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Showing posts with the label nostalgia

When Destiny Sends Its Helpers

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Keep running. The right people find you on the way. At different stages of life, you’re confronted with different challenges. And each time you cross a hurdle, you feel that familiar sense of accomplishment. It’s tempting to attribute that success to your own skill, tenacity, and willpower — to pat yourself on the back and feel proud of how you handled it. But when you zoom out and look at the moments where you somehow managed to trump the odds, a quieter realization sets in: It’s never just you. There is always an unseen army that shows up at the right time. It was 2005. I had decided to pursue my Master’s in the US. I picked a few schools in the Midwest where the expenses were manageable, and that’s how the University of Missouri–Rolla entered the picture. But funding was still a massive question mark. I hadn’t secured any assistantship, and we didn’t have the means to pay out of pocket. We went from bank to bank, hoping for an education loan. Each manager aske...
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The Quiet Between Two Rings of a Landline

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A rotary phone – the slowest and somehow the most peaceful form of communication. This was the early nineties. Most homes didn’t have a landline. Mine didn’t either. And strangely, nobody thought it was a problem. If my father came home late from work, the family didn’t panic — we simply assumed: traffic, work, or he met a friend, in that order. My mother didn’t have a “Find My Kid” app. Her version was: divine trust and a loud voice. My brother and I would disappear into a gully or a friend’s apartment complex for hours. We walked to the library, roamed three streets away to play cricket, and trekked half a mile to Malleswaram 18th Cross ground — returning home at 6:30 or 7, covered in dust and joy. Parents assumed kids would eventually wander back home the way cows return at dusk. No drama. No helicopter parenting. Just life moving at its own calm pace. Postcards and inland letters — the original long-distance messaging apps. With no phone at home, the only wa...
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A Few Steps from Home, A Lifetime of Faith

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Some bonds are formed not in conversation, but in quiet trust. Some companions never speak — they just walk beside you, through every chapter of life. Hanuman Temple As you grow older, simple things begin to hold deeper meanings. When I was a kid, I would visit the Hanuman temple near the Malleswaram Railway Station almost every day. I’d do my pradakshanams — the quiet circumambulations — and whisper to Lord Hanuman to help me do the right thing. Over time, the visits became less of a request and more of a rhythm — part of the everyday music of life. Just a short walk from home, the temple stood like a familiar friend. And yet, it became more than a place — it became a witness. Every important moment in my life was somehow tied to that small shrine. Before paying my exam fee, I would stop there. Before collecting my hall ticket for the tenth and twelfth board exams — it went straight to Hanuman’s feet first. Before campus placements. Befor...
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When Grammar Met Clarity

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Writing has always fascinated me. It’s such an interesting aspect of communication; you can pretty much convey anything you want, in any way you want. Even a grammatically incorrect sentence can carry its full meaning. Yet, somewhere along the way, we began mistaking good communication for intelligence. “Oh, he writes and speaks so well.  He must be smart.” Good communication can create a false sense of technical pride. I grew up believing that grammatical precision was the measure of knowledge. But in hindsight, that wasn’t entirely me; it was my teachers. They were absolutely particular that every sentence not only conveyed meaning, but also respected the sanctity of grammar. A misplaced article or preposition could invite the harshest of corrections. Yesterday, my wife and I were talking about writing and as all conversations these days eventually do, it veered toward our kids’ writing. We were laughing over Sahana’s recent schoolwork: a delightful mix of humor, dialogue, and im...
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My journey with Sandhyavandanam

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I was in my second year of Engineering, and my parents decided to conduct my Upanayanam ceremony. Upanayanam, as I have referred in my earlier posts, is a sacred rite of passage that marks a boy's passage into spiritual learning. Anyway, the Upanayanam was done. After that, I had to begin the trikaala (three times a day) Sandyavandanam - morning, noon and evening. Sandhyavandanam is done by chanting the Gayathri Mantra to foster spritual growth and well-being. It's a way to connect with the divine energy. If you ChatGPT the significance of Sandhyavandanam, I am sure there will be a detailed explanataion of what it means inspite of whatever hallucination you see ChatGPT spitting out.   I was 20. After the Upanayanam, you are expected to do Sandhyavandanam by learning from the elders at home. My father, I have never seen him do Sandhyavandanam. How do I get started? The vaadhyar (priest) who conducted my Upanayanam came on the first day, performed the Sandhyavandanam wit...
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CTR, Vidyarthi Bhavan & Rameshwaram Cafe

