Ganesh Chaturthi

The day dawned bright and sunny at 7 am. Ahem!! Well, thts dawn for me on a sunday! The Arien was missing. Was he kidnapped by aliens? Nah!! The mystery was solved 5 mts later when the Arien walked in holding a plastic cover and said "Oh.. you are awake?! Well, then you can get started.." Usually, I do not attempt normal conversation until I have a nice cuppa chai but this time curiosity took over and I imm. walked up and peeked into the cover. The Arien had this "I did it!!" gleam in his eye and so I had to ask "What is it?" The Arien quickly shared his morning adventure. He had been to a nearby hotel to get Vada Maavu so we cud make Vadai(s) for Ganesha. I was so surprised and happy that I did not bother 'bout the technicalities such as wht kind of hotel, where exactly is it.. well, you know wht I mean. The guy at the hotel had laughed when the Arien presented his request, but the term 'Ganesha puja' made him change his mind. I was glad that this time we would have a grand Ganesha hubba as opposed to my earlier efforts.

The rest of the morning disappeared so fast, I cannot recall much of it. First, the Vadais were ready. Within minutes, we started on the Payasam. I did not realize my Chai was getting cold as I moved arnd the kitchen cooking black channa for the shundal, helping the Arien as he mixed the batter for the Kozhakattai, and arranging the flowers around Ganesha for the puja. By the time, we finished with all the items and the puja it was 1 p.m and I realized that we had not had breakfast yet. Surprisingly, the Arien had not gotten all worked up and cranky and so it was fine.

We were having lunch at the senior Arien's place and we carried all the goodies to their place as well. Of course, the Taurean did not feel tht our kozhaikattai matched the ones that paatee used to make. The Arien actually got us an Achhu to ensure that our kozhakattai did not end up shapeless :) The Achhu was garlic shaped and so we had garlic-shaped kozhakattais and we had used sugar instead of Jaggery and so the Taurean did not like it much. But who cares, I liked my kozhakattai and I am sure Ganesha did as well.

The Ganesha clay idol that we had purchased this time, seemed very close to my heart and I did not want to perform the Visarsan but of course, that was not right and so with a heavy heart, I performed the visarsan on Thursday with the Arien's help. It was a lovely Ganesha Chaturthi, unlike the earlier ones and I enjoyed every lil bit.

Eve of Ganesh Chaturthi

The day before Ganesh Chaturthi was a busy day - house was swept and swabbed by yours truly with a lot of help from the Arien. With all the help and support, the cleaning was actually complete only by 5 pm. Naturally, it was 6 pm when we finally left to shop for the ganesha idol, flowers, and other misc items that form part of what we know as Vinayaka Chaturthi.

The next 3 hours were spent in:

• haggling over the prices, vendors usually hike the price of the items on the eve of a festival;
• identifying stale items that the sellers try to sneak in;
• walking up and down a narrow street that already had too many ppl on it + a few two-wheelers+ some autos, and of course, an occassional four-wheeler and;
• lugging an amazing amt of stuff that is required for the festival and of course, the chief guest of this festival, the cute Gannu (Ganesha Idol).

(Parallelism ki jai !!)

We spent the next 1 hour worrying if the idol would keel over everytime the Arien hit the brake, turned rashly, or did sm arbit stunt. However, nothing untoward happened and we reached hm safely. The Arien had decided that we would make kozzakattai and vadai as well. I was ready to faint. So did I make the kozzakattai? Chk out next post which has the details :)

The Milk Cooker

T'was during the same weekend, that the Arien found the milk cooker. I remember receiving it as a gift a long time ago and moving it to the back of my kitchen cupboard. During weekends, the Arien gets into this cleaning frenzy and so he ends up finding stuff tht were kinda hidden from him. The week before tht he found the Eyah-chombu, which belonged to my mom. Thankfully, I did not bring the Puttu pathram or the filter with which amma made her decoction (pronounced dekokshun).

