Spoiling three C's

Last week, Dhanesh was teaching his little brother to play chess game.

 It's always nice to silently watch kids as they are busy in their world. They have a different perspective of each and every thing. As he finished about describing various coins from the king to pawns, I was thinking he would start describing about the movement and wondering, if Deepak will be able to understand the various movement. To my surprise, he started to talk " The white coins are good and black coins are bad. So when you are playing chess, Take the white coins and we should play in a way that white wins as they are the good coins". When Dhanesh, plays chess, he always prefer white. I thought , he prefers as the white makes the first move, but now I realize ,I had misunderstood. 

I had then to break through their conversation to tell him that, there is nothing like good or bad based on the color of coins. We can opt any color and we should focus on winning. I then asked, who told him that white is good and black is bad. He immediately replied, "Recently you took us to Bahubali movie and In the fight between two groups, white people won and the  black and ugly group lost the battle". 

Well, imagining the real fight in chess board, I could not answer him immediately. In the movie, they introduced a new language composed of hundred words for the group, as people will fight for degrading their mother tongue, but none of the dark skin people fight against for showing dark skin people as bad. 

Before I started to speak he continued again, "That's how it is shown every where mom. In school annual day function also, you saw right. In the play , there was good angel and a witch who was wearing all black coat, black hat etc. There was a dance by the bad witches and they were all angry and face full painted with black powder. So black is bad right ?" 

I had then explained him that, it was shown in the play for you to differentiate easily. If both of them wear same dress and make up, you will not be able identify who is good and bad. Since you are not supposed to pick up bad things, it is shown in unlikely makeup. So in chess game, it is not that white is good and black is bad. The rule of the game is the light coin start the game. Even you start the game with black coin as second move, you can win the game if you make your moves carefully. I also added him that, In real life also it is not that dark skin people are bad. 

There are people, who ask if the baby is looking good (in terms of skin color) on hearing birth of a baby, even I have seen people who say "aiyee... karuppu (disgusting...black)" on seeing a new born baby for the first time. The child listen to the sound from the womb before its born, but they speak like this in front of baby? That's how the child grows, hearing all sorts of criticism. 

At least in past generation, they had dark skin hero and comedians (Important: not the heroine...), but now, most of Tamil movies, all are shown as fair skinned, including the villain, the only good cause, as it changes the point that the villain is always black. 

It is not the fact that dark skin people are out of the big or small screens. They do exists, but they want to hide the real skin tone and appear brighter on the screen. one good example is the super star who transformed himself in movies like that. 

Older Still

Recent Still

Those days movies ran well, despite the skin tone of the actors. People thought themselves inferior by their skin color and want to change now. Good time for the cosmetic industry, beauty clinic and aesthetic dermatology. 

As the title of this post says... It's the first spoiling 'C' - Color. I shall talk about the other two in another post.

-- Dhanesh Amma

Video Games -part 2

When I wrote the post Video Games I did not expect that , I would land up writing part 2 for it.

The need for part 2 came , when I came across some of the games in play store in my android phone. Some of the games which I have played in child hood as board and real games have come today as mobile app.

Before the arrival of mobile games , I had come across only chess game in computer

I used to play the chess board game with my dad, sister and some neighbors

When I started playing Dos and Windows game in my home PC, I  got chess game. I used to compete against the computer in chess game. I had enjoyed playing when there is no one to play chess with me.

Now the chess game is also available in android app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.aifactory.chessfree&hl=en

Some of my child hood games with its name and images also have come in mobile app.

Aadu-puli-attam (goat , tiger game). I have not played much in this game. I don't remember how to play this game now. May be I will re-collect when some one tells me how to play.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=visu.suni.snakesandladders10by10&hl=en

Brainvita game. I have enjoyed playing this game. After several attempts , I had won this game by reaching to one marble.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.elevate&hl=en

Chinese Checkers. I have not got chance to play this game with six players, Only I have played as 2 player game.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sohomob.android.chinese_checkers

Pallanguzhi (Bantumi) game. My mother got us a similar fish shaped one as stated in this picture. 

