Jo bhi main..

Trying to write my thesis proposal, at least begin writing an outline - Jo Bhi Main Kehna Chahoon, Barbaad kare alfaaz mere!! How insightful!!!

THE one and only - அஞ்சு சுத்து முறுக்கு

Guess what, I love surprises, duh. And luckily enough, touchwood, I've been getting a number of gifts recently in the past month or so. And more often than not, even the smallest of surprise gifts move me to tears. Especially if it's from home.

So what now? A few days back and again now, I got this anju suthu murukku (அஞ்சு சுத்து முறுக்கு) from Amma - parcel. The first time, I got it along with a 'disaster' (verbatim, from Amma) maida cake' as she attempted her creativity by putting some Boost in the maida cake!! (If you know a bit of TamBrahm cuisine, this maida cake is one of the most lowly regarded sweets - and if it is not supplemented by pineapple, vanilla or god-knows-what flavor, it's blasphemy)! And needless to say, it tasted divine to my taste-deprived Gustatory cortex.

And now, to the hero of the story - the murukku. It's one of the very few left Tamizhachiness in me I guess. Murukku is something that's inherent to Tamilnadu alone, I believe or so do I want to believe. And the classic anju suthu murukku is as important as the bride and the groom in any TamBrahm wedding. And my allllllll-time favorite. Even if my kalyana saapadu had only murukkus I would still live as happily as I am now!

In fact, when I went to India, I even learnt to suthufy murukku. My paatti says "murukku suthardhu ellarukkum varuma? Kuduthu vechirukanum. Kayila valam venum" And of course, like a good grandma she said I am better at murukku suthing than my mom. Ah, there you go, ma! Proof: Look at pictures - 90% of them there are murukkus that I suthufied!

Recently friend had gone to India to his sister's wedding and brought back a bunch of goodies from Grand Sweets, the kalyana seer murukku and a small (on strict instructions about the weight) packet of murukku from Amma. Of course the home made murukku packet comes with rendu suthu, with one special anju suthu like my paatti always does.

Now that you know how big a meaning this wriggly little thing holds in my life, you wouldn't be surprised... (Taking a bit of murukku and getting distracted) Aaah, the pleasure of eating a murukku suthu by suthu. Please, stop frowning, let me live. This is what I want from life, the joy it gives and the smile it brings :)

That said, it is probably history that the neuroscientist in me thinks the strongest connection from the senses is that of olfaction to the hippocampus, or all the memory machinery there is. And now I feel a close second would be from the gustatory system to memory. I bit an adhirasam, amidst all this elation, a tear popped from my eye - thinking of how elaborate with 16 different neivedhyams last krishna jayanthi I spent at home on my sudden trip was - in 2011 - how that would be the last time thatha would eat all the batshanams, as it turned out. Oh no, please, please, give me a time machine! Actually, give him a time machine from heaven - let whim revisit the street in Sukkur district, Pakistan where he was born.

So since I don't want to end this on a sad note - why all this murukku adhirasam nostalgia now? Today was a not-so-unproductive and in fact an unusually cheerful Saturday. And I gave in to my biggest addiction - my blissful afternoon sleep. And here I am with cardamom tea and a plate full of murukku adhirasam and laddu. And a lump in my throat. And a bittersweet feeling in my head, tending more towards sweet. And an yearning, thinking of when it would happen next. And a little anger on myself on why I didn't enjoy many moments of tea with murukku in India a little bit more.

So the next time you see or eat a murukku, remember there's much more to life than just the twists and turns, there's a pleasure hidden in each twist and turn! More murukku to you! (And to me too, please!)(Oh just to clarify - I don't mean the twists of life, _just_ murukku)

Cloud nine moment...

Hello, world! Here I am, emerging from my cocoon. I don't know what I've been going through that has stopped me from writing often. Now that I am back, let's see how long it lasts!

Continuing on the previous post, here's something that defined a cloud nine moment, so take a deep breath, read on, curse my pride and self obsession as much as you want, but if you're my true friend, pray that life goes on like this - Chugging along with its share of disappointments peppered with little things that bring a smile - And please wish that in all our lives, once a while, just once in a blue moon, something like this moment happens.

First, let me introduce the man - Dr. JLW, my boss, whose class was the answer to what makes CMU awesome, whose questions and appreciation instilled the aspiration of being a researcher in me. All the while, what amazes me is how his deep research acumen flows alongside his incredible quick wit.

He comes to me one fine afternoon and says "I need your permission for something. Would you mind if I write to your parents? As a parent, I've often wondered how my children are doing in grad school and I thought I would write to your parents too"

I said I am absolutely fine as long as he writes good things. He told me he was going to write that I am running around here with a midget, not showing up regularly in lab. So typically him. That's all I know.

The next day morning I call home - my mom, she is in the temple, her voice brimming with ecstasy that she was trying to restrain so badly because she was at the temple amidst lot of people. Yes, they had received that email of appreciation that my boss had sent them - about how 'fabulously progressing' I am (Now, that's debatable, I am sure). WOW. I never thought my academic success/career advancement meant so much to Appa, Amma and all of my adorable extended family. You work for something, pray for it with all your heart, make enough sacrifices that it becomes the focus of your aspirations day and night and then it happens, miraculously, as they call it. That moment, that undefinable feeling is what I heard in my mom's voice. I realized how much it meant to them, how much they had wished and hoped for my education being the best. All of their pestering emphasis on education right from high school - moments that irritated me to no bounds at some point in life, attained a whole new meaning. I could only laugh thinking of those moments when I questioned myself why I didn't choose to work comfortably in a call center in India!

