Madras Music And Dance Festival

I was wondering what to name this post. Initially, I started off with Madras Winter Music and Dance Festival. But then realised where I erred. The words 'Madras/Chennai' and 'winter' dont go together in the same sentence!I duly changed it.

I'd gone to see a dance performance last evening, by Alarmel Valli(Bharathnatyam) and Madhavi Mudgal(Odyssey). It was fab. Im not a connoisseur of dance, but I do know just that little bit to say if a performance is really good or not. Bharathnatyam as a dance is of straight lines, and a cutting smart performance. Odyssey is more slow and sensuous. The contrast between the two was quite pronounced. It was apparent especially during the first 3 dances which Madhavi and Valli did together. I felt that Valli stole the show and outclassed Madhavi. Maybe that was because odyssey being a slow dance has its own pace and beautiful when seen by itself. It was obvious during Madhavi's solo performance. Danced to hindustani music, a story about Krishna.

My favourite was the 3rd number, a thillana by the both of them.Composed by Balamurali Krishna, it was lively, and absolutely stunning. Valli's posture, movements and rhythm were superbly flawless. Madhavi was more fluid and smooth.
Valli finished with a slow dance, a tamil song sung for a baby Amman. Resplendent in white, the essence and expression was very nicely portrayed.

I generally like fast paced dance and needless to say the thillana was my favorite of them all. Amma and i enjoyed ourselves, and felt it was totally worth going early, and getting good seats.

Although I was sent for music classes(just like 99.99% of all south indian brahmin girls) I've always wanted to learn dance.Now its too late. They send girls to learn at a very young age, and now a 22 yr old girl prancing with 5 and 6 year olds will be slightly weird I must say.

This whole cultural experience takes on a whole new turn when we visited Dakshin Chitra today. Its this heritage center where they have recreated South India of the 1900s. Brick by brick, built ancient houses from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka. It was definitely beautiful. To enhance the feeling, there are numerous activities. We got our future told by one guy with a parrot which picks out cards, (where Hema and Aishu were told that they were actually supposed to be born as boys, and I shouldn't wear black for the next 6 months), did pottery,block printing. and took tons of pictures.

As soon as we reached, near the reception was a gift shop. True to ourselves, we went in there first. Where I bought the cutest kalamkari pouch bag. Hello. We have a reputation to keep up. How can we not go into a shop right in front of us?? I know I have lots to carry and am being warned about excess baggage everyday. But I have my priorities right. As many clothes, bags and shoes I can manage! :-)

Strawberries galore

Strawberry cake, with cream cheese and strawberry frosting and fresh strawberry.. yes, it does taste better than it looks, et oui, I baked it from scratch. I have to show off. Does good things to my ego! No, there's none left. The family polished it off!

Hyderabad Highs

After a month long hiatus,here I am again! :D I dint realize its been a month since I blogged.That was also because I was in Hyderabad for the last 10 days having a blast. Since I am leaving and all that, I decided to go to my grandparents place,meet cousins.I figured since I wasn't really doing anything here,I might as well go and do nothing there.Oh, and there was a wedding happening too! But I was truly in for a (pleasant) surprise. There was lots to do in hyd! I literally shopped till i dropped. The city is filled with malls and places to eat. The best part is,everyone seemed to be shopping and eating. What a change from the hyderabad I knew. Or maybe I dint really get to see the place since we would go there only for a wedding and my cousin sis,(who's just a year younger than me )and I wouldn't be allowed to stay out too late. Now that we're both working and "all growed up" we could do whatever we wanted. We had something to do everyday. One mall a day and a couple of shopping bags was like mandatory! The best part is, 10 minutes from their place is this HUGE row of factory outlets.From levis,to pepe,dockers and nike reebok and adidas. Need i say more?? *grin*

A typical day would be..wake up late,by the time we're all ready, its lunch time. eat. or go out to the various lunches organized in each aunt's place. shop.get home. go out for dinner.During the wedding time the lunch and dinner will be preceded by a function.In all this, my grandmother has a boutique.She does salwar kameez and saree business.So we would ooh and aah over the nice stuff she brought back from jaipur and when customers look at them. I seriously have the 'funest' grandma who brings back the most coolest stuff.I picked out this lovely toe ring which she brought back.The grandfather wasn't too happy about me wearing a toe ring since I am unmarried,but hello,its a fun thing and I'm wearing it only on one foot. He still dint seem to be convinced. Oh and we had this new flavor of Breezer called 'Jamaican Passion'. was yummy. Is it possible to sign some kind of a petition for them to start allowing Bacardi to market Breezer in Chennai? Grr. This is SO not fair. We have it in Bangalore and Hyderabad, Chennai really feels left out. Cant u see that??? H-M-P-H!!