Enjoyed playing with it as single player / two player.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=atomicpineapple.bantumi.free&hl=en

Snake and Ladder game. There were several version of the game. But my favourite version is this. Having a Lengthy snake in box number 99 and which comes down to box number 5. If we hit on the box 99 , we have to make our journey again from box number 5. Some of the player withdrew from the game if they see that they land up on this box number 99.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whiture.apps.ludov2.free&hl=en

Scrabble: Word building game.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ea.game.scrabblemattel_bv&hl=en

The only benefit with the mobile games is that, it does not require additional player. The mobile takes care of it. Since I have played these games in real, I do not like to play them in the app.

There could be other games in mobile which we played in childhood too but the above listed are the ones which I remember right now.

-- Dhanesh Amma

Flying Fan toys

Kids get bored easily. They need variety of toys every day. Recently I got these below toys at nearby shop, which would make kids busy for a while.

They were called as flying fan.

Hold the fan between your palms with the fan blades on top.,Give a twist to the stick by moving your right hand and release to see the fan to raise top and come down with swirl.

Hold the stick with your left hand and use your right hand and push the small piece upwards to see the fan raising up with full speed and slide down with swirl.

--Dhanesh Amma

Video Games

This post is written as SPGR has invited me to blog on it..


I was introduced to video games in Trichy Super Bazaar by my dad. The place which will be covered by most of the men and boys. I had not seen girls in that shop when ever i visited.  The shop appearance was well described by SPGR already. I think the shop charged one rupee for an hour. A long wait for the turn and my dad used to play in it. I was given chance to play towards the end of one hour duration.  I had played the shooting game there.After few such visits, I got bored in long waiting and not interested to be among crowd of boys, stopped going with my dad.

Then my father got us a brick video game as shown in the above picture. We have played in this for hours. 

When we got the computer at home, we installed many games and played in it. Mario, Prince, Aladdin Dave , Wolf , that's all I remember now. Out of these games, I had completed Aladdin and Wolf.

Out of above listed games, Aladdin is my favorite. The game is colorful and enjoyable one. 

Later, I have got chances to play games online. My favorite is book worm. 

After a while, I was introduced to Zynga's FarmVille,  which I lost interest in playing as it required co-players. 

I forgot to mention that I have played many games in the mobiles I had so far. Below are some of them which I liked.

 snake game     

galaxy balls (a type of brick game)

      ninja's fruit cut game

Now , I have option to download and play games in mobile, but for sake of Dhanesh and Deepak, I am forced to uninstall them after few attempt of playing.

These games are addicting, that it eats hours of our time. 

Now, the gaming zone at the big shopping mall suck thousand rupees in just one hour, as each game work only for few minutes and they charge 25 to 50 rupees for each game. They call it as gaming zone. Actually they should rename it as Casino, as most of them are lottery based and issue tickets based on numbers. The tickets cannot be redeemed as cash, but for toys or added to account for playing the games again. 

-- Dhanesh Amma

World sparrow day- March 20

We are happy this year to save a little sparrow which was fallen from roof. View details here

--Dhanesh Amma.

New year complements

During the last week of the year 2013, most of the shops will give the new year calender as complements. Either the daily or monthly sheets will be given with the banner for their shop advertisement.

This time, we had been in trichy and went to thambu chetti shop in main guard gate. 

After the shopping is over, we just asked if new year calender is there. The salesman said yes and packed the calender too. 

We reached home and opened it. To our surprise, it was from Kolkata, provided by a rubber company.  It was not helpful for us, as the holidays were mentioned based on the north Indian festival and poojas.

We could have kept mouth shut and come home, than to ask for calender and get a stuff like below

--Dhanesh Amma

Sparrows at our home in chennai

Last year I had posted about sparrows at our home, which you can read it here

This year, we had  two great days living with little sparrow at our home. It happened a month back.

One morning, we saw the little sparrow at floor. As usual we thought , it must be dead, as it had fell down from nearly seven to eight feet height, but luckily it was alive. Also , the bird was able to walk and run.

