Dew

I am upset, irritated, confused, and angry after watching Susi Ganesan's movie, Kandhasamy. That said, I would not say the movie does not have plus points at all. Plus point : The Concept One segment of the Indian population is rich and is getting richer each minute, whereas the poor remain poor. A brilliant group of youngsters decide to swindle all the fraudulent cash that is floating around among the extra-ordinarily rich people to the poorest of the poor. The way they have plotted the story is interesting and is definitely worth an applause. The hero clicked well as a CBI officer. Minus point : The heroine's role There is absolutely no need to bring the girl in such a vulgar character portrayal. Whatever be the reason - circumstantial, psychological or analytical - anyone gives me for this kind of a role (a role where there is really no respect for womanhood) I dont think it was required for this storyline. Sad state : Women's costumes I can make a very rude rem...

It was a fantastic evening for a lot of reasons - children, children, children every where. It was so much of fun for the children in the apartment complex this evening, as they were to take part in the Ganesh Chathurthi special programme. There were plays, songs and dances by the children and the amazing cheer there was so contagious. I enjoyed myself thoroughly with the decked up Gujju dolls, King, Lord Shiva, Godess Parvathi, Lord Ganesha, the Moon, the Old grandma, the toddlers and tiny tots in angelic attires, the Raman of Tenali, the guards and the parents running here and there with papers, lipsticks, eye brow pencils and costume change requests!!!! I was visiting my cousin's family today and decided to be around when all the character artists were getting ready for their stage performance, this evening. My neice was playing Lord Shiva's role in a dance-drama. I loved the costume for all the careful details it took care of. With a little bit of make-up, my little niece...

It is quite common to see scenes in Bangalore that make you look away, for the ethical sense and sensitivity that you have in you. I have no count of the number of times I have had to look away at the sight of some explicitly expressive love scenes - Malls, Parks, Movie Theatres, Train Stations are quotable. While it is a matter of totally personal opinion and freedom of life to exercise, I still hate the idea of having to look away, just because people dont mind their limits in public. With that prologue in my mind, I saw two people who made me smile and I can believe that some people are truly 'Out-of-the-herd'. Early this week, in a Volvo bus, I spotted a guy and girl listening to music from one mobile phone. The girl had the left ear phone plugged and the guy, the right. They seemed to be enjoying the music with an occassional smile and a nod once in a while. After about twenty minutes, she took off her ear phone and plugged it into his ear, wore her scarf, nodded a b...

I am sure you would have received a lot of emails stating hand wash is the most brilliant thing you can do to save yourself from the dreaded, deadly Swine flu attack. I also received a lot of emails stating the same. After a major NDTV report, my office facilities department had been nice enough to install dispensers with liquid hand sanitizers just outside the main door. We could use it to keep our hands free of germs, more specifically, the Swine viruses. The alochol-based agent works for four hours, after which you need you cleanse your hands once again. [ I can't help recalling how a friend commented: "If we get to drink some of these it probably will keep the interiors anti-viral and anti-microbial too :) Why rub our hands so often with a little of the gel?" ] Practically, it is not possible to keep your hands germ free all the time unless you wear disposable gloves. If you imagine everyone in a software company wearing paper gloves, y...

This flashed suddenly in my mind, when I was reading something: For the world around you, most often: - 'You' become paramount in all problems. - Its at least partially,'your' fault. - There is a 'You' could have done scene. - If there is something that is to be done, 'you' must do it to avert another 'You' could have done scene. - If 'you' are not taking responsibility, then no one else will. - 'You' must learn to handle it. - 'You' should change. - 'You' do not know.

Hi People, All thanks to Nishita at http://nishitak.wordpress.com/ . She has nominated my blog for the zombie chicken award that you just read about. Am super-thrilled about this award because it is the first award after a very long time in my life, and also the first-ever online recognition for my blog space in the last 3+ years of its life. Few blogs that I would pass on this award to are : Clearing the Clutter in the attic by Sowmya Gopal for the enthusiasm and positive attitude showered all over her writing. Casey's Korner by Krupa for the chances to laugh, smile, and grin throughout the reading experience. I love Nishita's Rants and Raves for the straight-forwardness in her writing. You don't award some one who has just given you an award.. Do you? :-) If I could, I would any day nominate her posts for book reviews, movie reviews and shopping reviews. In Singapore: A Local [Af] Fare by Shobha for her 'full-of-life' writing. If you want to read the mo...