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The iconic CTR Masala Dosa Bangalore is home to the best benne masala dosas in the world.  I have had dosas in many places around the world, and I keep coming back to the ones in Bangalore.  Even a simple darshini - a quick stand and eat joint - serves a dosa that lingers in memory.  People often debate Karnataka vs. Tamil Nadu dosas. For me, there’s no comparison. Tamil Nadu dosas are fluffy, while Karnataka’s are crisp, thanks to a touch of rice flakes in the batter. That crisp magic keeps bringing me back. Anyway, during the current trip, I made my customary stop at CTR (Central Tiffin Room) .  Malleswaram itself is a place I miss dearly - the bustle of 8th Cross, the street vendors, the old trees lining Margosa and Sampige roads. And there, on the corner of 9th Cross, stands CTR - unchanged for decades.    I ordered my favorite masala dosa. The wait always feels the longest, but once it arrived, I was transported. The crisp golden dosa, the chutneys, th...
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Krishnar Thaalattu (Krishna's lullaby)

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Summer holidays were spent in the confines of our ancestral home at Pudukkotai, Tamil Nadu in the presence of many elders - paati (grandmother), athai paati (mother's aunt), thatha (grandfather), many mannis (aunts) and mamas (uncles).  There was an earthly charm in doing some of the mundane things as kids.  For us, they were anything but mundane.  Playing under the sun in a nearby maidaan (grounds) in soaring Tamil Nadu heat is no joke.  Our bodies would be dripped in sweat, and we would be coaxed by the elders to come back home for a break. " Ennada, ippadi thoppala nenanjundu vandhurkel ," they would say. (You guys are absolutely soaked). "Go wash your hands and feet, or why don't you take a shower".  Taking a shower was pointless, because after a mini break of having lunch, we would head out again.  In a matter of minutes, we would again be soaking. Being the eldest in the family, I was supposed to have responsibility.  My partner in crime w...
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Bangalore cinemas

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Nataraj Theater (courtesy: Flickr ) The times were clearly in favor of standalone theaters in Bangalore; a time when multiplexes were an unheard of phenomenon.  A building hosted a single theater that could withstand a capacity of about six hundred or more people easily.  There was a clear demarcation between the first class and the balcony tickets.  Just like the categories bestowed by the Indian railways, first class seating was second best in this case as well.  The balcony tickets were the premium priced tickets and people clamored well in advance to get the special seats.  It was priced more not without a reason.  It was a good ten or twenty feet above the supposedly inferior seating arrangement, and the viewers seated in this area did not have to crane their necks to catch the reel life heroes in action. Plaza (courtesy: Flickr ) Like today, the nineties too believed in location centric charges.  A theater in a good location charged a...
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The lost years

We walked into the new millennium, almost ten years ago, and life just seems to move on at such a rapid pace that some of the years seem as if they have never existed. We are in the mid 2009, and somehow, the last ten years have all, but been forgotten. The realization seems to hit hard when it dawns that it has been more than a decade since I have passed out of my tenth standard (grade). But, if you ask me when India last won the cricket world cup, I would say, Oh, that was about 17 years ago . It just does not seem like 25 years ago!!!! The years best remembered are captured by events - small or big. The most unforgettable moment of my few years of existence always has to be that one moment - running to school, just across a couple of streets from home, to check out my tenth standard results. It just feels like yesterday. The other events always seem to revolve around that single focal point. Second PUC (twelfth), Bachelors and Masters seem like a culmination of efforts that ...
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Congress kadalekai

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For my friends who know what kind of a passionate Bangalorean I am, it will come as no surprise that Congress kadalekai figures in my list of posts. Kadalekai (groundnuts/ peanuts) is more or less a staple chaat (snack) in Bangalore (don't want to get carried away just by mentioning Bangalore, since it is popular throughout India) with various alterations to the preparation style lending a lip smacking effect. Groundnuts can be roasted, boiled, peeled and boiled (note the difference between the two), added to sambar (south Indian lentil soup, to give a loose translation, though soup in no way adds justification to the translation), to curries (a sort of a side-dish when having your meal with sambar or rasam (a bracket within a bracket is required just to say that rasam is a toned down version of sambar with less lentils) or curd rice). I feel happy to know that I have closed the brackets properly, thanks to the numerous compiler errors I have faced because of incomplete bracket...
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Reliving and awaiting...

