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

குட்டி குறும்பு [4] - நானும் வரேன் பரீட்சைக்கு...

இரு மாதம் முன்பு, அத்தை ஒரு நாள் காலை சென்னை வந்ததும், ஒரே சந்தோஷம் மருமகனுக்கு. அத்தை நாம விளையாடலாமா என்று கேட்டான். பரீட்சைக்கு போயிட்டு வந்து உன்கூட விளையாடுறேன் கண்ணு என்று சொன்னதும். அப்போ நானும் உன்கூட பரீட்சைக்கு வரேன் என்றான். உடனே அத்தை , சின்ன பசங்க எல்லாம் பரிச்சைக்கு வர கூடாதுன்னு சொன்னங்க தம்பி என்றார். உடனே "ஏன் ?" என்று தாணு கேட்க , அவங்க அப்பா , அத்தைக்கு கேள்விக்கு பதில் எல்லாம் சொல்லி கொடுத்திருவ இல்ல , அதனால தான் என்றார்.

தாணு அதற்கும் அசராமல் , அத்தை நான் உனக்கு சொல்லி கொடுக்காம , அமைதியா உன் மடியிலேய உட்கார்ந்துகிறேன் , என்னையும் கூட்டிட்டு போ என்றான்.. பாவம் அவன், அத்தை அப்பாக்கு தான் சங்கடமா போச்சு. சின்ன பிள்ளைகள் வரகூடாது, பிடித்து வைத்து கொள்வார்கள் என்று சமாளித்து பரீட்சைக்கு சென்றார்கள்...

-- தானேஷ் அம்மா

Travel Vaccine Recommendation for South Africa

 Two years back, my friend got an offer to work on-site. It was to South Africa.

At first he was in idea to take it up, but on knowing that we have to get yellow fever vaccine couple of weeks before travel and mosquitoes are high in South Africa , he preferred to say offshore.

Picture Courtesy:  from Google images. 

I was thinking, when Africa and South America has this yellow fever vaccine for outsiders, Asia (of course India) should have something else.

On checking internet, I could find a list posted by a Doctor.

http://dr-razavi.blogspot.in/2006/03/travel-vaccine-recommendations-for.html

The list would be quite scary to some, but to me it was like a breeze.

We had born in this country, had most of these vaccines and enjoying our life.

--Dhanesh Amma

DD's favourite game

Deepak is  crawling around the house, however Dhanesh runs. Still, what ever Dhanesh takes,  be it a paper/pencil or toy/gadget or  tricycle/bicycle, Deepak demands for it.  When Dhanesh gives the stuff he has in his hand to Deepak and picks up a new one, Deepak is right behind him for grabbing that too. There was no item where both could work together.


I was under impression that it would take a year still for Dhanu & Deepu to play together without grabbing from each other. I was wrong.


They found a common game to play together. Guess what ? It's the electrical two way switch along the cot side.


Deepak would hold a hand to the wall and use the other hand to knock the switches. Dhanesh would be right near by, to switch it ON if Deepak switches it OFF.


This has become their favorite time-pass event.


below is the picture clicked when DD's [ Dhanesh & Deepak  in short ] were busy with their play.

What? checking if the image is not loaded correctly ? Image loaded correctly. It is a blank image.
DD's DD [Dhanesh Deepak 's Dear Dad in short] felt not to put kids image on web and I too felt the same.


We might change our decision in future. So for now, picture is left to your imagination.


--Dhanesh Amma

Marriage and Plantain trees

In past generation , marriages did not happen in a mandapam / party hall. The event was happening at the bride's home. If the house was not big enough to hold all the relatives, a pandhal was made in the street and marriages happened.  The bride would then be taken to the groom's house by the groom family. My parents wedding happened this way.


Later, people started to book a hall for conducting marriage. Still, After marriage relatives would then be visiting the bride & groom house. So a pandhal was kept in front of the house, with the welcome board. This would be easy for the visitors to identify the house. lot of spaces would be used in front of house for the visitors to sit and chat under the roof.


When streets were very narrow or houses on the Highway road, no chances of putting big pandhal. Two full grown plantain tree would be tied on entrance with the serial lights welcome board. Full-grown plantain trees are used as they are Eternal tree of evergreen plenty for endless generations!


Recently I came across one house in Chennai in my neighborhood. I could not stop laughing. They had covered the plantain tree with the white sac. Picture shown below.



Reason is obvious. Our area is fully occupied with residential who have cattle's at home. They would be walking along streets all day. To avoid those cattle's damaging the plantain tree's trunk, they have covered it with sac.




Either the people at home, wanted to avoid bad luck due to cattle (they call it as bad sagunam if the tree fell down before the function)  or wanted to safe guard the plantain tree's trunk as it can be used for some other reason post function. At least they believe humans and left the banana part. Else they would have covered that also with sac.


On seeing this, something came to my mind.. Instead of tying a plantain tree and covering with sac, as they rent the welcome board and serial lights, better they rent a plantain tree made of plastic / thermocol. that way cattle wont damage it.


--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