Morning in Adithyapuram

This post was originally created on Tuesday, October 9, 2007 as a separate blog http://ramanan-atypicaldayinadithyapuram.blogspot.com/ It is now now ported to my common blog. All comments are welcome here.





I am going to Adithyapuram this week. Not that I am going after a very long time but this time there is a very high level of nostalgia in me as I recollect the past. I spent the last night recollecting the scenes on the street as I would have seen sitting on the steps of my house. So I thought of recording my feelings and scenes that ran in my mind.

Adithyapuram lying to the east of the twin villages - Adithyapuram and Pallipuram is the first to welcome, on any particular day, Adithya, a synonym for Sun . Long before the sun's rays show up, the day begins at Adithyapuram with the ringing of bells at the Gopalakrishna temple.

Soon, air reverberates with M.S.Subbalakhmi's rendition of Sri Venkatesha Suprabhatham. It is still dark on the main street but there is already activity on the street. Maamis are already cleaning and putting kolams infront of the houses. A few newspaper vendors have started their morning routine. Some devout people make their way to the temple to have a darshan of the Lord before the start of their day. A few mamas and maamis go for a morning walk - a recent "healthy" trend. An auto rickshaw or a two rush past with people who have come from Madras or Bangalore by Trivandrum or Mangalore mail and Island Express. Soon music changes to "Bhavayami Raghuraamam". Perhaps I am more nostalgic to Bhavaayami than Suprabhtham... may be because I have never woken up so early to listen to Suprabhatham. Bhaavayaami is followed by RangapuraVihara., by which time sun is up above the village tank (koLam) and in the midst of the coconut trees.

There are voices of children around the corner. A group of orphans from an orphanage near the Kanikkamatha school are going to Church. The early morning air is fresh and by now it is people who have finished their baths and making to the temple who are to be seen on the streets. Couple of students and men who commute to Coimbatore by the 7:20 train are seen rushing and hurriedly paying respects to the Lord. After an hour of silence the temple now plays naadaswaram announcing that it is time for morning Deeparaadhana. Some mama walks past me, smiling and nodding his head sideways in a typical Palakkad style. This peculiar sort of expression is perhaps never seen in any other community. A few maamis, maamas go past me on their way to the temple. One of them stop by and ask "Eppo vandhaai? Enge irukkai?" "Delhilayaa?". I think "Oh! God! when will this Delhi tag go" But deep inside I enjoy that association with dear Delhi. Loud ringing of bells announce opening of the sreekovil doors for Deeparaadhana. Not all people go to the temple for Deeparadhana, some of them wait along the "thinnais" chatting. They all rush to the centre of the street to see the Aarati. What a site!! some 2 dozen people all assembling spontaneously to see the aarati. While some of the wait to see till the end, some are satisfied with the panchaarati and return without waiting for the "kalpooram". As I see the first signs of people coming out of the temple, I rush inside the house, not wanting to hear that "Eppo vandhai........... " again.



A few men and women are seen going to the village koLam for morning bath. It seems in the days of yore, everyone in the village used to take bath in the koLam and it was a great embarrassment to bath at home. Nowadays it is usually people from places a bit far who come to take bath, though their numbers too have drastically come to almost nil. A few minutes later the children who had been to church an hour ago are seen returning. A couple of vegetable vendors on hand carts stop at houses of their odd few customers, since most people prefer to go and purchase vegetables from the market at Melamuri.

It is a school time now. Autos whroom past carrying half a dozen children to Kanikkamatha Convent and to "Church school" and picking up a few more on the way. A few people drop their children in their scooters or motorbikes. Soon the main street is again full of activity. Office goers join the students. The agraharaam that reverberated with an enchanting "Bhavayaami Raghuramam" not a few hours back now vibrates in the noise of automobiles.

"Screeeeeeh!!!!"

An autorickshaw nearly misses a bike around the corner. A couple of angry glances are exchanged and both proceed in their respective directions.