JLW guruji being the great person he is, was very generous with his words I am presuming - apparently he finished it saying "Thank you for her". Well, what else can make me work harder than ever, I shall show you that you were not wrong, I shall make sure I live up to it, live up to the great inspiration that you've been. Thank you indeed, I feel fortunate to be mentored this way.

Thank you Amma, Appa and Chuchan - for letting me be unapologetically myself, accepting me with all my flaws, not only helping me overcome them but also steering my efforts in a direction that I would succeed in. Words fail me. And the best part about it is that tiny little restrained anger that pops in your voice when I say I stayed up late in the night just to finish an assignment. I promise, I shall take better care of my health. That said, many thanks for letting my rant about my ulcer ruin your mood on many occasions. Thanks for praying for each and every one of my little tests and exams and presentations - right from my kindergarten to my PhD journal clubs. Thanks for teaching me to take failure in my stride. Thanks for teaching me that there's much more to life than what meets the eye. I hope I live up to your aspirations and I hope I am deserving enough for all your love, forever.

Love. Smile. Cheer.

Time to get back to work, after all, I shouldn't forget to practice what begets these moments - sincere effort in whatever one does .

Idea for a series of posts!

I don't know what to call this phase in life. But it's very different from any of the ones I've been through before. Melancholic, ecstatic, boring, enthralling all at once, maybe oxymoronic would be a good word to describe it.

But one thing I can't deny is that it has been filled with defining moments - moments of awe, moments of gratitude, moments of extreme pain, moments of dreams coming true, moments of adrenaline rush, moments of fulfillment - what not. As they say, life's not measured by the number of breaths you take but the moments that take your breath away. I've had quite a few of them I believe.


So inspired by this, (no I don't wanna attempt to copy it) http://1000awesomethings.com/ and this http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_pasricha_the_3_a_s_of_awesome.html I decided I would write super briefly (as if that would ever happen) about these moments, one by one. I have had the opportunity to experience things that many don't get to. I have yearned for things that not many want. I have tried to be someone that not many people would imagine themselves to be. But I think hailing from where I do, being the person I am, surrounded by the people I am with, traveling half the way across the globe when I was barely 21 gavage fed me with a million such moments worth remembering.

Yes, the flip side to it is that this blog would become a diary of sorts, but hey, isn't that the secret behind facebook's success? Everybody loves being in somebody else's shoes, peeping into somebody's windows. Here I throw the doors of my life open! Some posts might not be good for public reading, those shall sit in my drafts. Nevertheless, they need to be documented. Not just because I want to be a grandma with awesome stories for my grandchildren, but because they would bring a smile to my face and I personally value nostalgia a lot, probably more than I should.

Let's see how I fare.

What the Rain outside the window reminds me of...

What a rain!!! Thunder and lightning... The fiery Indian summer rain, thanks for showing up in Pittsburgh!! :D <3 it...

As I watch the lightning and thunder from inside, these thoughts that have been inside me for quite long, ( the first seeds of it probably had been sown by mom ) flowed out through my pensieve. Like many other posts, this shall have no editing.

Growing up near Srivilliputhur, Aandal has had an influence on me, a huge one. I admire the woman she was - for all that she dreamt of, all that she did, all that she sang, all that she was. The best example being,

ஆழி மழைக் கண்ணா! ஒன்று நீ கை கரவேல்

ஆழி உள் புக்கு முகந்து கொடு ஆர்த்து ஏறி

ஊழி முதல்வன் உருவம் போல் மெய் கறுத்துப்

பாழியம் தோளுடைப் பற்பநாபன் கையில்

ஆழி போல் மின்னி * வலம்புரி போல் நின்று அதிர்ந்து

தாழாதே சார்ங்கம் உதைத்த சர மழை போல்

வாழ உலகினில் பெய்திடாய் நாங்களும்

மார்கழி நீராட மகிழ்ந்தேலோர் எம்பாவாய்....

All I see in this is her love for grandeur. Her love for magnificence, her desire for the powerful. It is not the soft drizzle that she wants. Its the dark clouds, frightningly shiny lightning, resounding thunder, rain drops falling like arrows from His bow... Not the fleeting white clouds, gentle breeze and a soft drizzle. That's as meticulously detailed it can get. What a personality! And it can't manifest any better in words!

To quote another example, its every woman's fantasy to be married the way she dreams in Vaaranam Aayiram, only to be limited by the practical constraints of the world we live in. Who wouldn't want the man of dreams to come surrounded by the gradeur and majesty of a thousand elephants? Again, this is an exemplification of the character of Aandal, she doesn't want a silent, sober marriage. She is not the drizzle person, remember? Everything is amplified, in its best avatar. Maybe the T-storm isn't the first thing you'd want during your day, but coming to think of it, yes, I would definitely want that opulence, that splendor and majesty in everything about life, the most of it in the man of my dreams. Aandal is very much right, only that I am limited by modern day practicality issues. Be it the man of dreams or just about anything in life, the best is just what the doctor ordered for us! Dream big, Aandal showed us the way, after all.

Well, what can I say, make way for the man, chocolate boys!

P.S : In retrospect, I think I would be terribly wrong if I mention this thirupaavai and not talk about the science here. Look at this woman in love, explaining the water cycle in beautiful detail at a time when most of mankind wouldn't have even dreamt of it, let alone use it as an analogy. Simply amazing how she could connect an intricate scientific concept to religion and to the man of her dreams, isn't it?