If you had been among the few thousands of commuters in Bangalore's Outer ring road this morning, you'll already be able to relate to what I mean. The bus that I was commuting in, stopped somewhere on the ring road. With a lovely song playing on my Ipod, I failed to realize that this stop was more of a halt. Then, there came a bright green T-shirt whose expressions made me realize that it was a heavy traffic jam. I did not know of policemen dressed in casuals especially when they regulated traffic. A close look indicated a corporate identity card. With the intention of directing the traffic, this software engineer had taken up the traffic policeman role temporarily. Felt good that there was a sensible engineer in town. Then, I noticed that the traffic was too heavy and my office building seemed closer to where my bus waited in the traffic. So, I stepped out and started walking on the right lane of the road. There were practically no vehicles on that side. When I saw a police va...

Name : Rasam Type : Soup Effort : Quick and Simple Nativity : South India Recipe for : People who can cook. Time required : Ten minutes in all. You might want to read about Rasam here : http://dewdropdeepa.blogspot.com/2008/04/rasam.html Quick Recipe: Thadka : In a sauce pan or cooking pan, splitter mustard seeds, Cumin seeds in a spoonful of Ghee. Add one sliced green chilli ( not finely chopped) and a pinch of Asafoetida powder. Boil : To the contents of the pan, add Water, Turmeric powder, Tomato, Tamarind, Sambar powder, or rasam powder and salt to taste. Boil for about five to seven minutes till the contents threaten to ebb out of the pan. Garnish : Reduce the flame to minimum and add Coriander, Curry leaves. Add Sugar to ease the complete tartaric taste of the tamarind. Ten min later: Sqeeze lime - few drops of juice. Thats the quick rasam. Variations : You can add soup of Dal as a last step at the boiling stage. Then, you need to increase the lime ...

This afternoon, I saw a beautiful bunch of closely-threaded, jasmine flower string adorning my friend's jet black, curly hair. You cannot see the thread that twines the flowers. This kind of stringing flowers is an art that is prevalent and popular only in the town of Madurai, Tamil Nadu. The fragrance of these flowers cannot be explained - with these flowers on, you can literally make your presence felt; the world knows you are in. That's how I turned to look at my friend and learnt that these flowers were also brought from Madurai. Another friend asked if people wore flowers everyday in Madurai and 'Yes' came the answer promptly from a Madurai girl. The words took me back to my childhood when I learnt to make such floral strings too. It is quite an art to tie up flowers uniformly on thread string. It takes time, energy, and tactic to tie the flowers uniformly on the string. For town-bred tamilians, it was a very important lesson in home-making. Every Tamilian girl has...

No.. I am not referring to Nokia... I am just referring to the Internet world today. I had lost touch with a friend for the last seven years. Today, we got back in touch. It was interesting to know the updates. We also updated each other about the other common friends we knew and exchanged some contacts. All of these was unthinkable in the pre-net-savvy years [ early 90s so to speak ]. Now, given that we have a host of email service providers, chat services, professional networking sites, social networking sites, Voice Over Internet Protocol calls, and of course blogs, it is sad to note that people cant find the time to stay in touch. You don't have to be hooked on to all of these, but at least one of these must be possible right?? Amazing mind though - without a second question on why we were not in touch till date, we went on and on about 'catching up' with the happenings of the last seven years... even before we knew it, it was time for the 'nice catching up, catch ...

Just about anything and everything is news. If you want to be famous, do something to make it to the news headlines. You need not be popular for the accepted reasons always. Swine Flu, Typhoon, and Lost Monkeys all can have equal importance rating in a newscast. [ This is particularly from the NDTV Noon news on August 11th 2009 ] News is a refined form of essential gossip to take you through life. Even if you do not want to hear the news, you will still hear it from your circle. News is usually a mix of fact and fiction, salted with view points, and garnished with hype. If it is not in the news, then it has to be locked away as a secret. No news is good news - Often heard saying, sounds true as I write this post.

