Partly Yours, Partly Lost

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Some places stay with you long after life has moved elsewhere. There is something strange about destiny. You just cannot overcome it, but at the same time, you cannot simply do nothing because something is destined to happen. In India, it is not uncommon to have your horoscope charted about a year after birth. Grandparents wait with bated breath to hear how well the stars were aligned, and what remedies might be needed to appease the Gods. So when I was a year old, my grandmother took my birth date and time to Dharmaraja Ghanapadigal, one of the most revered astrologers in Pudukkottai. He apparently told her that I would do reasonably well in studies, travel to multiple countries, and eventually live abroad. Here was an old lady asking about her grandson from a small town. My parents were then living in Gobichettipalayam. This was the eighties, long before economic reforms had changed the country. My grandmother thanked him politely, but quietly wondere...
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Mor Kuzhambu

Whoa! What's this mysterious sounding word. This is nothing but a South Indian sambar made from curds. What a paradox! Sambar and curds getting combined. Yeps! That's the speciality of this item. It was Saturday evening at 6 o' clock. The baays in my room got ready to experiment on yet another item. Oh! I had a sound sleep for an hour and as I got up, I was smacking my lips seeing the dish. We laid down the matress on the carpet, the mor kuzhambu and aloo curry. One of my roommates got up to take the container of yoghurt from the refrigerator. On seeing the brand of yoghurt, I let out a scream. We can't have the curds. It has gelatin. So, I told them, we won't have the curds today. So, my roommate gave out an equally loud scream...In that case, we can't have the kuzhambu too! Then it struck us what had happened. There was curds in the kuzhambu. For a moment all of us were caught on the wrong foot. Here we have a mouth watering dish right in front of us but just not in the position to taste it. So, we decided to give away the dish to our non-vegetarian counterparts in the apartment below. They were delighted to have it.

So, we had to do with some of the podis that we had got and the mor kuzhambu transformed into nil-kuzhambu. But we also thanked our stars in just missing out on testing the sample of gelatin unknowingly.

The bottom line is being a vegetarian is fine but to practise it real hard is indeed real hard. I just hope we live upto the name of vegetarians knowingly (of course) as well as unknowingly.

PS : If anybody wants the recipe of this item, get in touch with me :-)

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 6, 2005 at 11:09 PM

    He he.. That was amazing. Aama, do you know that Gelatin is present in icecreams? Dont tell me you'd give up on eating icecreams!!! Appadi partha, milk is an animal product. Veggies Thayir saadham saapida koodathu!!Come on maaaaaaaaaan :P

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  2. AnonymousJuly 4, 2007 at 11:54 AM

    that comment is incorrect. gelatin is not an ingredient of icecreams that i am aware of. on the other hand, capsules contain gelatin (and that cannot be helped!).

    - s.b.

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  3. Praveen KrishnanJuly 4, 2007 at 1:36 PM

    SB: Yeah, there are certain things that cannot be avoided. Nothing much that can be done about it!!!

    ReplyDelete

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