Dhanesh and Deepak were most happy to see it. We tried to give water to bird and try to feed something, but bird did not accept to open the mouth.

After some time, the parent birds came. It started to chirp and fly searching for the missing little one. We were thinking that bird would not identify the little one on floor, but these days sparrows are clever. It found the little one running on floor and started to feed it. The parent birds were initially scared of us, but got courage to remain there, as we are not harming them. Day time passed on , and danger is the night time, as cats visit the balcony. So we placed the little bird on a packing box , preparing a bed for it with torn news paper. Kept it on a height where cat's can't reach.

  Parent bird

Morning we took it out and put that back in floor. Now the bird started to walk and run much better. It had a nice time walking around the balcony.

Around afternoon, the parent bird, came inside our house and chirped to called us. We went out to balcony and saw that little bird was missing. Clever bird, either it thought we took little one somewhere or wanted to help it in finding the small bird.

We searched and found the little one near another balcony and brought it back to floor. Again the bird started to run and move around the places. Since the passage had drainage holes. we kept the bird in packing box. When the parent bird come and give sound, we would take the little one out of box and then parent bird would feed the little one.

once the feeding is over, we would put it back to box. We also gave time to little one for flying. By evening it started to fly a height of a step in a staircase.

same procedure followed for night time as previous day.

The little bird

A video clip of the little bird running

Next day, the little one wanted to go out of house as it found that parent birds are going out after feeding. We had to watch it frequently to bring it back to home and keep it in box. In the evening, we had placed bird out of box for feeding and after some time, when I came out to put it in box, it was missing. The little one was taken out of home by the parents. we could see the parent birds chirping in nearby abandoned place where human movement is not there.

Dhanesh and Deepak were upset to see little bird missing, but we consoled them saying, it has gone with parents, then only it will learn to survive and learn flying.


--Dhanesh Amma.

What cats and dogs think ?

This is not something new on cats and dogs. This is something which most would have observed.

Some like cats and some like dogs. Very strangely, few like both of these and have in home as pet animals.

During my childhood days, myself and my sister wanted to have pet animals at home, but my mother does not like pets at home. Luckily we got chance to grow cats at home for some time and observed dogs at neighbor house.

Initially I liked cats over dogs, reason was simple. cat keeps the environment clean, where as dog makes it dirty.

Both the animals move close with humans, but what they think is different.

Cat Thinks:
 They pet me, They feed me, They shelter me and they love me. I must be God.

Dog thinks:
They pet me, They feed me, They shelter me and they love me. They must be God.

After observing this, I started to feel Dog was better, as it is loyal to master, showing love and affection, and despite that it helps in alerting in danger etc.

I feel that , humans also think like cats and dogs. Mostly human think like Dogs and few think like Cats.

If you don't agree with me, then you belong to the cat way of thinking :-)

-- Dhanesh Amma

Teddy Collection

I had been silent for past few months. Even now, I don't know what to start or where to start. So Just posting the picture of our teddy collection.

Looks cute isn't it ? out of the teddy's the bigger and small sandal-red teddy are musical ones. They Sing happy birthday music when we press it.


--Dhanesh Amma

Sparrows at our home in chennai

The house we stay currently is bit old type. They have the ventilation in balcony walls with holes. The sparrow come and lay eggs there. Their houses are left untouched as they come in for every season.

It is a lovely morning to wake up and hear the chirps of the sparrow. 

Last year, the bird hatched few eggs. We heard the additional count of chirps and the parent sparrow was feeding the little ones. We could see only the head part of the sparrows.

If the bird tries to fly before its feathers are well grown, it fall down from the roof and eventually dies. Last time, one such bird fell down, but survived to live. Parent bird was searching for its little one in nest and kept on making sound. Below is the little bird picture captured at that time.

 

We took great effort in putting it back to its nest, but after half an hour it again tried to fly and fell down.

I also came to know from neighbors that, once fell down means, the elder bird will not take the little one though it is put back in nest. I am not sure how far it is true, but as the bird fell from such height again and again, it is tough to survive.

This year, sparrows were lucky I believe. No such bad incident like last year.

