My love affair with cheese cake!

After 4 years of literally living in School of Computing , I was surprised to discover that I never knew about the existence of amazing cheese cakes in Western Stall! Happy days, sad days,rainy days or plain stressful days, my to-go comfort food has been the olive rice with yummy mushroom sauce with baked beans or the tomato veggie pasta with fries. Add to that, the warm friendly stall owner who never fails to remember my order and wish me a good day! So, boy, was I excited to realize that they sell cheesecakes - that too in an assortion of flavours  - oreo, chocolate mousse,plain vanilla and blueberry!

I was like this -

After having a bite , I repeated the exact same words of Rachel in Friends!

"It has a buttery ,crumbly, graham cracker crust,with a very rich yet light,cream cheese filling...Oh my God, this is the best cheesecake I have ever had!"

Though a tad bit expensive, there was some major re-shuffling of my top 10 favorite foods of all time! I had it again today, while watching the new Suits episode(which was awesome,btw) on a rainy afternoon and my friday was just made! :) I am officially adding this to my weekly weekend rituals!

When life gives you people..

I recently came across an Abraham Lincoln quote : "I don't like that man , I must get to know him better". It set me thinking.

All of us have personal preferences about the type of people we hang out with. Commonalities bring people together , differences further apart. But what if we choose to treat the next random person we meet as our future best friend? What if we give him/her the benefit of doubt and try our best to focus on the aspects of the person that we like? What if we take the first step to shed the invisible barriers?

Honest Abe is indeed telling us that it is the people we don't like that we must get to know better, for these are the people we are likely to have misjudged and from whom we stand to learn.

Don't you think that people who don't like you would feel differently if they knew you better? Perhaps, it's time to turn the table around!

Mamma love!

In a moment of epiphany, I wrote a small poem dedicated to my Mom, for the wonderful person she is!

You have taught me to dream high,
But in all success,to keep my head low
You have taught me to help the poor,
And to move with the rich,all in the same flow!

I remember crying into a pillow,
That pillow being your lap.
You hugged me tight,
While I slipped into a nap.

You have stayed up all night,
To pray to Almighty for me
To make sure I am happy
That's all you always want me to be!

I wait for your sweet voice,
Every time I turn on skype
Even in the loneliest of moments,
Your virtual presence makes everything seem alright!

I don't remember you wishing for anything,
All your wishes are to keep the family happy
I doubt I will ever be as selfless as you,
And if that day ever comes,I will owe it all to you.

Through these incredible 21 years,
You have guided me in every step I take
Filling the house with love,music and books
Full of wonderful role models to emulate.
 
Mamma ,my best friend and soul sister,
I love you a thousand times over!
I may not say this enough,
But I am the luckiest daughter ever!

Airports : Love for a life in limbo

I spent the night at Changi airport,Singapore on one of my regular bi-yearly trips back home and the following is an excerpt :

They say that if you want to experience the depth of human emotions,you have to go to airports.The place brims with raw human emotions. I see tears of joy and laughter all under the same roof.At the departure gate, I see tearful adieus and parting hugs, while the arrival gate is full of over-joyous families eagerly scouring the sea of passengers for a familiar face.

I see love, of re-united partners after long months of living apart. I see happiness, in the eyes of those who are finally heading off to adventures they have planned for years. I see anxiety,the fear that sits in the bellies of those who hate flying. I see a sense of urgency - busy clerks typing away boarding passes, hurried passengers running to their final boarding call, and excited passengers buying duty-free presents for their loved ones. I see a microcosm of the world we live in,of so many cultures, backgrounds , languages and ways of living : the super-elite frequent flyer, the adventurous teenage backpacker, the young man ready to start life anew in a foreign destination, the excited family on their first visit to a new country, the dreamy honeymooners eager to know everything there's to know about each other.

It's a place where life's small moments loom large. For a person who finds joy in the unknown, airports are the best places to have conversations with random people and to learn about life from new perspectives. It's a life in limbo, a temporary place where you can choose who you want to be. It gives a renewed sense of direction ,spirit and adventure. There's something surreal about leaving a place behind,bidding adieu to your loved ones, walking alone through security , and watching the plane takeoff from a land you have begun to call your own. You leave it all behind to start all over again in a new destination. One cannot help but feel so many emotions, one cannot help but feel alive!

Oscar speech that moved me!

Lupita Nyong begins her Oscar winning speech with these lovely words "It doesn't escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else's".

Deeply touched by such a profound thought, I realize that it is the most candid confession I have ever heard in my life. Isn't it true that it is only because of the selfless sacrifices of so many people known or unknown,  that we are able to lead a happy and contended life?

Few people can move me to tears with their words and this stunning woman is one of them. She signs off by saying "No matter where you are from , remember that your dreams are valid!" All I want to do is to run up to her and hug her for such a deserving award!

Would you be willing to work for free?

I had an interesting discussion with a good friend regarding career choices. He asked me an interesting question : If money was not a factor,what do you want to do in life? At one level ,this is a great question because it liberates you from the realities of life, of planning the future and of taking care of family and that may enable you to make choices with no constraints.

