Two achievements

Somehow our Professors seem to have a knack of recognizing Indian festivals much beforehand, we had a midterm on Diwali last quarter and again one quiz on the day of Pongal this quarter. However the lucky bugger that I am, I gotta eat some wonderful Gulabjamun on Diwali (courtesy: Nalabagam Sid aka my roommate:)).

For Pongal however I was determined to make Pongal and eat it too! Turned out that we didn't have stock of jaggery to make my favorite Sakkaraipongal. Ithukkellam asaruvomaa! I decided to make vennpongal for the first time in my life. As luck would have it, paasi paruppu (not sure of the name in English) is supposed to be one of the ingredients and ofcourse we didn't have any of that as well. When has lack of an ingredient stopped arvi the great! So I settled on an approximate substitute-toor daal and started off the process after a few phone calls and some browsing on how to actually make vennpongal. After the cooker was on for fifteen minutes I realized that I missed out one small ingredient-salt! So again off went the cooker to the sink for emergency-cooling and opening, (don’t ask me what the mixture looked like at that point). After adding the salt cropped up another hitch-I knew how many whistles meant the pongal was ready under normal circumstances, but under these extraordinary situation I had created, I really wasn’t sure. Resolving to myself that I will feed this Pongal to others before I ate it, I made an approximate calculation with the original cooking time and the new cooking time. Finally ofcourse the-savior-of-every-dish-Arvind-has-ever-made (to quote Rachael “that’s an expression”J), lots and lots of ghee and the Pongal was ready! I don’t like self-praise, but cant help it this time-whattay Pongal it turned out to be!!! My cooking has a new fan now (of course me).

And today I reached another milestone I made Dosa from scratch i.e. from mixing the flour upto the final (semi-) crispy Dosas. Ofcourse the Dosas turned out white as milk is another matter altogether (well that’s way I always intended it to be!!). Feeling on top of the world right now. I am the best!!!

And for some sumaar recipes of a disciple of mine check out http://meerablogs.blogspot.com/search/label/Reciepes

[Note: Comments on my past cooking triumphs are not welcome unless they are filled with fulsome praise]

Meri Ma-Taare Zameen Par

"Meri ma" is a beautiful song from Taare Zameen Par, one of my friends (Kanthi) translated the entire song into simple English...and it is still beautiful:)...IMO, the feelings of a child seperated from its mother for the first time could not have been expressed more beautifully

I never say it .... but I am afraid of the dark ma.....
I never show it off.... but I always care about you ma.....

You know everything right, ma
You know everything, my ma

Dont leave me in the crowd like this ma, that I wont be able to come back home ma
Dont send me so far ma, that i may not be able to remember you ma

Am I so bad, ma...
Am I so bad, my ma...

Whenever dad swings me fast on the swing ma, my eyes always searches for you,
and I think that you will come and hold me ma....
I never tell this to him, but I get frightened ma....
I never let it out on my face, but remain in fear from inside...

You know everything right, ma
You know everything, my ma

I never say it .... but I am afraid of the dark ma.....
I never show it off.... but I always care about you ma.....

You know everything right, ma
You know everything, my ma

“Every Child is Special”- And this movie is too…

The title claims "Taare Zameen Par-Every child is special" and the movie weaves a simple, but beautiful tale to convey that message. The plot is very simple-it's about a boy who suffers from dyslexia and his parents are unable to understand why their child is so slow compared to others in his class. The child's tribulations and that of the family are shown in a very down to earth simplistic style. However what makes TZP steal your heart instantly is the fact that in the first half of the movie, we just see the world from the child's eyes. The sequence where the kid walks on the streets seeing simple things from his different perspective (with a beautiful song running in the background) will probably go down as one of the all-time classic scenes of Hindi cinema! For me personally (as it must be for many of us who grew up in a typical middle-class schooling system), it was a walk down the memory lane in the first half. I have been guilty of putting my parents in the Principal's office a number of times; I have camped (alright…kneeled down) outside class on a number of occasions. I have even had to show my knuckles and get beaten…like a zillion times (yep, I was a big-time trouble makerJ). I have even been thoroughly petrified by the prospects of boarding school! I have been subjected to the typical comparisons to peers that teachers and others make. Maybe we need to re-think the way we have designed the Indian educational system-but that's a different blog post altogether.

The mother who tries desperately to balance her love for her child and her desire to do the right thing for him is depicted wonderfully; the impatient father who throws the weight of his aspirations on the child's head is another interesting character. Aamir Khan plays the role of a teacher who helps the child get through the problem-a mature performance as usual, though I felt his costume was very out of place for the theme of the movie and the school. Another aspect that I felt made the second half fall short was this teacher-student relationship-it could have been built into a profound relationship-but Aamir has decided (probably rightly so) to focus more on conveying a message to all parents (and maybe, in my mind I am comparing this with Amitabh-Rani relationship in BlackJ).

Aamir Khan has a class of his own when it comes to picking movies in which he plays the lead role and that elegance is still evident in his directorial debut. Great choice of characters-especially for the roles of Ishanth and his mother. Moreover Aamir never strays from the theme and still keeps it riveting for the viewer-another great director is born...we could expect some excellent movies from him in the future :).

The songs are very soothing; the background score blends very well with the scenes and takes the movie to a different level. Then the lyrics….expressing a child's thoughts without getting childish is not easy and if you want to know how it is done, listen to "Meri maa" from TZP-Wow! (For a simple English translation of this song click here).

If you love children you will just love the movie, and if you don't love them yet, you will start to, after watching this movie.

PS, there is a small documentary feature that plays alongside the end titles of the movie-do sit through it. One more reason why life is so beautifulJ.