I'm back in Chennai now. I need to learn to make all the types of Dal. Learn to IDENTIFY them first is more like it. I get so confused with the English,Hindi,Tamil and Telugu names! There are like some million varieties, multiply them into 4, and what do expect? One hell of a confused drama queen.

More updates on the dal et al later.ta!

dilli billi

This post has been long overdue,I havent had time to even breathe from the moment I got back from Delhi.Did u hear that right??yeah.I spent an absolutely amazing time at the capital,at shreya's place.Her mom's technically,since madame has made Michigan her home since last year.I was so excited about the trip since I havent travelled anywhere above Mumbai,which is considered 'North India' for us chennai-ites!After much planning and packing,I was ready to face Dilli.
We did all the nice girly and touristy things.Shopping was super fun especially at Janpath market. There was so much cute stuff we dint know where to look first.The sad thing was I couldnt really buy too much since they were too skimpy to wear in chennai."but where will I wear this in Madraaaaas???" was my constant lament. But hopefully,if all goes well, I'll be out of here soon...that pretty much explains it all.(Nana,if you are reading this close your eyes.:-D).Dads.sigh.
Day 2 was a visit to the mall and we watched Chak De.What a cliche.Watching an almost patriotic movie on Independence day.We all actually stood for the national anthem before they started playing the film.It was awesome!The nicest part of the movie was SRK(big surprise there.he's the KING).He played his age and there was no faltoo romance or some hot actress just for the scenery! or any lame songs.10 points for that.
The next day we graced Agra with our presence.We headed out to Fatehpur Sikhri first to visit Akbar's palace/fort.En route,we got stuck in a 'traffic jam' involving 4 autos,2 carts,a couple of scooters and our car.Very rustic.
The Fort was lovely.Although I was piqued by the fact that Akbar built this huge gateway like thing,Bulandh Darwaza, when his son was born.And honoured that wife with the biggest part of the palace and all.
The Taj was our next destination.We were practically fried by the time we reached there. But the beauty was truly worth the wait.The symmetry was absolutely the best.And to think they did all that with just a piece of string and a ball for a pendulum! Well,to be brutally honest,the roads leading to the Taj and the entire place wasnt maintained too well.Being one of the wonders of the world,why doesnt the government put a little more effort to make the place a tad more presentable at least?? We have visitors from all over the world coming to visit.Do we really want to project India this way?? Apart from blaming the government,Every Indian must want to do a little something to for the country. Even a small gesture like not littering.And of course, a sense of basic hygiene for the surroundings.
One thing that struck me was the number of kids hanging around the place.In Agra,and all the way to the Sikri village.Playing,running around,and many at work with their parents.Weren't they supposed to be in school?It wasnt summer holidays either.All schools re-open in june.We caught sight of a few so-and-so memorial schools here an there.Tired looking nondescript buildings tucked in the middle of nowhere.
This made me think that for all the Big companies,be it outsourcing,malls,clubs,culture,and everything we take for granted,this is what the real India is.Not the handful of cities we are familar with.None of those kids would even have a chance to use a computer,the basic of most things today.That made me sad.To know that as a country we have such a long way to go.And a better education is only one of them.We have other things to think about.Such as the attitude of the people and other social metamorphosis that will only take time.A long,long time.

