Lunch

It was team lunch time again. We went to a Candianised Caribbean restaurant where my colleague opted to have coconut water, and their food plate contained couple of Plantain Chips. Plantain got the attention to be the discussion topic for 5 minutes may be, but kept me astonished of the basic contrast between east and west.

Back home, plantain is considered to be one of the "common" stuff, and always taken for granted! This is the basic thing when it comes to Tropic and Temperate weather zones, you find people astonished for something that's pretty basic and you will be astonished for something that's basic here, which makes you look weird.

Anyways, I decided to make this post about and south Indian food ;-)

These are some of the common uses of plantain in India. Every part of plantain is used. The fruits, when ripe is called banana, when not ripe is called plantain. The stem of the plantain tree, is used as a vegetable and is usually eaten, so is the flower. The leaf however, is used as a natural plate for food. Given the size of the leaves, they are typically used as plates, umbrellas etc.

Here is what a Tamil food looks like on a plantain leaf: (Oh! BTW the staple food in South India is Rice)

Items on the leaf are: (clockwise, from top left)
Jaangiri
Raita
Koottu
2 types of poriyal
papad
vada
boiled white rice
pickle
banana fruit

Oh and the major thing I forgot. In the west meat is considered to be de-facto food item anywhere, but in India, veg takes that spot. Chicken is considered meat there, and so is fish. So a default Indian meal would normally contain mostly veg items with one/two non-veg items (yes, they are called non-veg)

Honey. I shrunk my T

Doing Laundry is one of the things, I dont like, for the very reason that it is not simple. Last time when I did it, I was so damn lazy and selected hot for everything. Even the dryer.

What happened, I now have all my T shirts 2 sizes less. Everything shrunk. When I wear my workout vest, it looks like a sports bra. :(

I am playing tug-0-war on all my cloths this week before wearing them. To at-least bring them to look like a tank top!

Killing Laziness..

One of the toughest things I found in life is killing laziness. Sometimes, laziness gets to such a point where one would definitely want to kill it. I am in one such state. Laziness was what made me prosaic on many fronts including blogging. Now that I am trying to do, let me see if I am really able to do it.

I bought keyboard thinking that I will be able to use that as an encouragement, but I will know only after some time.

I will also start thinking on topics on what to blog!

Catch Up!

Well. Its been almost 10 months that I wrote something about myself. Life takes its own twists and turns at the very least expected. As they say, life is like a river, it means, as I understood is that there are always only falls, and it never climbs up. This is nothing to do with my life though, it is just looking at others'

After some white water rafting myself in the last 1 year, this is the concise set of events that had happened.

One bright day sometime in March 09, I rejected 2 candidates on an interview, to be found that they were selected by my manager and forced upon as my team. Are they any good? I don't want to go to that piece of whining detail, but I decided that I had stayed there for too long and made up my mind to quit.

Asked my boss, to see if there is any sign of a beacon at the end of the tunnel, but could only see the post that read, "Light at the end of tunnel is turned off due to financial constraints!" This reinforced my decision, and made up my mind to quit.

After applying for a month, all I ended up was only one interview call, which I had to nail, as I did. Paper work followed, with a week of running vacation at home. Came here in Oct 09.

As soon as I came, work got my by my leash that relaxed a bit only for a week of H1N1. Whatever I love what I am doing. New place, new people, new everything. Looks life after all the this light at the tunnel was the Sun, with no financial constraints to turn it off!

My sister had a baby 2 months before and I went to see him a month back. That bugger got so close, that I could see him clearly whenever I close my eyes.

One another happy part is that, after fighting for a month, I got the old folks to accept that they had to pay me and made them pay which is good. Now I can write blogs!!

I will also be writing nice posts at my Wordpress site, even though I am just getting used to the technology shift!

Next could be soon....--K

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaara - Review

The latest tamil movie, released on Feb 26, directed by Gautam Menon. This is a review on that!

First of all, hats off to Simbhu aka Silambarasan, he does have some hidden acting talent. What a performance from that young fella. Not the usual simbu you had seen on all these days, this one is remarkably a fantastic movie for him.

Trisha, good acting, ofcourse she is a veteran in acting now, that she had acted in almost all south indian languages with stars and mega stars. This movie also has an equal part for the heroine.

Gautam menon, really did a come back with this movie after his Minnale. As for the story goes it is a nice risky story that no one would dare touch these days, GM's guts and the filmmaking should be appreciated.

This movie is more of a trend setter or tester, depending on the reception. But to me, I liked the movie. One of the best love story based movies that I have seen so far in Tamil.

Good Work guys! As it goes, please watch the movie in the theaters, it is worth the money spent!

Should I say about ARR? He is asusual at his best!

PDA

Here PDA stands for public displays of affection. In practice its been a lot out there, by different flavour of people. Some are matured and most are teens. Compared to East esp India, it is a lot "public" in the west. Culture difference. Well it is like, in India having a girlfriend will make one a rebel, an social outcast, in the west, they better have it, parents are happy in the west that their sons/daughters are straight and does have a significant other in the opposite sex!

Again, why did this topic all of a sudden? I just returned home, using the bus, and there were a couple (teens) who were almost eating one another out. Anything like this in India, would most likely get the guy beaten up by the public, or would end up with the girl being raped, or get arrested!

What happened here, the people sitting opposite to them and around them, were wearing smirks on their faces all along and everytime they got up and moved from that place, they laughed! Moreover, there was one couple, who behaved like a toddler in a hospital, they also started kissing!

No words! you cant say that it is right or wrong, neither the Indian way nor the western, with the prejudice, of one!

Back Again?

Its been sometime since I posted something on my blog. I was busy, and things were haphazard. With a downtrodden ride with H1N1, and back, I think its time I start blogging again.

There were many things that happened between the previous post and this one. It would amount to a lot lot. Will start blogging on those detailed.

As a summary, I finally managed to quit at IBM and took a challenging position in Canada. New place, new people, new life, new job. After being in the cocoon of IBM for a long time, now that I am out, on my own, is teaching me loads everyday, rather every hour.

Rest in next!