I was lucky enough to see the parent bird watching the little one learning to fly. Below is the captured images.

Little bird                                                                                                                                    Parent bird

--Dhanesh Amma

My pizza experience(s)

It happened a decade ago, I was invited for a job treat of one of colleague. It was decided that lunch at pizza hut in nungambakkam. I have heard that pizza's are costly. Of course treat are aimed at high budget of the sponsor-er.

I was kind of thrilled, as it will be my first attempt for pizza. People were discussing, if pizza will give a feeling of full stomach. We were informed that , pizza hut sells the pasta's and it is not that costly as pizza's.

A table was booked and we reached the venue on time. We had a look at the different pasta's and fresh vegetable salads. I did not want to give a try on those, as it was much like different form of noodles and macroni's which i had tasted already. We ordered for pizza and waited for it to come. They gave normal water and asked if we need mineral water. Since people preferred chill water, it was ordered. They then started to keep plates, spoon, fork and blunt knife (This is for cutting the pizza).

There came the most awaited pizza. To be frank, it was not that easy to eat the pizza. I had a tough time in cutting the pizza with knife. The big pizza already had the cut lines for making our work easy, yet the pie cannot be eaten as such with the help of fork. We were struggling with knife and fork.

After few minutes, one of my lady collegue said, I am going to eat with hands. she kept the knife and fork down and took out a pie with hand and started eating. After her, some took her way and others remained to use the fork and knife telling this is how we are supposed to eat pizza.

I forgot to mention about one more important thing here. They had the tomato sauce, chilli flakes and the pepper flakes for adding flavor on top of pizza.


After that, I have had quiet a few experiences with pizza at office for birthday treats. It was ordered and delivered at office. We all had it using hands. It was more like, eating the puff with tomato sauce on paper plate.

Years after that, i got chance to eat pizza out at anna nagar with my spouse. Dhanu missed the chance as he was at native with his grand parents.  Two things were missing there. First being drinking water and second was knife and fork. People either ordered for bottle water or cool drink to replace the normal water.
We wanted  normal water and it arrived after several requests.

Next, we had our next pizza experience in our native, at Domino's. I was surprised when our ordered items arrived. It was all packed in the boxes as I could see when it was delivered at office. They call it as Take away. We can either have it there or take home and eat. In addition to the pizza and pasta's they were selling ice-cream and chocolate cakes. It was a happy dinner time with family member's.

Recently, due to pestering from Dhanu, we had visited pizza hut in kilpauk for dinner. We ordered for "Meal for 2" (1 Medium pizza, 4 pieces garlic bread with a cup of pepsi). At the billing counter , A message was  stuck saying "Sorry, We have stopped giving tomato sauce". We asked them, if we have to pay and buy the tomato sauce. The billing person said, No sir, we are adding the sauce to the pizza so it is not necessary for buying sauce. It was also packed as it is for Take away. No water, fork and knife.

We can have a grand non-veg feast for three, for the amount we had spent for "Meal for 2" pizza. But Dhanu was happy to have the pizza than the Indian food we had bought home for dinner. Still I told him that , pizza should not be had frequently and not to demand as he did this time.

--Dhanesh Amma

Auto Message

 

Here's english version for Non-Tamil readers.

Gandhi Struggled for Country,

Country is Struggling for Gandhi Currency.

--Dhanesh Amma

Movies watched in year 2012

I had watched many movies in year 2012, however below are the ones released in year 2012 and I have watched in the same year 2012.

Amazing spider man (3D)
  Watched this movie in theater with Dhanu. He enjoyed the movie with 3D experience. I was upset as the movie was not the continuity of the previous spider man series.

Naan - Ee
  Watched this movie in our home theater with Dhanu and two SIL's in native. Enjoyed much.

Merina
 Watched this movie in our home theater. Boring one..

Sundara pandiyan
  Watched this movie in our home theater. Ok type.

Naan
   Watched this movie in our home theater. Good
  
Thuppakki 
   Watched this movie in theater with Deepu (his first movie in theater).  Movie was good.

