Manjal Maalai

Andru vor pragaasamaana manjal maalai pozhudhu.Aluvalaga valaagathil irundhu veetuku vara aluvalaga perundhai thedi kondu irundhen.Perundhugalin varisaiyai andru mudhal matri vitanar.Sat endru vaanai nimirundhu naan parka suriyanin voli megavum pragasamaaga yen kangaluku then patadhu.Kan kolla katchi yendre sollalam.Manathil vor urchagam pirandhadhu.Andru en pirandha naalum kooda.'Andhi vaanam araikum manjal,aggini kozhundhil pootha manjal,Thanga thodo janitha manjal, Kondrai poovil koolitha manjal,manjal manjaal,Maalai nilavin maragadha manjal,ellam thangum endhan nenjil' endrellam paadi konday perundhil yeri nane.Irendoru nimidathil vaanilai muzhudhu maaga maari lesaga thuralitu kondrindhadhu.

Thural podhadhenru vaan megangal therandu aadai mazhai yaagavae maariyadhu.Veedu poi sera andha adai mazhaiyil kuraidhadhu erandu mani neramaagum endru perundhil irukum anaivarukumae theridhadhu than.Ivvaru irukaiyil,satendru yamadhu kaipaesiyil kurunseydhi ondru vandhadhu.'Iniya pirandha naal vazthukal' endru vor palli thozhi anupi irundhal.Andru mattum nutrukum melana vargal yemai vazthinar.

Vazhga thozhil nutpam endru vazhthinane namadhu makkalin nutpa theranai.Neenaivugal par pala aandugaluku mun oorundu sendradhu.Appo dho naan oru siru kuzhandhai.Yamadhu pirandha naalo vaigasi madhathin kadai c vaaram oochi veyil mandaiyai pilakum samayathil varum.Palligalil vidumurai neram.Appavai yum ammavai yum thavira pakkathu veetil erendu moondru pair irupargal yamaku vazthu koora.Naan aniyum pudhu vasthirathai kaata kooda oruvarum sikka matargal.Adhu vondrum sirapaana nalagavae irudhadhilai.Appa vaangi varum inipaiyum amma veetil seyum inipaiyum moondru natkalukul nan mattum theerpadhe oru periya elakaagavum sandhoshamagavum irundhadhu annaalil.Matra kuzhadhaigal palli natkalandru kondadum thaangal pirandha naal pola kolakalamaga irundhadhay illai endru solla varugiren.

Palli mudindhu kalluriku sendra yenaku angaeyum yematram thaan.Aaru madhathirku oru murai endru naangu aandugalukul palamurai vandhu engalai ellam aza vaitha andha paruva thervu apodhu thaan nadanthu kondu irukum illai yendral adharku padithu kondirukum vidu muraiyaaga irukum.Appodhum yamai peridhaga vazthinor illai.

Yaam kalluri padipai moodithu aluvalaga paniyil serndha pinnarum,yamadhu pirandha naal vidumurai natkalilae yae vandhadhu.Yedho kadandha moondru naangu aandu galaaga thaan adhu vaara natkalaga ulladhu.Aagaiyal yammai vazthum makkalin yenikaiyum adhigamayitru.Idhu podhadhu endru anaivaridamum kai pesi,enaya thalam,min seydhi mugavari endru vulagamae mari irukiradhu indru.Melum 'muga puthagam' vazhiyaga yeralamana nanbargalaal vaztha mudindhadhu.

Aadai mazhai thirumbavum thuralaaga maari yemadhu perundhum veetin arugae vandhu kondu irundhadhu.Irul soozhdhadhu.Iruvu neram annadhu.Perundhai vitu erangiyadhumae yaam vasithu varum veetil minsaram thundithu irupadhai kandu kondom.Maniyo onbhadhu adika pathu nimidamay irundhadhu.Muzhu naalum mudindhadhu.Iravin niramae iravin niramae kaarkalanthin motha niramae,veyil kalathilum edhay niramae,vovoru naalum edhay nirame,bengalooru muzuthum endha voru niramae endru paadi konday uranga thayaar aanane andru.Aanaal indha aandirkaana yamadhu sirandha pirandha naal parisaaga iraivan katchi aruliya andha sila manjal maalai nodigalai nenaithu konday uranginane.

