scribblings

On sunday evening, i had to come to travel a bit around the city. And my usual prefered mode of travel are the public transport and i prefer trains to buses. I landed at the station and missed the train by a whisker.

Being the lazy sunday late-afternoon-early-evening time, i had to wait for a good 20 minutes for the next train to come. I hence happened to peep outside the window. Triplicane station is on the elevated section of the Suburban railway line and the peep out side the window made me learn a new game that day.

A group of boys had earmarked a rectangular area and split into two teams. They had a tennis ball. The crux of the game is to pass the ball to your team mates and keeping it within the play area. The number of times, the ball hits a person from the opponent team, without them taking over the ball yields points. If the ball goes outside the arena, the opponent team gets the ball.

Some adaptation of Soccer and Hockey to street play.

On saturday evening, i watched this new tamil movie, Dhanam. The storyline is simple. A college students falls in love with a professional prostitute. Convinces her and his family(with help of some astrologer) to marry him. The astrologer does the help to take revenge on the heroine who once refused to take him as her customer. The revenge is in the form of advising murder of the child born to this couple. The heroine eventually acts smart and poisons the full family. The investigations act in a humanitarian fashion and makes it a case of accidental food poisoning and she is back to her old state.

It is well picturised with all the essentials of tamil cinema, including a comedy track and music, some item numbers, some melodies and blah blah.

I find this kind of a subject rather appealing. Especially that of a guy coming forward/falling in love with a lady of this kind of a background and going to extent of marrying her and keeping her in his family. It is true that the director has clearly hit the bad sentiments that are prevalent in the society and how some people blindly believe all kinds of rituals and superstitions to get things done in the family. It also nicely outlines the way some people utilise such beliefs for their cheap tricks. These society related issues are indeed rather important to be showcased and in the event of atleast a few people realising the kind of horror it can lead it, the impact on the society would be good.

However, i found the end of the story appalling. I find that the movie fails, in the fact that the heroine is back on the street and again looking for customers. She does not attempt to make the family realise and identify the villain. Neither does she realise the truth that her husband was also not party to what the family did to their baby. All those family members who die at the end of movie do not really know who the culprit of the whole event was. I would personally have preferred either she fighting all the problems makes a happy life after the family realizes the misgivings of the villain. Atleast, a confession from the villain would have been a little appeasing. I m helpless but to feel pity for the hero, who for no fault of his, gets killed by his own wife who thinks he killed their baby while he was actually not party to it.

Ilayaraja has shown his stamp all over the movie. The cinematography is good as well. Some of the shots are very well done.

Well, a nice theme handled decently but fumbled at the end.

out of all the courage i got from the first made version, i decided to upgrade the receipe and hence the ver 2.0

apart from those mentioned in the previous version, the extra ingredients are...


The cooked soya chunks were left to dry on a plate and later chopped.


In a pan, after the tempering with green chillies, mustard and cumin seeds, add the veggies and along with salt and the masala powder. Cook till the veggies are done and then add the chopped chunks and mix well. Saute for a few min and serve hot with some coriander sprinkled.



And guess what, i had a guest to taste it.

Snehalatha Reddy, our wing cat, met with an accident in the evening and succumbed to the injuries.

RIP Sneha.

This evening, I had to go out of campus and came back rather late to go and check out the Mess. On any other day, I would have headed to Tiffanys or Gurunath or Quark and dinn.

However, I wanted something different. Noticing the Khadi vendor's van, I was gazing thro' the stuff he had. I am usually surprised by the number of things this guy sells. What caught my attention was a pack of what I am told are called 'Soya Chunks'. They are basically made out of soya beans and are easier to cook. I got a pack of them and made this particular Upma for dinner. The Receipe is as follows.

Ingredients:
Soya Chunks
Salt
Coconut, Thur Dhal, Red chillies, Hing for the coarse masala powder
Oil, Mustard Seeds and cumin seeds to temper



In a pan, heat Water. Add salt and Soya Chunks when the water is hot. The chunks are usually rather hard when raw. Cook them till they are soft.



Once the chunks are soft, remove them from the water. You can chop them if you want. I did. Squeeze out excess water.

In a pan, heat a little oil and then fry the dhal, red chillies with the Hing. Once the smell of the fried dhal comes, add the coconut and saute for a few min and remove from Heat. Cool this mixture and grind in a blender as a coarse dry powder. It can be stored for a while and can be used for mixing with rice as well. (I have this made from home and well stocked!)



In a pan, temper the mustard and cumin seeds. Add the masala powder and fry it a little, and add the chopped chunks. Add a little salt and saute well till it is dry and is mixed well.



You can add onions and other veggies also. I like the taste as such.

PS: This upma is a self made receipe. This post marks the beginning of yet another genre of posts on this blog.

Sometime back, i saw this bug in the BOG. It was rather big for a bug and was quite cute as well. Immediately got my cam and clicked it.



Poor Quality of picture regretted.

Self Help Groups are rather popular these days. The Women's Self Help Groups are being supported by the Government in large excess. Lots of them seem to have sprung up taking care of cottage industries and other domestic industries. Small scale Industries have also been happening thanks to these groups. They claim to lift the level of Women in the Indian Society.

While getting back to Insti from somewhere in the city, I saw the name "Men's Self Help Group" behind a certain Autorickshaw.



PS: all puns unintended.