Family is fun & cranky!

This seems to be the season of family get togethers. I just attended 2 in 3 days.

Two conversations from either side of my family:

We were all gathered with my uncles, aunts and cousins from my mother’s family. The occasion was my grandfather’s 12^th death remembrance. One of my uncles expressed his desire that next April my 

 grandmother is turning 80 (i.e based on anecdotal evidence; even she doesn’t know which year according to the English calendar she was born), so we should have a grand celebration of her 80^th birthday.

Grandma: “Who knows, I may not be alive till then. No need to plan it now itself”

Uncle: Don’t worry, if you’re not alive we will celebrate it as your adiyanthiram (the 7^th day of death commemoration feast)!

Laughter all around as my grandma looks comforted.

                                ************

A get- together on my father’s side of the family. My cousins are spread out in various cities of the country, in US & UK. This made me remark to my niece,

Me:  “If you want to go anywhere in the world, just let anyone of us know, we will take care of everything”.

My niece (without blinking): I want to go to Africa

Me: Err…. Sorry, I’m not coming with you.

My sis: Don’t worry, we will drop you at the airport.

                             

                                  ***********

A Yahoo moment

I did a small Yahoo!! Yippee!! Hurrayy!! in my mind last day when I read this announcement in the newspaper. The Indian government has announced the development of an indigenous Rotaviral vaccine which can be made available in the market at just Rs 50, that is just US$1!!

As a public health persona, I can't help but contain my glee and excitement at this most welcome piece of new. This is most welcome news when you consider the fact that the currently available vaccine costs approx. Rs 1250, that is 25 times more than the new one!

It is definitely a yahoo moment for Indian science and technology, the India government's biotechnology dept having played a significant role in its development. I hope sincerely that this vaccine comes out with flying colours in all its trial phases and gets licensed fast. Yes, a vaccine is not the answer to lack of sanitation and safe drinking water. But it can definitely play a role in plugging the holes, to whatever small extent possible. Now that it will be available at a lower price, a lot more children who were kept out because their families could not afford it, can be brought into the safety net. At Rs 50, it is still out of reach to a large sectino of the opulace who subsist on less than $1 (Rs 55) a day. Lets hope that the govt can induct this vaccine into its immunization schedule and make it available to everyone free of cost.

Another Dasara festival, that means its been a year nd more

I was clicking pics of the Dasara celebrations in my office, suddenly I realized that I had put up Dasara pics of the 2011 Dasara. that means this blog has been around for more than a year now... I'm thinking to myself, "wow, that's amazing". I dint really think I was going to persevere so long with this blog!

The ladies in the office were generally busy; cooking lunch, tidying up the place, applying vermilion on everything in sight, decorating the goddess' picture. The men were busy getting the 'take home' sweet packets ready and decorating the vehicles.


Here,our office assistant is applying vermillion on the cupboard. When she came in, there was already a vermillion mark on it and she was offended that someone beat her to it. We informed her that it was there from last year's Dasara and she happily rubbed it off before reapplying this year's mark.

This is the one on the door...

Well, nothing much is spared, even the vehicles. This one's got it on the tyres too...

The ladies were busy applying rangoli..

 .... and this is how it finally turned out...

...they had a busy time decorating the place....

The mango tree leaves are strung up for auspicious occasions, this time accompanied by a garland of chrysanthemum flowers

No 'Ayudha puja' is complete without the cucumber. So innocuous looking, this one, but its fate later on is interesting.

As you can see, there is a triangular cut made on one side. A triangular wedge is cut out, the resulting hole is filled with pink 'Kumkum' powder and 1 or 2 rupee coins. a piece of camphor is placed on the top, which is later burnt, as we will see later....


Another important player, the lemon, which is placed under the wheels of all vehicles. After the pooja, the vehicles are made to run over the lemon. The driver in the pic is placing a lemon under the wheels of his vehicle.

The 'David and Goliath situation', going down under.....

The bikes are also given their turn at this face-off.

The pujari takes his time with the puja, first the goddess....

...then her other instruments....

Now comes the times the much anticipated time for the kids who had assembled... He looks to the skies with a small prayer to appease the goddess with the cucumber and the lighted camphor.... (if you look closely in the pic, you can see the flame of the camphor burning on the cucumber)

The kids are getting ready too...for the coins inside the cucumber...

Now's the moment...he raises his hands dramatically and smashes the cucumber on the ground...The kids pounce on each other to collect the coins...

All this was topped with a sumptuous lunch afterwords, prepared by Shobha and co. ... too bad my hands were too engrossed in my plate to hold a camera :).

This pic is the cooking team at work.


