There was a woman and her kid crossing the street. The kid’s eye lit up as he jumped on to the puddle in the middle of the street. His mom was yelling “Noooo” as the water splashed on her, and he was shouting “Eeeee” with glee.

What a finishing punch line!

.

Hopefully by the end of the day, I would listen and get more excited about hearing those rare songs.

Indians they would have given it to Rahul Gandhi.  (I am an Austerity Holy Cow)

Tamilians they would have given it to Karunanidhi. (I give Anna Award to myself)

Tweeps they would have given it to Sashi Tharoor. (Dare not touch the Holy High Command Cows)

Me,  I would have given it to myself.  ( Do I need a reason?)

There is one thing about rains — it increases your biological needs. I mean when you are hungry it makes you feel more hungry, when you want to piss, it makes it more urgent need.

After waiting for a long time we decided to cover bala’s laptop with black sheets(Thanks to the black panthers ) and was ready to hit the road.

He was like batman with a long black paper on his back.

We went to Sholinganallur (Stupid people call this nice named place as SHOLS). There is a tea shop in Sholinganallur that is the first tea shop to open in the entire area. I used to have tea here at 3 am in the morning sometime  back.  Thanks to the night outs at office.

Being nostalgic to the 3 am tea, coupled with the rains, I recommended we have tea in the same shop.  Tea at 10:30 in the night did not seem right idea for Arjunan.  He had a cold drink and I ordered for my tea. One sip of the tea and you know you are in bliss. And that’s when the bloody bus came. I had to leave half of the tea and catch the bus due to Arjunan’s insistence.

And when walking to back home, I encountered GODS again. It was time to put up a brave face and walk past them. This time I made it. They didn’t bother to bark at me.

I happen to go my home late into night most of the days. My neighborhood is a fairly calm place, where not many are on the road after 8 pm. This leaves me as the lone person walking on the road most of the times.

There is always some  song that keeps running in the back of my mind like a distant radio. And when I am alone these songs come out of my mouth, that is I sing that to myself.

Here is a situation song from Green Day that comes to my mind :

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don’t know where it goes
But it’s home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I’m the only one and I walk alone

Well I would be wrong if I say I walk alone. There are quite a few street dogs that walk,  run,  <censored> , and fight  at that time.

And like any other gangs, this ‘gang of dogs’ (GOD, as I call it) has a gang leader. He is small, He is black, And He is mad as hell, as Lynda Barry will put it. I think the other dogs think he belongs to a occult society, otherwise there is no reason why they allowed him to be the self proclaimed leader that he is.

This Chief of GOD, for some reasons best known to him, doesn’t like the sight of me singing to myself and walking.

He barks, barks as loud as a trumpet on a Bose speaker, when ever he sees me. Then all his accomplices come running from all over the place barking and supporting his cause(Which I am totally unaware of)

What’s worse is that the dogs inside the houses too join this GOD and bark, howl and do what not.

One day I stopped while the Chief of GOD was barking at me. He came running, barking and making gestures at me. And some how he got an intuition that its better not to come near me, so he applied breaks, skidded of the road and stopped, but still he didn’t stop his barking.

There I saw in his eyes — deepest contempt. Then the next instant it was as if he is asking me something. May be I was imagining things. But I could see in his eyes. May be he wanted me to stop singing GD (Green Day) and start singing for GOD. Like all those Maharajas of olden days, may be he wanted  me to write a song on him and sing it for him.

And if you haven’t  figured it out yet, yes, the first three lines of this post are of the song I am writing for him.

We have a two part recipe for the preparation of Bisi Bele Baath : one is the powder that gives the unique flavor to the dish and the other is the actual preparation of the dish itself.

Part 1:(The powder)

It is customary to make this powder, store it and use it when ever required. And hence the following measures are for making a small bottle full of the powder.