Salem Kitchen

Transit - the food court in forum mall,Bangalore is a costly saviour to our poor hunger pangs. Forum is reasonably a good place to hangout,treat our eyes,dream colorfully & burn calories too, after rounds of mindless roaming & insensible shopping there.But Transit houses a variety of food stalls with a crooked intention to dump all the bad calories on us while we dump all our money on them.All in the game of addressing the Cosmo culture's taste buds.Displayed are almost all varieties of food available under the sun tempting the eyes & watering the mouth.

When i had been there for the first time,something that caught my eye was a stall named Salem Kitchen.The name was so authentic to me amidst the other colourful stalls though i never wanted to eat anything from there at that point in time.I settled down with a subway sandwich somewhere near our Salem Kitchen due to space constraint over the weekend.Happened to browse through the menu there and was super shell shocked to read the very second item in the menu.It read

Idlly ---------------------- 20Rs

Idlly with Mutton Gravy ---80Rs

Just looked around in that heavy crowd if someone was actually eating the above menu and yes there were many.There were just 2 idllys in a plate with possibly the smallest scoop of sambar & another same scoop full of chutney beside.And someone actually was crossing me with the second menu as well.The same two idllys with just a bony piece of meat floating like an iceberg from the sea of mutton gravy.Looked as if the gravy might not be sufficient for the entire second idlly.

People from south who live in Bangalore basically being away from home find these authentic menus simply as substitutes for mom's cooking.Money isn't really a big deal for them since the time they get to spend this money is very less compared to the time they spend on earning all their money in the same city.And creative kitchens like these capitalize on these facts & the figures that these kind of people earn.Mmm .... great idea from a business point of view.Simplest shortcut for a creative idea generator.Foolish from the perception of an avaricious consumer.Let everybody live thought from a happy consumer's perception.Where do i dig down further ?

For a minute thoughts went down the memory lane.Scenes of mommy grinding idlly batter at home with just a pint of rice & a less than a pint of uradh dhal for less than 1 hour yielding around 3 dozen idllys.And a kg of mutton made as gravy serving a family of four for 3 days,flashed in front of me.With some simple math all i understood was the cost to make these 3 dozen idllys at home rounded off to less than Rs 45 including the units of power thatz consumed by the grinder.A kg of mutton consisting 25 big chunks of meat pieces costs at the max 350 Rs.And the money to prepare a gravy out of it would be another 50 bucks.In all a capital of 450 Rs could be multiplied in to 18*80 =1440 Rs.

18 = #of plates that could be churned out each consisting 2 Idllys

80 = An easily affordable price by a person visiting Transit inside Forum in Bangalore

Ada cha what am i doing in an IT company spending all my precious time & energy building business at a grass root level for some establishing empire in the US or UK ? was this fresh engineering grad's initial thought after a simple calculation.I hated to be a helpless consumer on that day.After few months i felt whatz wrong ? Every business is an idea built in to a reality.After all i am a consumer of so many things under the sun.Just that i couldn't comprehend how the others work and i just could with this one.Itz not fair i told myself.I knew these were the realisations of a tyro's business inclined mentality. Few months later,i realised behind every glossy name,a colourful banner,a smiling sales girl stands a sure business tactic,a strong business strategy and the whole world works with just these principles.And as a working population we all assume some invisible roles in these huge games plot by very few creative heads who too are mostly invisible.Wished to be one,that moment !

