For Julia

I was tagged by Jewels to put up the photo of my refrigerator last week, but didnt have time to check blogs or even put up the photos i took. Office was very hectic, and its going be this way till this month end. Here are the photos :)

Children’s Park

One weekend we took Tarun to the Children’s Park, Guindy. I was under the impression that it was a lousy place, cramped with people. Actually it is not. For all those guys who live in Chennai, you should go to the park. There are a animals and birds in the park. They include monkeys, wild dogs, deers, parakeets, snakes, peacocks, emu, crocodile, ducks, and so on. It’s a really neatly maintained place. There are slides, and swings for children too..There is lots of space for kids to run around and have fun. For adults too it’s a nice place to walk.. in the heart of the city. Tarun had a lot of fun, and he keeps saying that he wants to go to Guindy Park..

A Spoilt Valentine Day evening @ Cornucopia

George and I had decided to go out for dinner yesterday, a break from the routine on Valentine’s Day. When I cam to office, my friend Suchitra and me suddenly decided, we would all go out for dinner. I called up a few hotels and to my dismay, all tables were booked. We called up Hotel Green Park, Residency Towers and so on…and finally we got a table at The Residency. This is a very old 4 /5 star hotel, so we were not too happy. We were also suspicious as to how come it was not fully booked.
Then we decided to ask one of our colleagues. She suggested a restaurant called Cornucopia, on Cenotaph Road, Teynampet, which served continental food. She told us that the food was excellent, the veggies were so fresh that u can taste the freshness, the ambience was so good, the service so excellent and so on. We then called up our husband’s and informed them of the venue.
At office, we also read up on the newspaper review on Cornucopia.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2003/11/13/stories/2003111301030300.htm
After office we went to the restaurant. It was an old mansion that was converted to a restaurant. There were these dull yellow lights. We kept sitting there for quite some time. Then finally the waiter came. We ordered soup and starters. Suchitra and Satish are vegetarians. We ordered food in accordance to that. The non-veg soup was ok. The veg one was so bad. It tasted like plain starch fattened with cream. Then came the starters. The veg dumplings were good. The batter fried shrimp was very average. Then we waited and waited and then the waiter came for the main course, and we mentioned that we wanted the food very spicy.(We Indians love spicy food..) They ordered veg cutlet with kidney beans and we some chicken breast in cream or some stuff like that. The cutlet was very bad.. and our chicken dish very very average. Contrary to what we read in the newspaper, the servings were not all that huge. Well then we ate it and were still hungry. We waited for another half hour and then the waiter came. We ordered our desserts. They ordered a brownie with chocolate sauce, George a chocolate mint brownie in rum sauce, and me a vanilla ice cream mud pie. Then the desserts came and this too was average. George’s dessert tasted like brownie and chocolate sauce with Colgate tooth paste, theirs like some hot brownie with a little dab of cream and mine like a huge chunk of vanilla ice cream with a dab of dry chocolate that was supposedly mud pie.
This was the worst meal all of us had tasted. We regretted not having gone to The Residency. The Dhabba Express is located bang opposite this restaurant. The Dhabba serves such lovely Punjabi food. We could have had tandoori items and so on.. Well….We were extremely disappointed and went home, totally dissatisfied and saddened on Valentines Day. Ya may be it was one of those “ bad food day”, where we made the wrong choices…Yes and we surely wanted to beat up our colleague :-)

People

I am writing about a topic that I have been thinking about for quite some time. It’s about where you preaching ends and your practice begins.
There are a few so called ‘devout’ Christians I have come across. I know that their families even run churches. These people back home I guess are very pious and goody goody. But at their work place, they leave their beliefs and faith behind and are no where Christian in their conduct. Deplorable clothes and deplorable attitudes. They do all the back stabbing, talking behind peoples back, not seeing right and wrong and so on.
Even in college, i remember such people. The belonged to the Christian movement and so on, but character, very questionable…
I am not a hard core religious person. I believe in God, and also believe that all people are equal and one should never hurt anyone intentionally and lead a clean and neat life. Be Good. That what George and me believe in. First be a good person, and then one can think of the rest. Your life will fall in place. Don’t be a Christian who would belt out sermons at the drop of a hat. Be a human being first, someone who every one trusts and believes, someone whom every one will look upon. This is the best glory you can give your God.

Baby Picasso

Tarun was getting very bored. I thought i was innovative and thought would develop his creativity, teach him two colors and so on, and gave him two sketch pens. Well the result of it didn’t make me feel too intelligent :)
He had scribbled / drawn in the notebook I gave him, and also extended his creativity to the floor. I managed to pull the sketch pen away from his hand after a line on the wall :) I have put up Picasso’s sketches on the fridge. One proud mom !!!! :)

benazir bhutto

benazir bhutto, is all what the Indian media had to say for the past few days.
a strong woman, a good orator, and an india hater.
her death no doubt, was a terrible one. the theories as to how she died, another sad story.