Ingredients: (all are numbers,unless the units are specified. Tamil names are given within the braces)

Bay Leaf (Punnai Ilai): 2

Nutmeg (Jathikaai) : 2

Cinnamon (Pattai) : 5 rupee worth

Cardamom(Yelakkai): 6

Cloves(Lavangam): 8

Bengal Gram (Kadalai Paruppu): 200 gm

Black Gram (Ulutham Paruppu): 200 gm

Red Chilli (Molaga): 100 gms

Coriander Seeds (Dhaniya):100 gm

Black Pepper (Melagu) : 10 gm

Asafoetida (Perungayam): half katti

Fenugreek (Venthaiyam): 10 gm

Cumin Seeds (Seeragam): 10 gm

Curry Leaves (Karu vepilai): a hand full

Cooking Oil: little

Procedure:

After heating the oil in a pan, fry all the spices viz., cinnamon,nutmeg,cloves,bay leaves and cardamom and keep them seperately. In the same pan now fry rest of the ingredients, Pepper,Cumin seeds and curry leaves should be the last items to be added.

Keep this fried ingredients in Sun light for 15 mins and then powder them.

Part 2 (The Baath):(Serving 4-5 people)

Ingredients:

Rice (Arisi) : 2 Alakku

Red Gram (Thuvaram Paruppu): 1 Alakku

Tamarind (Puli) : 1 lemon size

Salt:As required

Turmeric Powder(Manjal thool): As required

Coriander Powder: 1/4 spoon

Chilli Powder : 1/4 spoon

Jaggery(Vellam): A lemon size

Carrot,Beans,Sambhar Onion, Green Peas,Potato – As much as you deem fit.

Coconut:1/2 (Kopparai thenga preferred)

Cashew nuts: as required

peanuts: as required

ghee:little

Procedure:

Soak the tamarind in water for some 10 to 15 mins.

Boil the Red gram, when the gram is 3/4th boilt, add the rice and 1 spoon of the above prepared masala powder and let the mixture boil for some more time until rice is boiled.

In a seperate vessel boil all the vegetables, except Sambhar Onion.

Pour little oil in a pan and fry the Sambhar Onion, after the onions are fried,add the soaked tamarind water (Puli thanni), Coriander powder, Chilli powder,Salt, Turmeric powder, Jaggery one by one and then add the boiled vegetables. Put 2 spoons of the above prepared masala powder to this vegetables mixture.

Now mix the boiled rice and gram with the vegetables mixture to make the baath.

Put some ghee to the frying pan add the scraped coconut, cashew nuts and peanuts and garnish the baath with this. Finally plant the coriander leaves on the baath.

The cartoons, essays and the caricatures that we read in the newspapers have now started trickling  into Web2.0 world also. Like:  Ramesh Srivats‘s tweets.

And what best time to hear the satirists than the elections.

I was travelling back to home on an Auto. The auto driver, on seeing a yellow and something flag, said “I wonder whose flag is this”. Then after seeing the Sarath Kumar posters he went on “Ah, Sarathu kumaru.. Everybody started creating a party. If it goes on like this Vadivelu, Kanja Karuppu will start parties”

“They occupy all these marriage halls and make  life hell for us”

And then came  a convoy of Sarath Kumar’s party workers. They were all in the usual cinema style Sumo cars. And all were shouting “Aye,Aye,Oyi,Oyi” at other vehicle drivers and onlookers as if they were shooing away some stray cow eating their plants.

The auto driver remarked “Ithungalukkellam vottu podanamam” /For these kinds we have to put vote- it seems,with a sarcastic look on his face/

“Yellam Kai nattu kesunga.. Namba payyan oruthan irukkan.. dei yennada panrennu ketten.. Katchila senthutan na nnu sonnan. Dei.. nee kainattu ache da nnu sonen.. Athukku avan solran ‘Katchila senthachu illa inimey minister ana padichikalamnnu’”

English translation:

All these are illiterates. I have a known person. I asked him what is he doing. For that he said I joined a party. I asked him what you joining a political party? Aren’t you illiterate. For that the guy replied ‘I have joined party right, we will learn if  I become minister’