Naduvula konjam pakkatha kaanom
  Watched this in theater with Dhanu and Parents. Much like a budget documentary film. A serious story , but attempted to take in comedy style.



--Dhanesh Amma

Antartica song lyric from thuppakki...

A line from Antartica song in movie thuppaki (lyric by madhan karki)

Nee Penguin'na Pen Dolphin'na
yen Kuzhambuthu Konjam

I have always admired penguin and dolphin. They look cute.


During my childhood days I used to think, how does the pair identifies each other when it comes to birds and animals. All look similar to our eyes.



But to poets , even penguin and dolphin look similar... just because they rhyme similar. For rhyming purpose (pen) is added to dolphin though it is explicit that he talks on pen penguin and pen dolphin.

--Dhanesh Amma

Life style changes... (part 2)

Read: Life style changes (part1) here.

Our life has entered to more comfort zone with the arrival of machines for everything. like cleaning , washing , cooking etc. We were able to save considerable amount of time. With the arrival of ready made food available at the market, life has gone more comfortable even. 

We have got disadvantages too with the life style changes. It has become a culture , cook for a day and eat for more days since we are storing things in fridge.Pediatric for my son said, please give fresh cooked food for kids. Don't give old items stored in fridge.

My father was telling, he did not have any vaccines those days. True. Even I did not have these many vaccines which my kids are having. Check out here for the current list of vaccines for kids in India.

Now, they are working on vaccines for cancer. Next generation will have more number of vaccines. Kids are the ones to suffer with the lengthy vaccine list.
Still, with the combined vaccines for multiple diseases like the one explained here , list is becoming comparatively less.

We can have a more comfortable life, if people give importance to keeping surrounding clean. But who really cares of it. People think, as long as their house is clean, they are safe. 

People blame the corporation staff for not doing their duty properly because of which lot of flies and mosquitoes are there. But who throws those garbage on street ,drainage and on road, instead of dust bin ?

They say health is wealth. It is possible with proper food and  clean surrounding.

P.S: Post completed with Part 2 with the above punch line

-- Dhanesh Amma

tenant vacated

This is after post of my entry about unpaid tenant to our home. He has vacated our house a week back.

Infact not only vacated our home, but also from the world. The creature was a small rat (sundeli) and he had been caught in the trap while attempting to eat the coconut piece.

 He was quiet a nice fellow. Did not give much work for us to clean the trap. Soft attack and hence it looks the creature is sleeping. He became food for a crow the moment we throwed him on the road.

Below is the picture captured , fellow captured in trap.

--Dhanesh Amma

Unpaid tenant

Last month, as people demolished and cleaned-up the garden in front of our house , a family of mice entered to our house.We had struggled a lot to send them all out except one.

That mischievous creature is well settled and enjoying the life in all the room. We see them running from kitchen to bedroom and to the bathroom. So far it has spoiled couple of books too. We need to catch him before he starts to spoil our dresses and bedsheets in cupboards as the wooden cupboard has a gap and today the moment I opened the door, he/she jumped out of it and ran away in a fraction of second.

We tried the capturing device using a piece of coconut to catch him red headed.

Next day we saw coconut was not there, but the culprit had escaped. Uhh.. it looks the mice is saying "catch me if you can..."


Now the fellow is staying in our house, eating our food and having a comfortable stay for more than a month, but not bothered to pay us rent.

From the way it appears, looks like moonjuru eli , which is a vahanam of Lord Ganesha. People are telling this creature visiting home is good and we are not supposed to kill it. Visiting is okay, but he is visiting outside and staying in our house. We are not completely sure if it is moonjuru eli. Also to our bad luck,  if it makes one of shelf as labor ward, we will soon have a family of mice in our home. It once happened in my native ten years back. A rat used my old notebooks as bed and gave birth to half dozen ones.

Already we have lot of tasks in the to-do list, but this one has taken high priority now.

We cannot send him out and be relaxed unless the bathroom wooden door hole is sealed. It will come back how many times we send him out.

Our goal is to catch him. Lets see how long it's going to take..

Picture Courtesy: Google images.