I wanted to write about this on the day of her assassination, but dint have the time. I think I was in school, and there was a program called, the world this week. It was a program on current affairs, a subject in which I was very interested, at that point in time.
Well, I can never forget a part of her speech, where with all her might she was yelling into the microphone that – Kashmir hamara hai - Kashmir is ours and so on- I even remember the scarf on her head flying and roaring like her spirit and her voice.
She was an India hater, all her life. She loved America and the Americans loved her. Thus hillary clinton’s sympathy and request for inquiry. she was never for peace with India, and was a jihadi supporter. She was a true politician, fuelling the Kashmir dreams of Pakistan. She wanted our Kashmir.
What struck me the most that day, was that the super duper Indian politicians proved themselves – Indian politicians-. they issued statements that benazir was a true friend of India, that India had lost a good friend, Pakistan had lost a good leader and so on.
I am not a Pakistan hater… after all its human beings everywhere, on both sides of the border…My sympathies to the family and the motherless children.
But, Pakistan is always Pakistan and benzir bhutto a true Pakistani…

moral policing in chennai

-the shift key is still not working, so please forgive the casing-

is there a limit to moral policing ?.
In Chennai, for the past three days, in the deccan chronicle, we have been reading that all night parties that are being conducted in the farm houses around the east coast road, have been subject to raids from the police.

These parties are being conducted with prior permission from the police department and are mostly attended by the techies who work in the various information technology companies.

These are attended by both men and women and are becoming an easy target for the police to make money. These police guys, conduct raids, confiscate foreign liquor, and photograph the people using the cameras on their mobile phones. Some pictures given to local news papers, with news that women have been found drunk in less clothes lolling around the swimming pool and so on.
All this in the name of upholding / protecting the tamil culture.
I was surprised to read this.

The may be times when there are some dirty ugly parties too , but I guess only adults who are old enough to make their own choices attend these parties. I don’t want to dwell on the issues of moral right and wrong.

Why should the police consider themselves protectors of the culture?
Their department is corrupted to the core. May be the one among the most corrupted in the world. Every one takes bribes… from the lowest ranking official to the highest. Personally I have seen a traffic policeman take a bribe from a speeding motorist. power corrupts and absolute powers corrupts absolutely.
Any woman in her right sense would never walk in to the police station to complain about anything. that’s the level of trust we have in the police. Yesterday too in the paper, there was an article where a girl who was taken into custody, was assaulted by the police inspector in charge.

So much for the moral policing ! ! !

Christmas Tree

We put up the Christmas tree at home last week. I did not have time to transfer the picture, hence didn’t put it up. We bought it last week. It’s a lovely tree and most of all Tarun baby is very happy about it.

Chris Mother Chris Child

Christmas time in office, and we are playing the Chris Mother Chris Child game.All those who
wanted to participate gave our names, and all the names were put into a pouch and we picked
up one name from the lot.
The Rules go like this: You are not to reveal yourself to your Chris child. To keep it a
suspense till the 21st. You are to get gifts for your Chris child, if possible, every day
starting from the 12th to the 21st, the last day of the game.On the 21st you are to get a grand gift for your Chris mom and one for your Chris child.We will have the gift exchange event on the 21st.
We can use our collegues to carry gifts to our Chris child, over a promise of secrecy.
Some of us dont even even know if ours is a Pa or a Ma.
The organizing team has also created a group id to which the Chris Children can mail and
thank their Chris Ma / Pa .


Samples of the Thank You mails :
Thank you for the gift and the card mom.... it was gr8 :)
Christmom/ dad, Thank you so much for your cute gifts.
hey chris ma thank u chooooooooooooooo much for the beautiful GIFT's...........
Thank U Chris Mom for presenting me chocs( My favrte One) & key
chain.that smiley key chain was awesome.Tks a lot ;))))
Hey Chris Ma/Pa ...Thank u so much for the yummy cake !!!!
Chris Parent --- Your gifts were awesome .. Thanks a bunch .. The teddy bear was huggly
wuggly cute !!!! :-)


And coming to myself
I gave my Chris child a pack of choclates
From my Chris mom, i got a pair of pretty earrings. Coincidence was that it perfectly
matched the clotes i wore
My friend / collegue has gone out of town, and i adopted his Chris child and bought him a Choclate Trouffle.
My friend will be back next week, so till then i am the parent :-)
I courired 5 gifts to various Chris children of Various Chris ma 's / pa's
Its great fun.No matter the size or cost of the gift, the joy one has when giving and receiving is awesome!!!
Joy to the World and God Bless Us All ....

Endae Keralam, Ethra Sundaram

On the fourth of this month, i happened to watch the Malayalam news on the Asianet channel and believe me, i was shocked.
The political party and the party workers belonging to the K Karunakaran faction, was holding a meeting. Suddenly the party workers of the party that K Muralidharan belongs to, barged in and started assaulting everyone and every thing in sight. Humans, mikes, tube lights, chairs, tables. Even the press and cameras were not spared. Father Karunakaran, a veteran Congress man, and son Muralidharan also belonging to the Congress party, and the battle never stops.
I was shocked to see a woman clad in a white sari, along with a group of men, beating up a youth from the other party.
Father and son against each other politically and the end result is that it puts the political ideologies to shame. Gods Own Country, indeed !!!!!!!!!!