Tag n Award...

AJCL tagged me to answer some questions and ofcourse gave the first award :) for my blog. Thanks a lot for the award AJCL. Here goes the tag...



1. What is your current obsession?
don't think obsessed with anything right now.

2. What are you wearing today?
A Boxer and T-Shirt

3. What’s for dinner?
Idly with milagai podi

4. What’s the last thing you bought?
Dress for my dad

5. What are you listening to right now?
Nothin

6. What do you think about the person who tagged you?
She is an awesome mom!!

7. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would
you like it to be?
Chennai facing the sea.

8. What are your must-have pieces for summer?
In Chennai its always summer :-) so nothin special

9. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Around the world in one hour

10. Which language do you want to learn?
German

11. What’s your favourite quote?
Nothing lasts forever..not even your troubles

12. Who do you want to meet right now?
Papptu

13. What is your favourite colour?
Black n white

14. What is your favourite piece of clothing in your own closet?
White cotton shirt

15. What is your dream job?
Dreaming as a job!

16. What’s your favourite magazine?
None specific again!

17. If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?
No idea..

18. What do you consider a fashion faux pas?
Folks wearing dress that doesn't suit their frame.

19. Who are your style icons?
Style icons ?? Y do u need one ?

20. What kind of haircut do you prefer?
A short trim cut :)

21. What are you going to do after this?
A movie..perhaps

22. What are your favourite movies?
A lots...

24. What are three cosmetic/makeup/perfume products that you can't live without?
Not my qtn i suppose...

23. What inspires you?
Nature...tat's the best inspiration. The waves fall to rise again, The sun sets just to rise again...

24. Give us three styling tips that always work for you:
Being natural as you're...

25. What do you do when you “have nothing to wear” (even though your closet’s packed)?
Go hide somewhr and request someone to give a piece of cloth to cover myself ;-)

26. Coffee or tea?
Coffee..All the time

27. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?
Try to pep up myself

28. What is the meaning of your name?
The one who has moon on the head.

29. Which other blogs you love visiting?
Check my blogroll

30. Favorite Dessert/Sweet?
That's a top secret :P

31. Favorite Season ?
Monsoon

32. If I come to your house now, what would u cook for me?
I dont think my mom would let me in the kitchen to cook for yu.

33. My question: What's your favorite cartoon character?
T&J, Popeye,

I'd like to share the awards and tag with...

Sats
Manspat
Shylu
Ratz
Cassataa

Chennai-yil oru mazhai kaalai...

Today the day started off @ around 7 AM, that's when my mobile started off with the tone "Tu Muskura" and i rolled on my bed to pick it up. It was none other than "T", talked and then saw through the windows it was too dark outside. Me being one of the best in business as far as laziness is concerned, thought it's still 5 or 6 and looked at the watch just to realize it was 7:11am. Then, i had to pick myself up from the bed and went downstairs and peeped through the door to see the weather gloomy. Immediately i got excited..while some feel dull in gloomy weather, i get excited and active...I have always been a ardent monsoon lover.

After the regular chores, got ready early to the office and took my car out. Driving car or bike on rain is fun sans parallel. The dancing droplets of water that the visor wipes out just to see them dancing all over again. The lights from the vehicles before you as seen from the drenched wind-screen adding to the special effect. The cold and moist gentle breeze that gives a chill to your body with you yearning for a hot cup of filer coffee with the steam clearly visible in the gloomy background. Not to forget the smell of rains....

This was a perfect start i wanted on a monday morning. with so many issues in the work awaits me, makes me raring to go and start with a fresh frame of mind saying "here i come...". Upon reaching the office, the first thing i do (daily) is to pull up the blinds off the glass in my work location. As i did that, "Tada" the view was magical...rains over the Chennai IT corridor and the big beautiful black sea as a background with the blue waters barely visible. The thin lines of waters flowing on the glass panes with so many twists and turns, reminded me of the rivers of india map on the atlas.

Anyways, rains anywhere (and particularly in Chennai) is always a pleasure to watch, to feel and to get drenched. As i pen this post, sitting on my work station, totally excited on a monday morning, i just wish if i was up on the air floating in a para-sail or doing a sky-dive in this weather.

Uncanny Average for Murphy...

I am at my thoughtful best…..