Salem Kitchen was just my eye opener.Thatz the day i began to see money in a different light.A penny no doubt multiplies in to a pound.Just a simple but a strong idea has itz own power .Mmm ... eating a subway sandwich right in front of Salem kitchen was definitely worth a lesson.In fact my first striking business lesson.Same must be the strategy of subway as well where i paid a whopping 100 bucks for a single sandwich sold wrapping the 'Health' word to me.

City of Dawn

'There should be somewhere upon earth a place that no nation could claim as its sole property, a place where all human beings of goodwill, sincere in their aspiration, could live freely as citizens of the world, obeying one single authority, that of the supreme Truth; a place of peace, concord, harmony, where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his suffering and misery, to surmount his weakness and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapacities; a place where the needs of the spirit and the care for progress would get precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the seeking for pleasures and material enjoyments.

In this place, children would be able to grow and develop integrally without losing contact with their soul. Education would be given, not with a view to passing examinations and getting certificates and posts, but for enriching the existing faculties and bringing forth new ones. In this place titles and positions would be supplanted by opportunities to serve and organize. The needs of the body will be provided for equally in the case of each and everyone. In the general organisation intellectual, moral and spiritual superiority will find expression not in the enhancement of the pleasures and powers of life but in the increase of duties and responsibilities.

Artistic beauty in all forms, painting, sculpture, music, literature, will be available equally to all, the opportunity to share in the joys they bring being limited solely by each one's capacities and not by social or financial position.For in this ideal place money would be no more the sovereign lord. Individual merit will have a greater importance than the value due to material wealth and social position. Work would not be there as the means of gaining one's livelihood, it would be the means whereby to express oneself, develop one's capacities and possibilities, while doing at the same time service to the whole group, which on its side would provide for each one's subsistence and for the field of his work.

In brief, it would be a place where the relations among human beings, usually based almost exclusively upon competition and strife, would be replaced by relations of emulation for doing better, for collaboration, relations of real brotherhood.'

What u just read were Mother Mirra's dream about a place on earth.If this was really inspiring,then you should know that such a place exists on earth.Not very far.If u are placed around chennai itz just 12 kms north of Pondicherry via the ECR road.At this location exists this city of dawn - Auroville, it is called.And now the long story short.Auroville is an experimental township meant to be an universal town where people from all countries could live in peace & progressive harmony baring all creeds,politics & their nationalities.The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity.

I visited this peace palace during my post teen years.Stepping in to auroville,something that has to be noticed in the middle of the town is a really huge golden globe which is called the Matrimandir.It was told that it was conceived by The Mother as 'a symbol of the Divine's answer to man's inspiration for perfection'. Silence is maintained inside Matrimandir to ensure tranquility of space and entire area surrounding the Matrimandir is called Peace area. The Peace area in which the structure is situated is characterized by three main features.Matrimandir itself with its twelve gardens,twelve petals and future lakes, Amphitheater and Banyan Tree.

Inside Matrimandir, a spiraling ramp leads upwards to an air-conditioned chamber polished with white marble - 'A place to find one's consciousness' the well informed say. At its centre, a spherical crystal ball almost the size of a swiss ball is placed in a golden mount.A single ray of sunlight is directed on the globe from the top of structure. According to The Mother, this represents 'a symbol of future realisation'.When there is no sun or after the sunset, the sun ray on the globe is replaced by beam from a solar powered light. The whole chamber receives light just from the reflection of a single ray of sun falling on this huge crystal ball.

Honestly in whatever frame of mind we enter in,there is a sure moment of clarity paving way to realisations on a higher plane followed by some angelic thoughts.If we are deeply engrossed right here during the meditation session at the dusk hour,our mind should open many doors to itself.From the moment we step on the soils of Matrimandir,no one is allowed to talk which we might initially assume to be a disciplinary rule.Breaking this rule will cease us from entering Matrimandir.The guards & volunteers will be watching every person in the queue.In fact this rule makes the whole experience holistic since we tend to talk to ourselves and in course of time to the higher self with in.The crystal ball concept will be truly awe-inspiring for the first timers.

