A game of Chess

The chess board is a death trap. Only sometimes death doest really trap you, albeit providing a temporary release. The queen seems to have a lot of power, but the game ends when the King dies right? So what kind of power does the queen really wield? The soldiers are trampled upon and nobody bothers getting them killed to save a horse or a pawn. The animals have their restrictions, the pawn wouldn't think straight like our ministers, the queen is helpless without the king, the king himself doesn't do much. But come to think of it, they are merely coins controlled by a person sitting to win a game. Is he bothered about the queen? Does he worry about his soldiers? Does he have a purpose? Does the purpose echo with the purpose of the chess coins?

Bah! Its time to get back to work..

I want to..

1. Go to a dreamy village up in the hills and paint.. about all the beautiful things I can see

2. Read and appreciate poetry..

3. Start a place where I can serve traditional filter kaapi-idli-dosa combo and improvised versions of the same to make things interesting

4. Watch beautiful movies and write about them

5. Keep a journal and write in it daily

6. Shop till I drop dead ;)

7. Trek to little known places

8. Start a play school and play with cute kids

9. Do whacky stuff like start a coffe shop, a lingerie store...

10. Do 'cool' Stuff like - be a professional blogger for example ;) wow!

11. Be the hostess on a travel show for travel&entertainment channel

12. Do a street play

13. Sing without a care

14. Learn atleast 10 more languages

15. Make a living out of doing something off-beat (yet to figure out what this should be..)

16. Live every moment like this were my last and end ever day feeling every moment was worth it

17. Spend a day in a dream place like hogwarts may be ;)

18. Go Skiing or bungee jumping

19. Learn to appreciate photography

20. Be a professional sculptor.. wow ;)

21. Be a fitness guru.. erm.. someday

22. Which would also mean step into a clothes store feeling, I can get into anything I want here :)

23. less greedy and put an end to this list :)

.. hazaron khwahishen aisi

You are a tambrahm if..

For most part of the first 22 years of my life I have stayed in Tamil Nadu barring vacations and holiday visits. But its when I stepped into MICA that I kind of acquired a strange sense of belonging to the tambrahm community. I didn't know I had this so much in my blood till I discovered it a year back and I dedicate this post to all tambrahms I know and who can empathise with me :)

So, you are a tambrahm when..

1. You are shocked to see people sharing "yechhai" bottles/cups/mugs at college

2. You crave for any of the following - filter kaapi, vadu maanga, paruppu podi, vatta kozhambu, vazhakkai fry, mor kozhambu, pulihodarai, ven pongal, narthangai, akkaravadisal, then kuzhal, nellika pachadi, milagu rasam/satrumadhu, thair sadam.. ok I agree this list is endless :):)

3. You are ready to do anything for filter coffee at a new place and still complain its not served on tumbler-davara

4. You bring back loads of paruppu podi/puliyodarai mix from home to hostel

5. You travel miles to taste south indian food only to write it off as "not authentic" or "not as good as home" while you sulked to eat this back home..

6. You go home and ask mom to make "aathu samayal" as long as you are home and absolutely no poori/roti/naan/bhaji/dal while at home

7. You crave for therati paal and mor kozhambu and imagine you are eating them while having kheer and kadi here..

8. You agree javvarisi vadam/vathal is an anytime snack and snigger at bhujia :)

9. You eat thair sadam, pulihodarai, idli packed from home in train

10. Your mouth starts watering while reading this post :)

11. You feel m.s's subrabatham is the bestest combo with your morning coffee

12. You have learnt carnatic music or play the mridangam or violin.. or know bharatanatyam.. or atleast know/appreciate one of the above

13. Kancheepuram pattu rocks \m/

14. You know atleast one of these - venkatesh suprabhatam, vishnu sahasranamam, aditya hrudayam, some asTakam..

15. You associate navarathri with kolu and sundal and not dandiya ;)

16. You are used to getting up at 6 am for a ganga snanam , deepavali marundhu for diwali and not celebrating it late night !

17. You try finding a lost sense of identity by rambling like this on such posts or seek solace by doing this when ever you see another tam brahm in the near vicinity

my list

I decided to write down stuff which I want to write about so that I can keep track.. shall keep editing this list :)

1. love, friendship

2. MICA

3. Travel - lonavla, igatpuri, yercaud, shillong, gangtok, darjeeling

4. People - my grand mom, teachers, people I have met

5. Food joints and food

6. Ahmedabad and the places I have seen here

7. nostalgia -Chennai - kkn, psbb, school days, music, kutcheris, places, people..... big big list here

8. Music !

9. Ambitions, and me

10. Fiction - kicha and more

11. Tamil-tambrahm-culture and habits

.. will edit from time to time :)

Prayer

... its wierd I wanted to title this post as a 'prayer' for many reasons -

a. I haven't prayed in ages ( should talk about this sometime)

b. guess I am agnostic (again need to elaborate some day..)

c. this post is not about god or anything like that

anyways.. the last couple of weeks has been tough on me thanks to a lot of disturbing incidents with friends who let me down .. and I don't take it well most of the time. Yesterday was no different and I fretted and fumed and really felt bad. But as I cleaned my room and had my bath today morning, I started having this thought that it would be great if I could cleanse myself of these things as easily as cleaning my room or taking a bath. I wished I werent so petty at times and had the maturity to just not bother, bitch and gossip about the pettiness of my friends and people around me (ironically).. I wished I could be beyond these insignificant emotions... I wished I had more love and a littles less hatred in me.. I wished I had the power to be a better person by just thinking about it.. :)

Big ambitions.. :) i know!

My bad..

Ever since I started blogging, I keep getting these bouts of inspiration from time to time. Well by inspiration I mean anything that makes me go "wow!" or think "I should write about this" or sometimes even tell myself what I should write and .. erm.. even imagine how I should go about writing it...

But lazy that I am, I forget.. procrastinate and then the moment is lost.. the thoughts get lost in the endless mess of thoughts inside my brain.. and its gone..

I just want to dedicate this to all those people, places, things.. that keep making me go wow, that make me imagine those posts.. and write them in my mind..

May be they may not find their way to this blog, but they nevertheless made a strong impact on me.. made me wonder.. made me admire.. or think.. or atleast smile :).. and so what if they are not glorified here.. they are still special

Food and how..

Sometimes little things we do turn out to be the most beautiful thing we have ever done..

There is this place just off acropolis mall ahmedabad where a couple make and sell southie food.. its this food-in-van kind of a place that we have heard about and wanting to go in a long time. So a couple of days we managed to stay awake all night thanks to F.R.I.E.N.D.S ( you never outgrow this sitcom!) and well it was 6am so abhi suggested we stay awake and leave by 6:30 and go check out this place. And though it was an unplanned outing it turned out to be the most beautiful thing I have evr done in a long time.. The ride through Shela, my my.. we really live in a resort dont we? :) and yes watching the sun rise, the cool winter breeze, the shivers and the ride, it was so good. And the story doesnt end here, we located this place and had the best podi masala dosai and idli ever :)

Then there is this story of attending the much hyped "south indian food festival". We got a mailer with an elaborate pamphlet of how there is this south indian food festival where we can find food from 4 south indian states and being the loyal southie ever yearning for home food I went to sula road .. almost 50km away from campus!!! ... and what do I say.. when I ate the pesarattu and dosa I suddenly felt my mess food is far better.. ya even the south indian food served at mess was far superior!

dont know what exactly is the purpose of this write up.. just may be things dont happen the way you expect them to..