, embraces her and tra la la. The lights go off and there is always some moving music (usually flute) in the background. This is followed either by :

a. a temple tower zooming on the screen (with bells tolling in the background)
b. a sunrise on a beach
c. two flowers in the morning (dew and all) rubbing against each other
d. two sheep nudging each other

That about sums up all the creative options I have seen in 25 years of movie watching !!

This is followed by the scene where our hero is still presumably sleeping, but our heroine is already up, has taken a shower, is in a modest synthetic sari with the towel still wrapped around her wet hair and she is PRAYING !!.. she has lit a camphor light for the prayer and is showing it to the gods. This always beats me !!

Pop quiz for you . Why should women end up praying first thing in the morning after they have just had sex for the first time ???

a. Thank god that their hubby is not impotent
b. Atone for her sins, because she was a naughty girl the previous night !!
c. Get back her image as a god fearing girl in the eyes of the audience in the event they mistake her for a wild thing !!
d. all of the above

Either way, the girl coming out with the towel and praying first thing in the morning is still part of todays movies. Hope they will break out of that mold soon..

ps. I am not advocating wild sex in Tamizh movies.. I am actually happy with indirect portrayals of affection, especially in family movies. Just that some of the stuff doesnt make sense..