scanman’s posterous

daughter sang this with her classmate (ortho surgeon's daughter) as prayer song in a hospital function some days ago.

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this is the first english song that my daughter has learnt.

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[inspired by this post by bongi]

this photo was taken in 2005, ten years after we planted a sapling in the then empty lot in front of the fairly new auditorium in our medical college on our graduation day. the little sapling had grown into a young tree of fairly respectable height, now in a pleasant copse. i'm sure it's grown more in height and bulk in these four years.

i can't honestly say that i had lofty thoughts like bongi…

i lay under the tree and, as best i could, told my friend who was with me about these thought. i then added that i would use the tree as a sort of temporal marker that i could come back to when i was finally what i would be. then i would stand under the tree and remember that exact moment when i looked into the unknown future with innocent hopes and dreams.

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a conversation on twitter (between saroj & i about this article in the ny times - see the screen grab) reminded me of something that happened years ago when i was in sixth standard, in my first year in boarding school.

one day a whole bunch of us were ordered to gather in the assembly hall after lunch. once there, we were told there was to be an audition to select new members for the school choir. the music teacher sang a short "aaaah" (is that called a chord or a tune?) and asked each of us to try and sing it in the same tune.

my turn came in due course. i distinctly remember the dear lady's face twisting in horror within a few seconds of my attempt. she yelled out a tortured, "enough… next!!"

that was the end of my budding musical career. 

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in yercaud.
photographs taken from (& on) the balconies of suresh's house, except for the last one, which shows the kids having breakfast.
we're waiting for the kids to finish before we attack the food - idli, plain dosai, egg dosai, sambhar, chutney & chicken gravy.

           

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some pictures from the holiday inn resort [warning: annoying flash music] at goa.

pictures 1 to 3 are the view from my room's balcony - straight ahead, looking right & looking left (beach in the background). 5 & 6 are the beach, which i thought deserved a panoramic video (excuse the poor quality, it's from my point-&-shoot nikon, which only does 35 seconds of video recording).

           

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this week marks a momentous event in my life.

i finally became a true card carrying citizen of this great country of ours.

i got my family card (see second photo), better known as the all powerful ration card.

it's only after i got it that i was told that "just" getting a ration card is not enough. it has to be validated at the local civil supplies distribution shop aka ration shop. i love the name in tamil, nyAya vilai kadai (நியாய விலை கடை), literally "fair/just price shop." begs the question how unfair the prices are in other shops!

so i made the pilgrimage to the local ration shop a couple of days ago. surprisingly, there was no crowd in the shop. i had imagined wading through a mass of ration-card-and-bag-carrying humanity to reach the counter! the lady at the counter looked up with an eyebrow raised in enquiry from her newspaper. i hesitantly told her i was a new card-holder. for a moment my mind flashed back to that long ago day in sixth standard when i walked into the classroom for the first time in a new (boarding) school with a chit from the head master to the class teacher. the lady put down the newspaper with an exaggeratedly weary sigh, reached over the counter to take my card and checked the number. then she pulled out a fat ledger with an even bigger sigh and opened it to a page marked with a strip of yellow paper. she found the relevant entry (all hand written, of course), checked it and scribbled something therein. she then turned the ledger around and told me to sign at the 'x' mark. i did that. then the lady opened my ration card to this year's page and made a note of the ledger entry number, the shop number and date. she didn't even sign it!

i realized that the little anonymous notation (marked in red in the first photo) is the single most important thing in the making of an indian citizen. you are not considered a card carrying member of the system if you don't have that scribble.

forget the fact that i've had a driver's license for nearly two decades, a passport for a little over a quarter of a century and a voter id card for the past five years. now that i have my duly sribbled (er, notarized) ration card, i can proudly and honestly proclaim to the world that i am indeed an indian.

   

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this was our breakfast last sunday. my wife made chutney-tomato-onion sandwiches.

i made a variation of gas house eggs. i thought the ones that i tried the previous week with plain eggs were too bland. so i made a couple of masala omelette ones this time.

my masala omelette recipe - மசாலா ஆம்லெட்

1. eggs முட்டை - 2
2. medium sized onion சின்ன சைஸ் பெரிய வெங்காயம் - 1 chopped fine நன்றாக நறுக்கி.
3. green chillies - பச்சை மிளகாய் - 1 chopped நறுக்கி.
4. garlic - பூண்டு - 1 clove chopped - 1 பல் நறுக்கி.
5. garam masala powder கரம் மசாலா தூள் - as needed தேவைக்கு எற்றபடி
6. salt உப்பு - as needed - தேவைக்கு எற்றபடி
7. pepper மிளகுத்தூள் - to sprinkle on at the end - தேவைக்கு ஏற்றபடி.

blend / whisk / beat ingredients 1 to 6 together. add a bit of milk, about a teaspoonful, if you want - i believe it makes the omelette fluffier, don't ask me why.

i used the same lid to make holes in two slices of bread.

heated a pan. melted a bit of butter (you could use ghee). lightly fried the bread slices then poured the blended omelette mix into the holes in the bread slices.

my usual recipe for masala omelette includes adding finely chopped tomatoes & grated cheese after one side of the omelette is cooked. i did not add tomatoes because i thought the bread could become soggy.

meanwhile my wife was preparing her quick coriander chutney (recipe follows). this chutney can be used as sandwich spread and as an accompaniment to idli, dosai, chappathi, puri, upma, ven pongal and snacks like samosas. it would probably be good with tandoori chicken / grilled chicken too.

recipe for quick coriander chutney - அதிரடி கொத்தமல்லி சட்னி

ingredients - தேவையான பொருட்கள்:

1. coriander leaves - கொத்தமல்லி தழை - 50g (கடையில் கிடைக்கும் சிறு கட்டு)
2. green chillies - பச்சை மிளகாய் - 2 or 3 chopped நறுக்கி.
3. shallots (what we south indians call small onions) - சின்ன வெங்காயம் - 2 or 3 peeled & chopped நறுக்கி.
4. garlic - பூண்டு - 2 cloves peeled 2 பல்.
5. tamarind paste - கறைத்த புளி - to taste - தேவையான அளவு. (here is a video of celeb chef madhur jaffrey explaining how she makes tamarind paste)
6. salt - உப்பு - to taste - தேவையான அளவு.
7. grated coconut (optional) - துருவிய தேங்காய் (தேவைப்பட்டால்)

procedure:

grind all of the above in a food processor after adding a bit of water. மேல் குறிப்பிட்டுள்ள அனைத்தையும் சிறிதளவு தண்ணீர் விட்டு மிக்ஸியில் அறைக்கவும்.

all three of us had a chutney-onion-tomato sandwich each. my daughter had a strawberry jam + cheese sandwich while my wife & i had a masala-omelette-gas-house-egg each, washed down with good strong kaapi.

ps. i don't have any photos of the food. i suggest you take a look at purplesque's exquisite food photographs instead

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on the highway between salem & vellore

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joint effort by wife & daughter for 4th grade class project.

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