Shit happens! :-)

May be a smile is not what you expect at the end of such a comment. Well, actually I dont know why I included that ..but now, now, let it be :)
Every day I've to walk 10 minutes to the my department after I get down from  the auto. Of late its' become kind of routine to see human shit on the side walk. Well if you're thinking why cant you look away and not see it; there's always the chance that you are going to step on it if you dont watch where you're going. so you get, it, you've to see it to avoid it! Coming from a place where this is not a common sight, it got me thinking who is doing this and why aare they doing this on the sidewalk which thousands of people use everyday. actually I pity the sweepers who have to sweep the sidewalk every day and encounter this.
Obviously those who're doing it dont have toilets. Not surprising in an aspiring metro like B'lore where large number of people live in slums and dont have access to toilets. So much so for the aspiring metro tag. next, when are they doing this. Obviously whoever is doing it has to be finished with it before people start the office hours. so they complete their ablutions at the crack of dawn, especially women for whom privacy is a bigger issue. Many people in the slums wake up at 5am or earlier to complete their toilet activities in the dark. Just imagine, if you have to answer nature's call during the brighter part of the day, there's nothing you can do but torture you GIT and sphicters. I shudder at the thought. But it is happening even as I write.
Now this shit on the road gets worse when it rains. I guess you can just imagine the effect of water. I'm secretly glad that my slippers broke  and I had to resort using a covered shoes instead. So what about the less fortunate ones without even footwear? Hook worms, roundworms, leptospira, e.coli and god- know-what pathogens.
So what can be done? Obviously, construct public toilets, create awareness about necessity to use toilets for defecation. Easily said than done. The above said slum dwellers are not suffering due to lack of toilets. What if you have just one toilet for a 1000 pupulation slum? The numbers also matter.

In my case, I suspect some folks living around 200 feet from my sidewalk. They are the only people living in the vicinity coz its not a residential aea otherwise and other settlements are a little farther. But I dont know if I'll blame them. The poor things have been thrown out of their homes when their shanties were demolished for construciton of the Metro rail. They earn their meagre living from weaving baskets from palm leaves and other natural products. The construction work disrupted the many years long arrangements and paraphernalia they had for cleaning and drying and other processing of the raw materials. But still their workmanship is of excellent quality, even in the squalor they live in. They have no other place to go, they simply dont know any other place, so they now live in simple tents made of tarpaulin in the same place where their homes once stood. All their belongings are kept on the roadside. Leave alone toilets, they dont even have a roof over their heads. Now, who can blame them?

The Bloody Beurocracy...damn you

Yeah this post comes out of exasperation; of wrangling with red tape and banging your head at office doors and wearing your chappals thin out of the frequent trips. This country will never come good...in local mallu, 'gunam pidikkilla', unless we teach the blooody **fuckers how to do their jobs, how to work for the people and not against them. We often fault the politicians for the system going awry. But we dont realize tha the beaurocracy is THE system. Even good politicians are helpless when faced with a corrupt and inefficient beurocracy.
I'm not going into the details of what happened to me, it will make my blood boil again. But I cant resist telling this... "All ye bloody beaurocrats out there,ye all will rot in hell". Well may be I should spare the good guys this blessing, but then I'm yet to meet one!!

Traditional Kerala kitchen.... nostalgia

This post was inspired by two cookery shows I watched in the space of an hour!
The old traditional Kerala kitchen is far from the gleaming modular ones we see these days. It is dark and grubby and can cover you in sweat in no time. Yeah, exhaust fans were unheard of then. And they used firewood for fuel, so you can just imagine the heat and the smoke. Sure, there was a smoke outlet which helped just that li’l bit.
I remember my grandmother’s kitchen. It was always hot there. They had a small gas stove, the likes of which may not be seem today. In addition there were two hearths which had wood going into them. I liked pushing the wood inside the opening which of course I was not officially allowed to do. The embers used to sparkle even after the fire went out and it was a favourite pass time to stoke it with a long metallic pipe which made a whistling noise everytime you blew through it. I think we (me & sis) used to do it even when the oven dint need any fire, just for the heck of it! Then what I remember about the kitchen is a false ceiling, from which there used to hang a dark, grubby pot. It contained the ‘unakkameen’, the smoked fish. The salty smell from the pot used to make me salivate, still does.

Another thing is remember is the old ‘ammikkallu’. With the advent of technology it has been replaced by the ‘mixies’ or the food processors. But any curry with ground pastes from the old contraption still has a unique taste which the mixie quite can’t match. Even my mother stopped using it around 10 years back. And all my attempts at it have been unsuccessful. So that is equipment that is going into extinction along with the once ubiquitous “aattukallu”. Who has the time and energy for putting in gigantic efforts for using these when all you have to do is just switch on a device instead.

May be these are fragments of a culture dying a slow death, fading into oblivion. The helplessness at reviving them makes me sad. But maybe it has happened throughout the course of history of human civilization. May be that’s what progress is; moving onto better things. Today’s’ modern homemakers can no longer be tied to these age old equipments but at the same time as part of a cultural memory we need to preserve them. What a dilemma?!

