No Time To Stand And Stare

Three days back, I was downstairs staring at the road, expecting my cab. I was late to office and to my dismay; the driver had informed me about another ten minute delay due to the traffic block somewhere in the city. After few minutes a kid came out of the elevator followed by his caretaker. The moment he was out, he started running around the corridor, excited about the wide space around him. A minute later another tot of his age came out of the same elevator. The company seemed to get more exciting and the two ran after each other ever happily.

It was a great pleasure watching them having a gala time. They were not bothered about how the rest of the day would go. They were not bothered about their nationalities. They weren’t bothered about the two caretakers who were running behind them. They weren’t bothered about their back packs. They weren’t bothered about the weather. (It was a cold day.) They fell on each other and began to rise immediately, but weren’t about the fall as well.

To put the scene to an end; came the school bus. The name read ‘Salmiya Play School’. Now it was the caretakers’ turn to put the back packs in place. One of them grabbed one of the kid’s arm and dragged him towards the bus. The other kid started down the few stairs, when he stood for a second staring at the bus (not sure what was on his mind). The next second, the caretaker shook him from his thoughts, directing him towards the bus. I wonder if the kid would get another minute of the whole day to stare at anything.

Then is when I realized, I had a few minutes to stare. Thanks to the traffic. Since then, it’s taken me three days to pen down this post.

What is this Life if Full of care
We have no time to stand and stare!!!!

--William Henry Davies

The woods are lovely dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And Miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

--Robert Frost

Nanganallur Days – Nostalgia

The last time I really celebrated Pongal was in 2002. That was when we had put 5 Rangoli Patterns in front of our sweet home, 1 in front of the door, 2 inside the house and 1 in the courtyard. With Mom preparing the 2 versions of pongal for breakfast, the spirit of the festival was achieved to the fullest. I never realized her pongal was the best until I started missing. Since then I neither had the time nor the interest to celebrate the festival (any for the matter) with the same spirit.

This year seems to be a really dull pongal, considering the number of emails, SMSs or scraps flowing in. The festival falling on a weekday, it had to be somebody or the other to remind me about the day. I wished just four people all day. Today being a holiday in this country, my cousins wanted to compensate for what was missed out yesterday in terms of food. So he pulled out a bunch of papers containing the recipe for ‘Ven Pongal’ and ‘Sakarai Pongal’. (Not that we are cooking pongal for the first, jus that our kind of cooking is slightly different from the regular tamil style). The very sight of the picture (below) got my thoughts wandering about the Nanganallur days. I have spent about 2 solid years in this place and I miss the Nanganallur Anjaneyar temple like crazy.



My house hunt in Chennai was getting really scary, considering the n number of problems: water, cost of rent, neighbourhood and distance from my workplace. It got too complicated for me and I left it to my dad to find one. After some research, he landed up in this under-developed (no longer) area. Madam luck being with us, we found a really good house without compromising on any of the above mentioned factors. Enough of water, Affordable rent, excellent landlords and 20 minutes drive to office. There I promised Mr.Anjaneyar that I will pay him a visit every day.

I did justice to that promise atleast for some time until the leading road became unusable for days due to the heavy floods. But I never stopped visiting the temple, though not every day. Apart from the peace of mind I got there, the below are the various reasons for the affinity I had towards the temple

1. Pepper Rice: Distributed every day in the evening probably a little later than 7 PM. The best Prasad they ever made, amazingly tasty.
2. Ven Pongal: Distributed every day Morning. I used to have my second breakfast before going to work. Very taThis is where my thoughts landed up today morning when I saw the pic.
3.Sakkarai Pongal: Distributed every day in the evening around 7 PM. If you are early for pepper rice you will be lucky enough to get this.
4.Puliodhare: I know this is available in the weekdays. But I normally get this when I visit the temple during the weekend in the mornings a little later than my usual time.
5.Curd Rice: Yummy, but I never got chances that frequently.
6.Vada: These are hard and can be preserved for days together, but have a taste similar to that of the regular ‘uzhundhu vadai’
7.Sundal: Or I woukd say ‘Chundal’. Normally made of chick peas and available early in the evenings.

Looking back at Point #2, I have been celebrating pongal for almost 2 years. And it took me almost three years to realize this!!!!!!!

........To be Continued