Palakkad

An IITM classmate of mine was marrying another IITM classmate. To attend this function, I left along with another IITM classmate of mine, Josh to Palakkad on Saturday night.

Dinner that night was at this place Sukh Sagar, near Majestic. Strong unlimited Gujju grub, but we weren't able to do justice to the 105 bucks price tag.

We were travelling by a Volvo. From Karnataka to Kerala run by the Karnataka government, but showed a Tam movie.

It was an inter-caste marriage, the boy, a Thenkalai Iyengar marrying a Nair much against his parents wishes. So their side just had to turn up like guests. And the groom was the chief guest and just had to go up the dias and collect his memento.

The wedding was really short, cinema style. Two thalis and a couple of chains and the marriage was deemed over and the photo sessions started. For some reason, immediately after the marriage, the nadaswara goshti played "Varaha Nadikara Oram" from Sangamam, a cup movie with awesome music.

Somehow looking at a close friend, someone of your own age getting married, the prospect does seem a little scary.

Food was by one Hari Iyer, the son of Venkatesha Iyer. The servers were totally at odds with the ones in my imagination, based on a cook from a cook-gramam near Palakkad, Kameswaran. And the first thing that came to mind when sambar was being served was "meen".(fish) Food wasn't that great, but the pal payasam was super.

Crash followed thulp and soon it was time for the return bus. This journey seemed totally interminable and a major pain in the back side, taking 12 hours to complete the 400 kms in question. A couple of good parottas after the ghat section in the Veerappan area was the only relishable aspect. An hour long stop at Coimbatore, and after a lot of snore, I reached home safe and sore.

Culinary Evolution

Been sometime since I wrote about my experiments in the kitchen. That does not mean that these experiments have ceased. Actually they have started assuming new forms. So far I have been ensconsed in the delicacies of South India. But after the trip home, I decided to venture North. Based on fundaes from amma and also one demo, I bought some Aashirwad Atta and one fine evening tried making chapathis.

The amount of flour for 3 chapathis turned out pretty correct, as I had atleast an approximately quantifiable figure, one handfull of flour for one. Its the amount of water that is a little tricky. You keep adding and mixing the flour, till it is just enough for all the flour to become one solid whole. The first day there was more flour, the second day there was more water, from the third day, I have adjusted by either adding a wee bit more flour or a wee bit more water as needed.

Next comes the rolling part. Initially started off with New Zealands and Englands, now-a-days its more rounder, even better than Australia. A proper example of practice making a man perfect. Putting the flour on the tawa and taking it out is the easiest thing to do. As I don't fiddle with the remote when I make chapathis, I have never once burned a chapathi.

To go along with the chapathi, I have also started making some masala based stuff. Made rajma one day, came out pretty well. The colour atleast was an exact replica of what amma makes. Taste was also pretty bearable. Then made one curry containing aloo, beans and carrot. Carrots and beans are pretty costly, 40 and 36 per kg. I had to make do with just a quarter kg, and there are still more of these left in the fridge. The only issue with making curry is that I have to shed copious amounts of tears while cutting onion.

Most importantly, all this happens faster than cooking rice (release of pressure happens to be the RDS (Rate Determining Step) there). Not bad at all.

Cricket on Raj TV

Raj TV is showing the ODIs in Bangladesh live and with Tamil commentary. Surely better than the mega serials and the arbit Ramarajan, Rajkiran, level movies that Raj telecasts.

The commentary suffers from the effects of radio commentary, is mostly just an exact description of the visual, which sort of makes the commentary redundant. This is something that most of the English language commentators also don't realise. They are there to enhance the viewing, not just phrase what is happening.

The thing that impressed me most about the Tam commentary was the durations of silence while the cricket was going on. The commentator did not have anything useful to say and hence did the right thing, kept quiet. Siva, Arun, Maninder, among others please take note.

Mainly because of this lack of garrulousness, I preferred to watch Saturday's match on Raj than on DD. I think Raj TV has a possible winner on its hands.

School and play

Education isn't play--and it can't be made to look like play. It is hard, hard work. But it can be made interesting work.

This is a quote by Edison that I found below his pic outside a school near my house. (this school does not have a playground, but claims to be the only International school in the centre of Hyderabad)

Must applaud them for being so truthful in their marketing.

Probably they are targeting the parents.

Hyd trip

After a few weeks of all-day work, this was a vacation that I was looking forward to. Bunked Monday and Tuesday being Labour Day (my sis' cab driver rightly asked, how can we be called labour?, anyways who cares as long as it is a holiday), I got a long weekend and a shorter current week as a result.

Had decided to go home, but as usual thanks to some confusion regarding a possible parents' trip here, Indian Airlines no longer had the 600 buck tickets that I was targetting. As a result, I decided to puts Paramount. A costlier ticket onward meant I was trying to cut costs on the way back and I accomplished that by travelling on a Volvo.

Thanks to the air traffic at the too-big-for-a-bus-stand-and-too-small-for-an-airport Bangalore airport, the flight left more than an hour late. The seats are more comfortable, but the food was normal only. The one area where Paramount just beats the other airlines hollow is in airhostesses. The best set I have seen in my short flying career.

Going home has a few downsides also, mainly the need to land up at functions where I knew no one, but had to go as the others at home were also going to have grub there. There were a couple of gruhapravesams of my dad's colleagues and so I too had to go along. I need to start getting tougher in my stance with respect to such outings. I tried, but failed in front of my mom's reasoning that junta will be asking for me and they would not have a proper excuse. I am really gullible.

Hyd is hot, really hot. Bangalore is heaven (my ego has been taking a major battering in the last two posts) in comparison. Thankfully AC were there to beat the heat at nights. And ofcourse the infinite sugar cane juice wallahs. No more trips home till the monsoons begin for sure.

Did some house-hunting along with Vamshi and found him a house too. The areas where he was searching (Srinagar Colony, Jubilee Hills, etc) are almost as costly as Bangalore. But only a couple of months advance needs to be given. And the broker also took just half a month rent as fees.

Saw the Gult version of "Unnale Unnale". The theatre, one of the many near my house, was totally empty. Around 20 people in balcony and 50 types in the rest. The movie seemed pretty boring with too many songs and almost senseless, but the ending was surprisingly sensible. But no eye candy at all in the movie with the very saadha Sada and Kajol's sis Tanisha, a not great looking Bong.

Standard thulp and crash occupied the rest of the time.