There is much more on auroville, all of which should be explored & enjoyed while at the city of dawn.But as of now here are my final words of wisdom-when the mind floats in silence after the holistic experience inside Matrimandir,there is a general tendency to feel Shall i quit my life to become a part of this sensible world which in turn leads to a common quest in the minds of all the truly absorbed.what it takes to be a true aurovilian?.If this thought dwells in you as well,this is what The Mother has to say

-The first necessity is the inner discovery by which one learns who one really is behind the social, moral, cultural, racial and hereditary appearances. At our inmost centre there is a free being, wide and knowing, who awaits our discovery and who ought to become the acting centre of our being and our life in Auroville.

- One lives in Auroville in order to be free of moral and social conventions; but this liberty must not be a new slavery to the ego, its desires and its ambitions. The fulfilment of desires bars the route to the inner discovery which can only be attained in peace and the transparency of a perfect disinterestedness.

-The Aurovilian must lose the proprietary sense of possession. For our passage in the material world, that which is indispensable to our life and to our action is put at our disposal according to the place we should occupy there. The more conscious our contact is with our inner being, the more exact are the means given.

-Work, even manual work, is an indispensable thing for the inner discovery. If one does not work, if one does not inject his consciousness into matter, the latter will never develop. To let one’s consciousness organise a bit of matter by way of one’s body is very good. To establish order around oneself, helps to bring order within oneself. One should organise life not according to outer, artificial rules, but according to an organised, inner consciousness, because if one allows life to drift without imposing the control of a higher consciousness, life becomes inexpressive and irresolute. It is to waste one’s time in the sense that matter persists without a conscious utilisation.

-The whole earth must prepare itself for the advent of the new species, and Auroville wants to consciously work towards hastening that advent.

-Little by little it will be revealed to us what this new species should be, and meanwhile the best measure to take is to consecrate oneself entirely to the Divine.

Rocket Science isn't Kooking

Rocket Science as a matter of blind assumption must be the study of rockets.As a matter of specifics, it must be a serious study in the discipline of aerospace.But in dictionary of janta like me itz a complex or difficult mental exercise used frequently in an ironic sense to suggest that a task should be easy or simple because it is not 'rocket science'.Thatz where i would like to pitch in from.

Itz been three weeks now since my hand in the kitchen got in to action though not full fledgedly.During one of those veg chopping moment,a phrase flashed across my sharp knife Cooking isn't Rocket Science.Who the hell said this,i was wondering. Neither do i know but definitely a much more difficult mental exercise than studying or designing rockets.

To my understanding the study or the design of a rocket(s) is majorly done as a team work and the mission accomplished perhaps just few times in one's life.But a solo kooking is neither a team work nor a mission accomplished just few times.U c, the most complex part here is to devise different menus for all 3 times a day considering the availability,perishability & sustainability of vegetables along with the comfortability of peeling,chopping & cooking them all keeping in mind the frequency of a menu's repeatability.And to preserve the leftovers carefully for the next day or may be for the day next or to do some mix & match with a new dish that gets churned out a week later.And all of this to be done without an iota of doubt by the actual victim(s).

To add more,keeping a perfect stock of the inventory,handling excess food materials,maintaining cleanliness in the kitchen,doing the dishes repeatedly,adding the perfect ingredients at the right time in right measures,serving food with love & care and finally looking forward for some rewarding comments on the food served after every single meal.

Uffff ... don't u think now that rocket science isn't kooking actually.

Perhaps the only way i can think of respecting rocket science more than kooking is from the impact point of view especially in terms of the cost involved.If a meal turns awful say with more salt or less spice or perhaps not kooked properly i know itz really awful to feed in but then honestly there isn't any irreparable damage to any life on earth unlike the significant tragedy of either a rocket missing itz trajectory leading to loss of life or a serious take off failure.