Last couple of months the work has been hectic, the schedule and effort variances gives you nightmares with the team struggling to cope up with the pressure. Cross functional teams, showing their "I don't care attitudes" with your head at the firing line. Just when you put that extra bit to make sure of completion, your cross functional team member walks to you and say "Chan, I made a mistake in that task, because of which we need to redo all of the things that we did for the last week" - Life is tough!! Murphy Smiles :-)

A long expected bonus (which is a sizeable amount) comes and you'd planned so many things to be done with that, that's when the well in your home goes dry and no water for 10 days and mom shouts "Chan you don't take care of house hold things always sit in the office" and you end up spending it for drilling a bore - Life is tough!! Murphy smiles :-)

You're trying to book IRCTC tickets in tatkal, when you sit in front of your monitor from 7:30am for the clock to strike 8am, with never ending trials just to see the "tatkal opens after 8AM" messages popping up. And, just as the time is 8, you click to enter the details in a sense of urgency and press "GO", all you see is a "SERVICE IS TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE" and you try couple of more times from step 1, just to see ticket status "WL7" - Life is tough!! Murphy smiles :-)

You wait for an eternity for something good to happen soon, plan for so many things in life based on that, comes one single call from nowhere and crash all your dreams in a minute - Life is tough!! Murphy smiles :-)

I just have one question, when Murphy's laws are proved time and again in life, why doesn't the law of averages work at least one time and make sure something goes well as expected???

Don't know what's wrong or where things go wrng or how things go wrong....

I am still musing…….

Love "on air".

Over the last few years we have seen lots of awesome creative commercials. While some of them are at their creative best, others are funny. But, in my thoughts bringing a cute romance in the shortest span of air time definitely need some talent. Here are some of the cutest romantic commercials that made an impact in me...

The Brooke bond 3 roses couples ad tops my chart - The girl is awesomely cute, she is recently seen on the dove ads too (with the white tops, which again was just too good!). Well let me not taken away by her, but the fact that 2 fresh faces reminiscent of a next door couple is the winning point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANGbi0NObtA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4ZJr4dE0gk&feature=related

Then comes, the Madhavan and Vidya Balan Airtel commercials. Taking away the star cast, still it has the aura of a freshly married couple being mushy mushy for everything. The reaction on Vidya's face is priceless :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6m_h8edZVU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkT4qxzhujA&NR=1

This one, i have tagged in the romantic category for the fact that whats a romance without a little tiff.. The best part in this commercial is its background music..slowly building up and then climbing down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G8RmQKGavo

There could be so many others but nothing comes to my mind when i think of other than these...
Sometimes, in movies they bring about nice romantic scene in a short and sweet crisp way, instead of the whole stupid hero saving heroines, love at first sight and those forced song and dance sequences..

One such rare gem is this one, my personal favourite... Mani-ARR combo rocked in this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL1h2d7E5jc&feature=related

Any more.... from your thoughts ???

FoodFest - The "Ambrosia" style

Aavani avitam a.k.a Upaakarma is celebrated today. Well, to be more precise Yajur Upakarma today. The followers of yajur vedha, brahmin iyer men performs this most important tradition - the changing of the sacred thread(poonool).Incidentally, this time, it has come in the month of "Aadi" (Tamil month previous to Aavani) itself. The month of August marks the arrival of the series of Hindu brahmin festivals(actually it's all round the year) that coincides with the opportunity to eat lotsa special dishes that's made specially for these occassion.

Today, while i was doing the upakarma and as the sastrigal was chanting the mantras, my mind was filled with the thoughts of my school days when we used to have quarterly exam and the holidays following it during this time. During those days i used to be in my paati (granny)'s place and used to eat all those special dishes that my patti used to make for these festivals. Just for the records, my patti was awesome in cooking and oh boy! oh boy! do i miss her and all those special dishes she used to make.

Ahem! coming back to this post, ever since i came home few days back for special "aadi Perukku" lunch, i was dying to post something on the food items that i relish made on these occasions.

"Aadi perukku" - the function that marks the arrival of new floods in the river cauvery during the months of July-Aug. This is when, the folks take bath in the cauvery river and pray to the river goddess for prosperity and eat all the special dishes already prepared sitting on the banks. The specialty being those mixed rice varieties - Thengai saadham (coconut rice), Puliyodharai (tamarind rice) and Thayir saadham (curd rice), with Aviyal (mixed vegetable gravy made in coconut oil and with curd), Karudam and appalam (papads), vada and payasam(pudding) as dessert.

http://sagribow.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/08/today-is-adi-perukku-so-a-good-lunch-fair.htm

Then comes the Varalakshmi vrtham and Avani Avittam, the former is a special occassion for ladies where they pray the goddess for long life of their better half or pray for the best better half. The later, is for the gentlemen (refer the first para). Special dishes ranges from idly, vada, kozukkattai (modak) - vella poornam(sweet version made of grated coconut in jaggery) and uppu (salty version), not to forget the payasam as dessert.