For the past few days, I tried to read the much recommended book of " Freakonomics ", and as I gradually made my way to the middle of the book, I thought it was time to quit what I was reading and venture out to something different. Definitely, it had some funny anecdotes, but I guess, it was not the right time to read the book. It really depends on your frame of mind to enjoy a particular book. So, I called it quits (yes, yes, yet another book) and wanted to read something which reminded me of home. Who else can I turn to, but our very own, RKN . I desperately wanted to read Bachelor of Arts , in spite of the fact that I have read this countless times in the past. If somebody asks me to list out my favorite RKN book, I would list out Swami and Friends , but inherently, I would gloat over Bachelor of Arts and take immense pleasure, as if I was the author of this wonderful literary piece. In spite of having written a review of this book earlier , I just can't contr...
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Life changing moments, really?

Our lives are governed by a random set of fleeting moments that, with the passage of time, it is rather easy to realize which of those are going to assume significance. It is the way we play these moments that propel our way forward, for good or bad. These moments, when viewing in retrospect, define whether we have moved well in time. Of course, whatever happens, we move ahead in time, but the way we move forward rests exclusively on these testing times. As I bring back these nostalgic moments in life, moving back and forth, with a chain of events that has transformed me considerably in the last so many years, I am not sure whether I could have altered my life by taking a different course of action. Looking back, it is easy to say which are the right decisions, and which of those, if I had gone with the other choice, could have got me in a much better position. I say, one or the other, because all important decisions are taken from one of the two choices that we are presented with...
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The rice vault

The last few days, I read quite a few blog posts, each expressing the level of attachment to home made conventional South Indian food - sambar, rasam, mor kuzhambu, poruchcha kuzhambu and the variants, which border a lot on the similarities than the differences! I was tempted to write one too! There are a hundred different varieties of food that use the same paste or the same kind of powder, but our taste buds are so well designed, that it is easy to differentiate the food just based on the whiff of the odor emanating from the kitchen. But in spite of the commonalities, I make it a point to call up home to try out the different kinds. My mother would patiently list out the ingredients, and after a point I had got used to the contents of the mixture. The sambar had to have the pulses cooked from the cooker, the rasam had to have the same pulses, but of lesser quantity and more liquefied, and almost every other paste had the same contents. So, after a point, I had stopped jotting ...
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Oh! Freebies, freebies!

It was a fairly new concept in the mid-nineties to offer giveaways along with the main product. In the nineties? Yeah, I think so, because that was the time when life started making some sense. It's a different matter altogether that I have lost it completely now! It was great to explore new paths, and be awestruck by everything around. Well, this post is not about the new found wisdom of the wonder kids. OK, let's get back to where we started. Knowing me, you can well fathom, how quickly I tend to digress. How many of you remember seeing advertisements on the television promoting an offer along with the main product? Buy a 500 grams packet of Complan , and get a Complan mug free! Buy two refill packs of Boost , and get a bat signed by Sachin Tendulkar and Kapil Dev absolutely free! But a 250 grams packet of Red Label tea, and get a stainless spoon (who cares!), absolutely free! Buy a refill pack of Maltova , and get a nice cricket cap , free! Buy a refill pack of Bou...
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Rolla; Graduation walk and Nostalgia

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Pic: Graduation ceremony at Recreation Center Life is rife with little expectations; the little things that can spruce and spice up your life in equal measure. In today's highly global world, it is not unusual to find friends in even the remotest part of the world. United States may be the largest country in the world with vast space, but every state in the US is filled with a known face. It is truly heartening to know that there is nothing to worry when you land up in a new place, because you just can't be devoid of friends. The flip side is that, with so many people in different areas, it has become increasingly difficult to find a common meet-up place. So, when you get a chance to meet up for the right occasion, we just have to make use of it totally. These little expectations may not change your life, but this fleeting passage of a quick time out together leaves you lingering for more. Pic: Graduates seated! So, last weekend was a great way to break the norms of life...
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