Happy Dasara to one and all...

The Onam of 2012

So happy was I to be home for Onam this year. People in my office were asking all about it and I told them its a 'harvest festival'. Actually I just think its a harvest festival, not quite sure of it. Anyway, them Kannadigas don't know any better than me , so I managed to get away with it :)

And they are surprised that Onam is a state festival celebrated irrespective of religious affiliations. Again they stumped me by asking which god is worshipped for Onam. I explained the story of King Mahabali and Vamanan, they were familiar with some parts of it. Then they wanted to know what we did on Onam. The answer that came to my mind was that we watch movies on Surya TV, Asianet, Kairali TV etc. I din't tell them that ... Instead I that told we make Pookkalams and we have a grand feast on Thiruvonam day :)

Some images from Onam this year...

The Vazhakkula without which no Onam is complete, proudly photographed from my home garden....

The quintessential Pookkalam, the hallmark of Onam...

A closeup view of the smae,

The Thrikkarappan, made of mud, decorated with flowers

Up close,

Some flowers without which Onam cannot be...

Thumba poo, sadly so out of focus  :(

Mukkootti....the yellow bells,

Kakkappoo, it is actually violet or blue; the colour dint come out in my pic...

A Happy and prosperous Onam to one and all!

Hail Internet! Hail Bolt! Hail Mary! (Olympics in the age of social networking)

I think the 'Olympics in the age of social networks' bit has already appeared in a newspaper column. I was attempting to match it with 'Love in the times of Cholera' by Marquez. Guess somebody beat me to it already....

Yeah London 2012 is not the 1st Olympic games in the times of internet. But is surely a first for me in the sense that I am prolifically using various cyberspace platforms to catch up on the action I have missed every day. There is an official Live Olympic channel on Youtube. Not to mention the live feeds from The Guardian and BBC sports websites.  Yesterday morning I searched on Youtube and found the official video of the 100m final. I was belatedly enthralled to witness Usian Bolt majestically powering to the finish line. His challengers were simply specks of dust compared to the brilliant radiance he emanated in the track.

Since the name Bolt came up, its only proper to gush about the wonder and genius that he is. As a commentator mentioned during the 100m final, "He has transformed the world the sprinting for ever". By clocking times never seen before or even thought humanly possible, he has sent the sprinting world into a tailspin. As The Hindu headline wondered, 'Is it the yam or nuggets or merely genes??', in reference to the yam they eat regularly in Jamaica, or the chicken nuggets he snacks on or  is it just something in his blood? As I heard one commentator mentioning, before Bolt rewrote history, it was believed that tall men can't sprint, just like the shorter the better in gymnastics. But then Bolt came , he saw and he conquered; and he stood tall at 6ft 5"!!

In these Olympic times, it is impossible not to comment on India's performance in the games. Of late, India's hopes are resting on the tiny shoulders of a petite lady, Mary Kom, boxer, mother of 5 year old twins. I cant help but admire her for doing what she is doing and for being where she is now. To box at her age, juggling a  family and gruelling training schedules, she is truly a superwoman.

 I was watching an interview with Saina Nehwal, the shuttler and P.Gopichand, her coach. She won a Bronze for India in Badminton. Her coach says, neither he nor Saina has watched a movie or gone for a party or let their hair down in any way for the last 6 months. I was truly amazed at their dedication to the sport, giving up all worldly pleasures, working with a single minded dedication. It may be one of the instances when work becomes play becomes work. Everything is the same for these athletes; work, play, life.... Truly remarkable people.

Dasara 2011

Being from Kerala, Navratri was not a big occassion for me.... the only reason to remember it were the holidays we would get for that and the fact that you 'should not' study for the two days when the books are kept in the temple for pooja! Why aren't there more of such festivals...?!!

After coming to Bangalore only I started seeing this festival being organized on such a large scale. It was ubiquitous here, where as in Kerala, it was a big deal only in Brahmin homes. In college there are multiple celebrations, one by the Office, then by the individual department, in the DL, the canteenwala, library and not to be left out, the drivers of various rickety college vehicles would also deck up their chariots and worship them....

This (hopefully) is my last year in college, so I thought, what the heck, might take some pics as well. They were taken with my poor Sony Ericcson mobile cam. So quality is quite poor. But all the same, they don't miss the point...

the extensive decoration in DL...initially it seemed good...but by the time they finished, it seemed like a idol in a tropical jungle...

The humble one in my dept....compared to the previous pic

The star of the show....goddess Saraswati

The offerings for the goddess; fruits...lights, incense...

Pandu, our attender passing out the aarti....

Happy Dasara to all....

MH