There is a momentary break in the activities by about quarter past nine. Not yet!!! I hear some kids' voices round the corner. A group of kids aged around 6-10 appear, clad in cream tops and green bottoms - Pallipuram School students. A few decades ago, everyone from the agrahaaram used to go to this school for primary schooling before they shift to Nurani High School. A lucky and talented few make to Govt. Victoria College. Perhaps, this school in its golden years would have taught the basics of education to at least half a dozen IAS officers, Army Generals, a couple of CEOs, CAs, engineers and doctors.

The kids I was mentioning are early the comers. They are in no hurry. Few are seen describing the movie they saw last night. One of them is describing (and of course exaggerating) some electronic gadget his uncle had brought from gElf. Since they are in no hurry, they take their time to explore. Some peep inside houses, some go around motorcycles or cars parked, or at least take time out to read writings on the walls. More children go past. The later they come, the faster they move. Some are seen dragging their younger siblings, lest they are late to school. By fifty minutes past nine, the group size and frequency reduces, late comers are seen running to school.

Thud!!

One seven year old fall.. he looks around ... picks his things and runs... Perhaps the last child!!

By half an hour past ten, the street is devoid of any activity. The sun is shining brightly, nevertheless I can sense a moist in the air. There is no wind and everything seem frozen. Some years past, there used to be a printing press around the corner and when everthing becomes silent, the peculiar sound of the printing press would be ringing in the air. Now I can hear the sounds of busses and vehicles from Melamuri. The Azhvaar from Pallipuram temple is seen going, perhaps, meet Ramanatha Vaadhyar of our temple. He does that Trademark Palakkadan nod and I return a similar nod. Ambi comes out of his house and as he goes to next village, stops by and asks "Eppo vandhai? oru aazhchai iruppai, illaya?".

"Illai, naaLakki raatri pooNam"

An old man, whom I have seen for ages, is seen taking about four cows to the koLam. The cows used to the route don't seem to need his directions, though.

I wait for the postman and then go for a brunch.

I will publish rest in sections as Noon, evening etc...

I never intended to break my blog into Morning, Afternoon and Evening, but as I started writing down memories started flowing and I could not stop them. Though this brought in a kind of satisfaction and joy, it also creates a sense of despair that I may never be able to go back to that wonderful life. As more young people come out of Palakkad agraharaams in search of basic opportunities, let alone "better" ones, things look gloomier than ever.

(New comments may be posted below:)

A Vegetarian Barbeque

It all started with my colleague, here in Canada office, Benedict mentioning to us that our Operations Manager, John is going to organise a family barbecue at our facility. Well, what am I to do? there is going to be a free lunch and I am going to starve!! I wondered could he not make it a pizza lunch or something else. But I realised later that barbecue is a sort of social event, and having a pizza lunch may not be able to simulate that environment.

A month passed and this barbeque never happened. One day while returning from a dinner, John was discussing about the barbecue. The problem with the whole issue is I never knew what a "family barbecue" really is and how it will be organsied. So risking at being laughed, at I asked him what the options he is going to give for vegetarians. It seemed he was equally puzzled but then said he will organise some vegetables and together we can try being creative.

The research

Finally the day was announced. It was going to be on 23rd July 2007. John wanted me to give the list of vegetables and items needed for vegetarian barbaque. So, I began researching. Oh!! researching is something I am sick of, given the vast information, internet throws up. Google threw up some 1000s of hits for "Vegetarian + barbaque" (and not to mention the three or four different spellings for barbaque and not withstanding the short form "BBQ"). Well! this is not going to help me.

So I resorted to Orkut, the Google's social networking portal. Given that a significant lot of Brahmin population is traveling abroad and must have at some point of their career come across barbaques in the West, this must be the right place. I posted my query in about some 5 Brahmin communities in Orkut. The responses were quite quick. A manager at another of our plant next street, too gave me ideas and links to FoodTv website, a famous cookery channel in Canada.

The list of ingredients

Based on the responses, and from a few websites, I started making the vegetable list - Potatoes, Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Green Onions, Green Peppers (Capsicum in American English), Sweet Corn, Eggplant (brinjal in American), Cabbages, Beans, & Tofu. Add to that items like oil, butter, pepper, lime, hot sauce, salt & sugar. I was particular that aluminum foil too should be provided so that the veggie items will not get mixed up with the meat.