How to make bread crumbs at home - the rudimentary way

 
That is the last of the 12 potato croquettes I made. I did try out a couple of things i've not done so far in the kitchen. Well not that its a big deal, but 'twas a first for me.
For one, I made bread crumbs the way it would be made in a primitive kitchen....without a food processor or toaster or oven. I heated up the bread over a dosa thattu till they were brown and crispy. Then put it in a hole free plastic cover and bludgeoned it with the steel mortar i have. Turned out quite well.
Next up new was the rolling in egg stuff of the croquette balls.Its a very messy thing but could finish up the whole batch without much fuss and mess.
The croquettes were in high demand though I dint find them much suitable to my palate. But it went down well with the ketchup anyways.

Into the world of the primes

The primes… for the movie savvy ones, it refers to Optimus Prime (of Transformers fame) and his ancestors. For me right now, its nothing other than the original prime, the number one. Yeah it’s back to the world of integers and calculus for me. I can almost hear my head sighing and telling “yuck”. After 2001 it’s officially been 10 years since I studied math. Gosh its seems so long…and I’m really that old??!! Its time to tackle the GRE and time has come to dust up all the redundant math skills (if there were any).
Integers, prime numbers, fractions…its not sounding like Greek and Latin as of yet, but then again this is only the first page of the book and I’m already on the blog complaining about it! The GRE math question paper sure did seem like G& L. To put it mildly it scared the shit out of me. Every time I think of it, it gives me the tingles. Even the prospect of MD exam later doesn’t bother me so much. But after all its only 10th std math...guess it should be ok. Now that’s me consoling myself. I’m sure there’s more to come in this blog on the said topic.

The two year 'h'itch

This is just an inventory of what we ate...its silly, but Looking back and not remembering what we did this time last year, I think its better to put it down in print....  I'm already starting to forget; and its been hardly 24 hrs!! So y'day,We went to the Pizzeria. Had a steak which I think is gonna remain etched in my memory (and taste buds) for quite some time. It had a patty of minced lamb, mashed potatoes (heavenly) and some veggies. The most wonderful thing was the mushroom sauce accompanying it. The combination was deadly. Next we had a pizza with lot of veggie toppings...was good too but we were too full by that time. Contrary to our usual practice, this being a special day, we ordered dessert, a tiramisu. It was just wonderful and melted in the mouth. In the end, my tummy was just full to bursting point and i thought i may not be able to drive back. Great food...made a great memory of a  really warm and fulfilling dinner date. 

Urumi...a half baked tale

As the title makes it amply clear...this is about the movie Urumi...starring Prithviraj in what could be his truly first larger-than-life filmy endeavour. No, he doesn't resort to any super hero antics but there is hardly any frame without him ...sorry, of course I remember this one shot, it had just a horse's tail and the mud kicked up by its hooves in the frame!! :-)

Though the balcony was "houseful" by the time we entered the theatre, the reservations we made earlier saved the seats for us. Even before the film started daddy was speculating when it’s going to end...and half way through the movie, the rest of us actually found ourselves doing the same and twiddling our thumbs and peering at our watch dials in the dim light. Since three of us had watched “Pazhassiraja” (hence forth referred to as P) we felt it was unfortunate that this movie was made after it…because the one among us who dint watch the P movie felt urumi was a good take, where as the rest of us felt it was a poor imitation of the P movie A poor distant cousin…

First the plot. The basic failure of the film lies in the inability to work up a tightly knit, compelling storyline. The loopholes stare in your face like black holes. The cast seems to be an under utilization of very talented actors. May be the one who is used to his full potential is Prabhu deva. Even Prithviraj, I feel couldn’t live up to his potential because of the poor script. His character is not fully developed, having only emotions of anger, revenge, righteousness, romance etc. Genelia is a misfit in her role. A similar role in ‘P’ was immortalized by the talented Padmapriya. G comes nowhere near her performance. One sincerely feels the makers had used Vidya Balan in that role. She is wasted in a useless song sequence and a couple of dialogues. That brings me to the songs. They spring up at you like ‘jack-in-the-box’. Kind of startles you…in Malayalam you could say- ‘potti mulachu’. Except for one, all the songs feel like they were fitted in later for commercial purposes. I felt disappointed there was nothing in the movie to justify its title. The weapon urumi became another wasted character, like Tabu in the song sequence. It is a one of a kind weapon; deadly, difficult to master and unbeatable if you use it correctly. The intricacies of the weapon are completely unexplored, other than a couple of shots of the wriggling golden wraith.

The saving grace is the cinematography, every frame being a treat to watch. The art direction is also wonderful with all artifacts and accessories taking one back to the period.
Personally speaking I would have preferred to see more of Arya in the movie, and preferably in the role essayed by Prithvraj. Well that’s all just too much wishful thinking.
Actually at the end of the 3 hr session I was feeling like watching Pazhassiraja again!!