But life is not so simple! Hence, this is a question not to be asked at all. If money had not been a factor in people's career choices , we would still be in stone age. Almost all great historical events were driven by a motivation to become powerful and rich. The Industrial revolution started with the curiosity to make more things in shorter periods of time and hence become richer faster. Information Revolution was largely led by military research. Again to become more powerful. Space Age was started by competition between USSR and USA : competition for power. Nothing significant could have been achieved without a desire to become rich and powerful. Given a chance, I am sure all of us would love to sit in the comforts of our homes and relax all day long. Motivation to work harder comes for a pursuit of money, power or fame. Of course, if the job makes you happy, it is just a side benefit!

There is a very minuscule minority of people in this world who would be willing to work for free. Competition,money,power,fame,stability are some of the few things that influence people's career choices. Take it all away, and we are left with nothing but aspiration-less homo sapiens hunting for the next meal of the day.

Live,laugh and love!

It's a mad mad world out there! There are just too many things to do and so little time. In a rush to check off the next item on our to-do list, we sometimes forget to share our lives meaningfully with people whom we truly care about. Sometimes being content with what you have and taking time to live,laugh and love is the best way out.

Don't take life too seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway!

The joy of changing your mind often!

I believe in everyday learning, even if that means un-learning and re-learning . While I hold my views on a wide array of topics, I can be easily convinced to alter my views as long as the arguments are valid. For example, I used to hate texting on phones a few years ago when the mobile era was just booming. I complained that messaging is very impersonal compared to calling. But once I was introduced to the power of online messaging and emails, I realised that my earlier opinion was too short-sighted.

Nowadays, people keep in touch with loved ones in far-off lands through free messaging apps. I especially admire 80 year old grandparents who are adept with the usage of smartphones and facebook. Born from a generation when phones were unheard of , to using modern tech gadgets surely takes a constant shift in mindset.

Some people might say that it is important to maintain individuality. But I think that it's even more important to change your mind often, to adopt and adapt and to find joy in this iterative process. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says that people who are right most of the time are also people who change their minds often. It is perfectly okay to have an idea tomorrow that contradicts the idea that you held today.

It's easy to live in a world of denial. But to be able to say "Yes,I was wrong" takes courage. So, always be open to new ideas, new points of view, new information and challenges to pre-existing notions! In fact, this trait is essential to survive in a world that's changing so fast.

Avial of world cuisines!

Avial : Sound Indian concotion of delectable vegetables,curd and coconut! Needless to say , it's a post about South Indian food!

Every time I introduce my paati to a new dish from a different cuisine, she immediately comes up with a South Indian equivalent .She gets so excited that she tries in vain to prove to me and my sister,how much healthier "our" food is!

Amused , we decided to publish Paati’s Noruku Theeni Dictionary of American Confectionary

"Their" dish vs "Our" dish

Pizza - Vegetable dosai

Burger - Vada pav

Onion rings - Vengaya bajji

Noodles - Lemon sevai

Donut - Thithipu vadai

Falafal - Palapalam (ok just because they sound similar?!)

Buritto - Chappathi kalanda sadham

Hashbrown - Potato bonda

Icecream - Frozen payasam

Tomato soup - Rasam

Chips - Appalam/vadam

Cornflakes - Oats Kanji

Cappucino - Filter kapi

According to pakathu aathu maama, the law of tambrahm culinary has it , that for every foreign dish, there is an equal and tastier saathvika("our") saapadu.Besh besh,mama ! Kalakitel pongo.

Concentration camps in Tamil Nadu

The following is an excerpt from a page in future history textbooks of TN:

"During the era of information revolution where engineering colleges were sprouting along erstwhile forested and barren land in Tamil Nadu, a group of incapable administrators conducted Indian equivalents of concentration camps in the hallowed corridors of sprawling campuses, in the name of good education. The students however found an avenue to explore their creativity by trying to break every foolish rule imposed by 'educated' farcical administrators. At the end of the 4 years of step-by-step removal of intellectual curiosity through rote learning, batches of students were exported to greener pastures of USA,presently known as United Students of American Indians.

The following manuscript is a sample rules page of a so-called famous engineering institution in Chennai , capital of Tamil Nadu"

Every Tom,Dick and Harry has started an engineering college to amass wealth. Laws of extrapolation has it that there will soon be more private engineering colleges than students in TN.

While people like me have successfully escaped torturous 4 years of prison-school education by studying abroad, there are many who will still continue to sell their family wealth to secure admission seats through "quota" to get an also-ran B.E title. Everyone first becomes an engineer ,then they figure out what to do. It's a gateway to secure seats for graduate education in foreign institutions ,a means to an end.

While the rest of the world is busy upgrading the quality of their educational institutions, technical institutions in Tamil Nadu continue to impose superficial rules, curb personal freedom, discourage originality, employ barely knowledgeable staff, perform plagiarised research, systematically reduce the intellectual curiosity of thousands of brilliant students, make them pay hordes of money for zero knowledge returns and ship them to US for them to never return back. US economy keeps growing while Indian economy keeps going down. Cause : Not dearth of talent but destruction of quality of education.

We seem to have this strategy nailed down for two decades. Everyone resents it,but why is nothing being done about it?

Here's a crazy solution a friend had : "Every student should write Anne Frankesque diaries of their traumatic four years and publish them , maybe that will open the eyes of the greedy administrators" :P

Carpe Diem!

I love this latin phrase . It means "Seize the day! Make your life extraordinary!" made famous in the movie Dead Poets Society. It reminds me of a lovely poem by William Ernest Henley.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
   Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
   For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
   I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
   My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
   Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
   Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
   How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
   I am the captain of my soul.