Having done all the research, I developed got cold feet at the idea of making these items. I believed that in a bbq party the raw items will be placed on the table and each one has to go and make their items as per their taste. And how am i going to prevent somebody poking the meat with the cutleries I use for veggies and rendering me tool-less. It turned out that John himself is going to do all the cooking. So that solves most of the problems.

The day arrives

So the day came. To my surprise there were a couple of vegetarians from our office. Well, I had read about vegetarianism in the West, but this is the first time I got to see some vegetarians here. So I was not alone, after all. The vegetables that were purchased were potatoes, mushrooms, capsicum and bags of assorted cut veggies. Of course, we had all the usual spices and sauces.

The fire was started. John came with a large container of sauce. In no time Ben and John started dipping the chicken and beef ribs into the sauce. Thank God, I had brought some hot sauce from home.

Now the grand finale

The Grilled vegetables

John suggested cutting the potatoes in quarters and then spilling salt and pepper on it, wrap in an aluminium foil and keep it on a side of the grill allocated to the vegetarian items. He wanted me to put the mushrooms and long chopped capsicum in separate foil, and wrapped in a separate foil since potatoes take long time to cook.

Once these were done, I made one more round of mixed vegetables, this time soaked with lime.

Stuffed potatoes

Having put them on fire, I was thinking of other items. I recollected the potato recipe, (thanks to its explosive name) called Potato bomb by one Ms. Prabha in Orkut. But then these needed cheese and it was not on the list of ingredients. Then, something struck me. Instead of stuffing them with cheese i made a hollow in the potatoes and filled with a miture of lime, salt, pepper and sauce. These were wrapped again in the aluminium foils and put over the grill.

Capsicum Veggie Bombs

Hey, the capsicums were quite large and what if i stuffed its inside with the assorted vegetables (carrots, beans, radish, baby corn, red cabbage and onions), salt, pepper and then fill with hot sauce? This is what I call as the "Capsicum Veggie Bomb" I made four of them for the four vegetarians in the party. I made a mistake here. I should not have put too much hot sauce in it. The people here are cannot tolerate too hot and spicy. By the time I finished these bombs, I noticed that a few of our associates were watching me, letting my creativity go wild.

Veggie Burgers

And then there was this vegetarian patties for vegetarians to make Veg burgers.

Grilled Corn

There were some corn in the list. I took two of them for the other American vegetarians and did not add any spices and just grilled them. Took two of the other corns and spiced them up with lime and pepper and put them on the grill.

The lunch

And finally everyone sat down. The tables, three of them, was filled with meat and I wasn't sure where to put the vegetarian dishes. I assumed (another mistake) it is going to be a buffet type, so, as it is usually the practice in typical Indian restaurants, I kept the vegetarian items on the table at the end. Every one sat for lunch.

I began with a vegetable burger and some watermelon. The potatoes and the mixed vegetables were really yummy. I did not have garam masalas, but that did not make them less tasty. It was a new experience, indeed. Having done with them, I went for the capsicum bombs. They were wonderful. I had just one of those stuffed capsicum and my stomach was stuffed. I finished off with a slice of melon

Feedback.

The sad part perhaps due the fact that there lot of hot spices in the vegetarian dishes or perhaps because of the way I arranged the items assuming a buffet type lunch, the American vegetarian colleagues did not get to taste my preparations. One of my friends, who was a non-vegetarian, shied away, thinking that his tasting some of the items will reduce the food available to the vegetarians.

An Indian vegetarian collegue of mine too stayed away from all the grilled dishes, perhaps sensitive to the fact that it was cooked on the same grill as that of meat. But then why on earth did I put those aluminium foils? Perhaps, it could be because I prepared it!!!

Later, Benedict tasted one of the capsicum bombs and said it had come really well. Well, I am not a bad cook after all! Or rather I am an innovator :)

Having spent 6 months wondering what a blog is, and then another 6 months postponing, I am here. At last I have a blog :)

But still I don't have a full idea of what a blog is. I believe there will be visitors to my blog. I will post a lot of things in this.