How this post started from my happy trip to the socio-economic state of India,i dont know.But yeah, food for thought?!


btw. Shre and I got lovely Mehendi on our hands half way to our elbows at dilli haat.Although I wonder if it was real un-adultrated henna,since it dint smell to strong,and it faded away fully within 5 days time.hmmm. But I enjoyed having someone put the mehendi for me,being the puttee,instead of the putter!! :D (license baby.poetic license)

scrumpdillylumptious

U should have guessed from the Roald Dahl-ish title that this post is about absolutely yummy food.And the Chef(s) in question are Shreya and of course, Yours Truly!Our Sous chef was Amma,telling us which dal was which and how much water to pour for the rice. I know this post took a while in coming especially since the said feast was a few days back, but with my hectic social life and all...u get the drift right?! *sigh* the woes of being a social butterfly :D
So we started out making red and yellow bell pepper pulao(read : coloured capsicum) which turned out very pretty looking,followed with panneer masala patties shallow fried,aloo gobi curry,dal,boondi raitha.
We started out with a nice little shock when we paid 44 bucks for four capsicum.just because they were coloured.
Other than that things went on pretty smooth. This time we remembered to wash the rice.We somehow dint think we needed to the last time we made pulao since the rice was in a nice fancy basmati packet.extra long grain!It directly went into the rice cooker.Shreya and I were happily eating when after the first spoonful my dad asked us if we washed the rice. So this time,needless to say we were the butt of a lot of jokes. A fresh one everytime I went to the room to ask a 'doubt'. "Dont forget to wash all traces of soap neha.HAHAHAHAHA" :-|
The first few shallow fried panneer patties were a little squashed but we got the hang of it after that and they were awesome! Lightly brown and marinated in masala made from scratch. The aloo gobi and the dal were lovely.wholesome and nice,as our very own german butterfly put it.
We rounded it off with extra fudge chocolate brownie and ice cream,home made again.
Now you can imagine how our satiated selves felt. A nice drive to the beach after dinner was truly icing on the cake.
A should thank his stars I cook well! :)

new anklets :-) :-(

I bought a new pair of silver anklets today. And i love them. They look kind of traditional, but will still look nice on jeans and whatever else.
What brought about a mixed feeling was that i exchanged my old silver anklets for the new ones. Although i havent worn them for a long, long time now, they were a part of my childhood. Just looking at them made me think of the time when i wore them, those little silver bells on my feet. Those years where nothing much seemed to matter. They just seem like faded sepia photos in my head, ones i so badly want to splash with colour and get them back again. Now, all we have are the videos and photos of us as kids, priceless frozen pieces of time.
The moment I took the anklets out of that satin pouch this evening, before going to the jewellery store, i had such a strange feeling. I was looking at them after such a long time cause they were locked up at the bank ever since they became too small for me.It was as if i was practically holding a part of my childhood, one I am giving away for the next phase of my life(im not talking about the crazy teenage years here).
Those anklets somehow mean more to me than i ever made it out to be.I just probably havent been very vocal about it.
Those were the ones i made my cousin wear when i dressed HIM up as a girl when he was 2 and I, six. Poor thing, he was too small to even understand what i was doing, i happily made him wear a frock,make up, managed to put that little fountain like ponytail on the top of his head and pose for a photograph!!
Needless to say, it is one of my all time favourite photos!
Amma told me i can wear them only tomorrow. Apparently something new shouldnt EVER be done on a tuesday. I have no idea why. Just like I have no idea why we shoudnt cut our nails after 6 PM, or have a haircut on a tue/friday(i forget which one), or ask someone where they are going just before they leave the house, or never sneeze just before u leave to go somewhere.
So from tomorrow, i am going to have pretty silver anklets on my pretty feet.

this took a while

Im here..finally! yaay! :)

i know this took a while in coming, but now that im here...umm..well, be prepared for the *randomest* of all blogs.

so schmetter-whatever-ling, have u linked me in ur blog yet??

now, im tired and sleepy after driving my brother and his friend to freez zone (its this awesome ice cream shop for u losers who dont live in chennai) i just want to hit the sack. so no profound thoughts/posts/writings from me today! btw, i just had a butterscotch milkshake for the first time. i usually dont have butterscotch but i tried it today after it being heavily recommended by a colleague. cant say that i was disappointed. but chocolate still ROCKS. especially vanilla ice cream with gooey chocolate sauce and choco chips, with nuts. now wipe that drool off ur chin. ewwwww.


till next time then. which will prolly be tomorrow given the initial excitement and all!

ta