--Dhanesh Amma

Life style changes... (part 1)

  When I was a kid, breakfast/dinner food would mean idly, dosai , upma , pongal. Those delicious chappathi kuruma and poori masala would be prepared occasionally. We considered it as feast. (Note: No pictures posted , as I don't want to make it a feel that of cookery blog by posting food pictures.)

But as days moved on, for the next generation, chappathi and poori went as a routine item and noodles and parotta were considered special. Now after the arrival of pizza and burger, those food we cherished and enjoyed became a normal food.

Doctors are saying, those pizza and burger are not much nutritious and only high in calories and cause danger to future generation if consumed frequently.

We have to make kids understand that those food are to be had occasionally and not as a regular part of meal frequently.

Okay. At-least parents are there to tell their kids. But how about cattle ? Those poor creatures cannot speak and they have to eat what ever their masters provide.

I have seen cattle eating grass, dry grass (vaikol) , and all grains , soy, corn etc..  But these days cattle which are grown up in the city are fed with cooked rice (the no-price one [subsidized completely] which is given by the Government ) and the spoiled vegetables got at cheap rate from market and peeled of skin of fruits and vegetables etc.

sad to see those creatures too. They also roam in city and eat the food items thrown in the streets. People throw them in carry bags and these creatures dont know how to open it up, so they chew it with the cover. It is said that these bags are getting deposited in animals stomach.

Human , by their life style changes affect not only themselves, but also these poor creatures.

P.S: As title indicates part2 expected in near future.. 


Update: Read part2 here

-- Dhanesh Amma

Nagerkovil & Nungu sarbath...

 During my childhood days, when we visited to my native, I heard about nungu sarbath. It is available only in the district of Kanyakumari and may be you will find such sarbath stalls till you reach tirunelveli.


 I had tasted it once, the blend of sarbath with ice and nungu was really good. When i informed my best half (yes.. not just better half..) about it, he wanted to taste that.


Below is the picture of sarbath we took during our recent trip there.

Sarbath was horrible. Mainly the reason was, we saw how it was prepared.


We were under impression that they will take the nungu from the big shell , peel of skin and mix it with sarbath and smash it with some sort of smasher or mixer. But to our shock it was not done that way. The lady just took two tablespoon of peeled off nungu pieces with the water and poured them into tumbler directly and pour a tablespoon of sarbath and filled up the remaning space of tumbler with water. mixed it with spoon and handed it to us.


A sarbath without ice.. uhh.. people would say , the chilli bajji if consumed after it cooled down will taste like a sweet cake . How can you drink a juice like this without the chilling. The lady said ice was over.  The water she had in shop was also warm due to the hot climate.


Ultimately we ended up having something which was purely our bad luck. Dhanesh appa emptied the cup as he does not have the habit of wasting food though it does not taste good.


When I was discussing this with my sister and she was telling that there are stalls which will sell fruit juice. Its not the normal fruit juice. I guess it is a mix up of fruit juice. I'm not sure if that is also mixed with sarbath. I said I don't want to try that. By that time, my mother responded that it will be tasty, she had it years back. I replied, to my mom. It tasted good years back like the nungu sarbath I had. Now that will also be horrible. I don't want to try that.


Tips:


* Never look into the process how it is prepared be it the road side stall or hotel. you would not like to eat it if you do so.
* Ask for requirements clearly before placing an order. A Sarbath could not be had without ice, like we have other fruit juices.


-- Dhanesh Amma

Improper Tamil version Advertisement for Birla Sun Life Insurance

Recently came across the advertisement for Birla sun life insurance telecast-ed in a Tamil channel.

Similar advertisement telecast-ed in Hindi can be viewed in link
here

In tamil version, The girl talks about the profession of being chef , serving biriyani for her father.

She tells her father that, had she had become a Teacher as per her father advice, she would be putting egg's in paper (zero mark in evaluating paper) instead of preparing egg biriyani.

Is teaching profession meant for putting zero's in evaluation sheet? It is for sure degrading a profession. I hope they edit and correct the advertisement.

--Dhanesh Amma