This is followed by the Krishna Jayanthi (aka Janmashtami). This is a relatively bigger festival at least in terms of the sweets and savories made. Murukku (dough made of rice flour, twisted into circles and deep fried), Vella seedai (dough made of rice flour mixed with jaggery deep fried as small balls), uppu seedai (salty version of seedai without jaggery), Thattai (flat deep fried savory made of rice flour), Appams are all made as naivedhiyams(offering) to Lord krishna, apart from the special dishes like vada, payasam.

http://live2cook.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/swami_prasadham.jpg

Vinayaka chathurthi follows, again the elaborate dishes prepared includes idly, vada, kozukkatai (modak) and payasam. Then comes the Navarathri, 10 days of sumptuous eating :-). The variety of sundals and puttu along with the elaborate lunch with vada, payasam on the ayudha poooja, vijayadashami days.

http://www.samai.in/recipes/sweets-inippu-recipes/kozhukattai-vinayakar-chathurthi-ganesh-pooja-recipe-modhakam-sweet-kolukattai

Then comes the mother of all festivals, Diwali with all the varieties of sweets ranging from the laddus, jangiris (jelabi), mysore pauks, badhushas and the savouries like Ribbon pakkoda, Mullu murukku, Thattai and the specially prepared diwali marundhu (or lekhiyam) which helps in digestion ;-)

http://www.sulekha.com/mstore/sandyp12/albums/default/sweets%20grand%201.jpg

Already i am feeling too stuffed to write and there are so many other functions where food is the primary specialty.

There are these typical sweet-spicy combos like the Karadaiyan nonbu-specials Vella adai and uppu adais that're tasted with vennai (butter) and the Thiruvadharai Kali(sweet dish) and the Seven Curry kootu (gravy prepared with 7 different vegetables), Sankaranthi special sakkarai pongal (sweet pongal) the list is endless.....

For nothing they say "Brahmana bhojana priya...." (Brahmins are food lovers).

P.S: Pics courtesy - Thanks for various sites for the pics.

What's so real about it?

Recently there was a debate on one of the prominent TV channel on the TV reality shows. People were tryin to debate on whys and why nots. The claims "why people are scared to face the truth?" and "What's need to make money by makin someone's personal life a mockery in front of the camera".

While i was watching the program, one thing caught my attention, no one in the show wanted to be a part of any such reality shows but almost everyone wanted to see the show. Is it to do something with the taste of the viewers going sour. Or is it like they don't care to see anyone doing anything but want to project themselves as clean, disciplined folks. I dunno...

Barring few, most of the reality shows that's being aired in channels are nothing less than sheer crap. I have seen "roadies" once when i was surfing the channels. This bald headed fellow slaps some guy and comes out with a slur of abuse(most of which pointing to his mom, sister and whole family). I was thinking, how do they air it in the first place. Then next day my friend was telling about this program to me and he was goin all GAGA about this program. What the crap ???

Then, recently heard about splits villa, where guys and girls stay together and do 'tasks' all in the name of reality shows. I heard some girls became celebrity just by their verbal abuses which even a loafer would be envious of.

Then this recent hit 'Sach ka Samna', can the host or the producer or the director of the show ask similar questions to their own wife, mom or sisters with a stupid polygraph connected to them???

Rakhi ka Swayamvar...., better nothing said about this.

There are lots many (excuse me if i've missed any of the happening reality show) but do people have to be a Harvard educated to tell if we really need these kind of reality shows???

The irony is the channel that airs filth in one side, on the other side they air such debates to show their concern on the society. Take their licenses and ban these channels for the sheer hypocrisy. There are so many filthy, worthless crap filling our living rooms through these channels spoiling the society and kids. The most disturbing fact is that these so called 'youth specials' portray the modern day youth in such a bad light. It's a shame that any one who sees these programs would definitely visualize the modern day youngsters as spoilt and ready to take life to any extreme.

Not to ignore the fact that, the society is westernized and lots of things do happen which are not so inline with our culture and ethics. But, what's the need to bring them to the fore as if they're normal way of life? When people come out in open with these filth and get away with that, everybody might start thinkin, its a way of life and with short memory of people we can get through anything.


Not sure how many readers are with me in my thoughts..but seriously "SOMEBODY STOP IT!!!"