So on sunday, after the Koshy's visit, while I hoped to have a lazy sunday the Arien pulled out the milk cooker and decided to boil milk in it. This one was a stainless steel milk cooker unlike the older aluminium type which amma had while we were in some remote part of Karnataka, known as Thangadige. I still recall, the Taurean, a toddler at tht time, would either run for cover or hide under the bed whenever he heard the milk cooker shriek. The Arien gave me some gyaan on why milk boiled on a milk cooker never spills with sm details tht totally escape my mind right now. Anyway, I retorted that if milk was boiled in the Sim flame, it does not spill over and shared with him the gory details of the Taurean's milk boiling exercise. The Taurean decided to boil milk and as specified by me, left it at Sim flame, and forgot all 'bout it. It was two hours later when he called me - to inform me that firstly all the milk had boiled away and secondly, the vessel was charred beyond recognition and the good news was that none of the milk had spilled!! Yupp... his sense of comic timing is deeply flawed :P The maid was ready to murder him b'cos it took her a week to get the vessel back in usable condition.

Anyways, the Arien poured two half litres of milk in the new milk cooker and went back to his browsing. I got busy reading the newspaper. It was a solid 15 mts later that I heard this shrill whistle and looked up from my newspaper to realize that it was the milk cooker. Milk was all boiled - Tada!!! And, no spills. Super Tada!!! In all this enthu, totally forgot to make breakfast and we hoped to catch Harry Potter at the Forum Value Mall at 12 ...Waanh!!Grrrr!!!

Brunch at Koshys

It was a lazy saturday after the Bank strike. The Arien had to transfer money urgently as one of his post-dated cheques was likely to bounce thnx to the sudden strike. He had also suddenly fallen sick and as a result was short-tempered and feeling very tired. After giving me a looong lecture on why I shd opt for online banking, the Arien decided to get going - dragging me along after only a cuppa chai. It was while we were driving on MG Road, that I decided we must have brunch at Koshy's. Lotsa folks (especially the non-veggies) loved the food at Koshy's. Having lived here all his life, I was surprised that the Arien had never been to Koshy's. After completing all the bank related work in 2 absolutely boring hours, convincing the Arien 'bout having brunch at Koshy's, finding a parking spot near the British Library, we had no clue 'bout the where the entrance was. We actually spent a few minutes walking all around and were told by a kindly shop-keeper that the place we jes walked out of was the entrance. Well, Well, Well...

We happily waited outside until a group pushed past us and we realized thats how it works. We walked in and I was instantly reminded of my college cafeteria - the plain wooden chairs, the beeg fat fans, the old old walls, and some really old pictures. The only difference was that the cafeteria was usually empty while this place was bursting with ppl. We made our way to a table near one of the various pillars and plonked ourselves on the chair without speaking a word. We observed the groups around us, a bunch of college gals occupied a corner and were making an absolute racket which we cud not hear as the general voice level of the place was pretty high. Diagonally opposite to us, on one side were two college guys who were busy guzzling beer and on the other side, we had a bunch of oldies (7 - 11 in number, most of whom wud step out for a while - probably for a smoke n come bk in later). I found this lovely sketch by Jai Iyer on http://iyermatter.wordpress.com/. I totally lowed his latest sketch on the transformers aka auto hilarious... chk it out when you have the time :D

It was when we slowly began to wonder if we would actually see a menu when a waiter walked by and dropped off the menu. We took altogether too loong to select wht we would like and he vanished. Finally, the Arien decided on a chicken steak and a drink while I opted for a spanish omelette with toast. We decided to continue observing the others while we waited for our dishes and we noticed quite a few foreigners as well, tucking in and guzzling away. I hoped the Arien liked the food - he is pretty fussy 'bout the food he eats. The food was ok. The Arien did not go ga-ga over the food - he felt that Millers46 offered absolutely amazing steaks and this was not as great. The spanish omelette was good - though with a lil too much cheese. We decided to try the Koshy's Hot Chocolate Fudge, which was a total waste. First, it came late and so it was all gooey and then it had peanuts instead of nuts which totally killed the taste.

While the meal was not our best, I feel we ought to give the place one more chance. The dishes we chose did not give us the opportunity to really sample the place and so another visit is strictly the order of the day. Convincing the Arien would of course take a lot of doing.... Have a happy day!!

Time for change

Yes Yes Yes... it is that time when I feel like changing the theme for my blog. After previewing some of the options, I chose this. Not my best - not one that is close to my heart - not even one that best describes how I feel - not my fav colour - well, you know what I mean. For the ones who did not know wht I meant- Sometimes a change is all that matters.

This is my change for the day :D