Everyone in India has heard of Raksha Bandhan - A festival that celebrates the bond between a brother and sister, to put it in the simplest of terms possible. A beautiful band, crafted using color papers, glitter papers, colorful silk or cotton threads, called Rakhi is of immense significance on Rakhsha Bandhan day. I like the entire idea of Rakhsha Bandhan and it dates back to my college days. This is the only day that all the guys really behaved like very responsible folks and it was surely a nice feeling to believe that your class mates ( boys especially) were the nicest in the planet..... Most Rakhsha Bandhan moments of my friends in the ladies hostel confirmed the fact that 'its nice to have a brother'. For the first time I saw the sentiment behind it and really started noticing that this festival was indeed very special to brothers and sisters.Till then Raksha Bandhan was totally unknown in my world. Ever since, I have continued to give respect for this festival and he...

Shilpa is the name of this wonderful girl I met in WARDS, Indra Nagar last week. I did not think that there could be a case where a child just CANNOT react to anything at all. So, that was the problem with Shilpa when her parents brought her to WARDS, a school for differently-abled children. Shilpa is six years old and looks no more than two years of age. She does not respond to a hello or to a chocolate or to a noise or to anything else that a normal child would react to. When we met her, there was no reaction/expression. The teacher told us her health background and that we can expect a rare streak of emotion from her sometime during the day... I was wearing a copper-sulphate blue dress that day. I think the color attracted her, otherwise there was no other explanation any one could give for the constant look she had towards me... and I must say, this was almost always throughout the day. I even remember the attendant asking me, " its interesting that she has not taken her eyes ...

If we have spent sometime chatting, you would have known that I mostly advocate women and their extra-ordinary capabilities... I think women are fantastic and most of them can handle everything other than emotions very well. [I must admit, a woman's Emotional Quotient is not as good as it should be, but I guess that has also got its plus points...] Now, I didn't really think this EQ was a problem till I heard a discussion day before yesterday between two women and a little alarmed-looking gentleman. Why wouldn't he be? This is the statement one of the women made: I absolutely lost control and for a few seconds forgot that I can actually apply brake!!! Then, in a while, I regained composure and just swerved off the track and saved myself.... May be what happened was totally possible and there may be situations when you are totally dis-oriented with the scene on the road... and this could have been a genuine case.. Still, I must say women should not drive when they cannot han...

The Spoorthi team is a group of loving, caring, joyful, thankful and vibrant youngsters in Bangalore. Some of them are friends from the same college or same class in their school days. Over the last few years of their association these friends inspired their own circles and Spoorthi team gained people strength. I met this Stellar girl from the Spoorthi gang sometime last year. During one of our casual conversations, I got to know more about Spoorthi. This group of friends had started Spoorthi as a social service initiative funded from their own pockets few years ago. This is their website : http://groups.google.co.in/group/spoorthi_wecare The web page speaks about their work and service. So obviously I am not writing about their activities. Thanks to the Good God, I chanced to be a part of the team in the thirteenth activity at WARDS, Jeevan Bhima Nagar ( Safal Daily Fresh at Jeevan Bhima Nagar is the landmark). To read about it, click http://spoorthi-wecare.blogspot.com/2009/08/writte...

Had I been a poet, I would have surely written a lovely poem about today's experience with the differently- abled children at WARDS, Jeevan Bhima Nagar , Bangalore.... Had I been a movie director, I would probably be scripting for a movie right now, detailing all that I saw today... Only these two artists have the real reach to the audience and can create the effect of the emotion that crosses the minds of people often. Words are all I have :-) and I can express what I felt in the next few posts, in small segments ( hopefully ). I think, one of the best gifts that we all have in life is to express... and express well :-) That is my first lesson of the day, I had. All thanks to this team of friends called Spoorthi .... more about them in the next post.