Exercising my franchise

A violet-mark day in my life! I voted for a government election for the first time today. Yes!

The voting came with all the attendant Indian-voting tamasha. We waited for over an hour at the election-booth while voting-machine malfunction was corrected. This was of course accompanied with plenty of shouting, self-importanting and useless stand-bying. Some people walked away in frustration but the majority of voters stood their ground declaring that they were prepared to stand for however long it took for the malfunction to be corrected. I was rewarded for my patience with a violet mark on my finger and a chance to press a key on the voting machine. Yaay - I am now a part of the democratic process!

Marked finger! And no, I don't have dirty nails - it's just that they put too much ink which then spread around!

Other stuff:
1. Since the time I turned 18, it has been a long-standing desire of mine to get that mark on my finger. I remember how my cousin sat on election-day furiously painting her finger-nails. Her sister enquired why she was doing so instead of getting ready to go and vote for the first time. Cousin smartly said, "I want my nails to look pretty when they apply that mark".

2. This election's campaigning has been a whole lot of fun to watch. The various party-affliated television channels showed speeches from their own candidates - some of them were pretty entertaining. There were also plenty of party-ads and smear campaigning too. Of course, there was our truth, their truth and the real truth. Very interesting. Ever since the campaigning stopped, I have been missing this entertainment a lot.

3. I hear quite a lot of working professionals have treated the election-holiday as a vacation and have gone out of town since today is followed by a lot of public holidays. I wonder how educated people especially can be so irresponsible. These people are probably the same ones who will later complain long and hard about how the government is awful and does nothing for the welfare of the people. Even if you don't want to support any candidate, at least file the option to not choose any candidate! At least you will prevent bogus-voting! It is your duty as a citizen of a democracy.

4. Why on earth is it taking a whole long month to reveal the results of the election? Something does not sound right at all.

5. Some of the election-related SMS-es that have been floating around have been really witty. Sigh, I am going to miss the end of the elections!

How to survive Chennai summer when there is no electricity

The way electricity supply works in Chennai these days is, the hotter it gets, the lesser the electricity available. Thus, when the fans and ACs are working hard to cool you off, electricity to the said devices is shut off. I suppose this is the government's way of building our character. After all, if we can survive the Chennai heat without electricity, then we must be able to handle almost all types of adverse situations, no? See, our government does so much for our welfare. Does yours do that?

Anyways, back to the point. This morning I was busy working when all the lights and fans went out leaving an eerie silence behind. That is, till the generator at the bank next door started up. Yup, we had had a power shut down. I frantically rifled through the newspaper again. I had read that parts of our neighborhood was having "maintenance" shut down but not our specific area. Oh, by the way, what once used to be called as "power-cuts" or "load-shedding", now has a new fancy name: maintenance. Though one's mind keenly wonders how certain areas of Chennai need this maintenance shut down *every* week. Exactly what is being maintained? The body-heat level of the concerned citizens?

Anyhoo - a second glance at the paper revealed that our entire neighborhood had been snuck in under some other area's power-cut schedule. Great - so we were not going to have electricity at home till 6.00pm.

Due to various reasons, I had to stay put at home. I survived. How can you do the same?

1. Live in a house which has at least one floor above it (and hence whose roof does not get direct sunlight). If not this, the house should at least be surrounded by trees. If neither of the above conditions are true, tough luck. The rest of the points will not help you. On the brighter side, you will get a bird's eye view of chennai as you evaporate. (Alternately, hit one of the closed air-conditioned malls for the day.)

2. This is a no-brainer - be dressed in cool cotton clothes.

3. Do not move unless absolutely necessary. If at all you have to move, finish whatever you need to do and then come back and sit down quietly till you stop sweating. Permitted sweat-free activities include reading a book, listening to music and fanning yourself.

4. Under no circumstance should you go into the kitchen and light the stove. If this means surviving on water-melon and yogurt from the non-functioning refrigerator for lunch, so be it.

5. Do not make the mistake of bathing. Contrary to what you think, a bath will make you sweat even more profusely, rendering it an absolute waste of time and water.

6. Drink plenty of water. Follow the directions in step 3 to come back to sweat-free status once you have made the trip to fetch the water. Or, be smart and make one trip to get a few bottles of water to keep beside you.

7. If you need to talk on the phone, keep the conversation to neutral topics. Any kind of excitement increases your heart rate and thus your sweating tendencies.

8. Do not go outside the house even if it is only for a few minutes. Once you have gotten some sun on you, coming back to sweat-free status without a fan or AC is very hard.

9. Do not drink hot beverages of any kind. Even if a cup of tea is the only thing that will take you through the noon slump. Chew gum instead or if you have been doing all the things outlined in the above eight points, you can even be lucky enough to sneak in a quick nap (no blankets).

10. Most important of all, do not focus on the missing electricity. This will just cause anger and irritation and that will, you know, cause sweat.

Ta da, now you can grin about a job well done when the turning of the fan alerts you the return of electricity to your home!

Mercifully, thus far, my neighborhood has not had a lot of prolonged outages - this is the first one for the year. The comming summer months will see me keeping my fingers crossed tight. Amen!

* Picture courtesy here.

The ICC 2011 World Cup is ours!

Winners

We won and how! Congratulations Team India! Finally, we can stop looking back at 1983 and start looking at 2011. YES!!!!

Image courtesy www.cricinfo.com

Jana gana...

Who has sung the Indian national anthem which plays at the beginning of every 2011 ICC World Cup cricket match featuring India? Why on earth are they singing it soooooo slowly? It sounds more like something sung as an accompaniment to a funeral march (going by some of India's performances, perhaps it was appropriate but that is a whole different topic).

Especially during the last bit of Jaya he, Jaya he, it seriously sounds like the singers fell asleep to their own singing, woke up with a jerk, remembered they had not yet completed the song and finished singing the rest of it. There are such long pauses between each of the Jaya Hes!

Aren't anthems supposed to inspire you? And shouldn't that inspiration be to enthusiastically DO something rather than enthusiastically hunt for the nearest comfortable couch or bed for a snooze?

We have an awesome national anthem - is it too much to ask for it to not be sung by what seems to be a bunch of geriatric people woken up from deep sleep?

Update: Oh we won, we won! We won the match against Australia! I really should stop watching these matches - my heart isn't built to withstand such stress! But yeah, we won :-D :-D :-D!

The great living Chola temples

About a week back, we made an awesome surprise (all planned by S) visit to Swamimalai, a quaint temple village located near the temple-town of Kumbakonam. The entire area is located in the very fertile Cauvery delta region and thus is generously dotted with lush fields and abundant greenery.

Green paddy fields

The area also has several other towns which are places of historical significance. The Chola dynasty (more than a 1000 years ago) reigned in this area. The Cholas, those avid lovers of art and culture, showcased their sculptural and architectural skills in a number of temples constructed throughout the region.

Of these temples, three of them, the Brihadeshwara temple, the Gangai Konda Cholapuram temple and the Darasuram temple are marked as UNESCO heritage sites. In the case of the last of the aforementioned temples, this was huge stroke of luck - it is quite possible that the beauty of the temple would have been left to crumble into ruins otherwise.

Brief historical aside: The three temples above were built by Raja Raja Chola I, his son Rajendra Chola and his grandson, Raja Raja Chola II. All three temples have similar styles of architecture.

I have visited Gangai Konda Cholapuram temple once before during childhood. All I could remember was I loved walking through the temple compound and the green lawn. So, this time around I was quite thrilled to visit it again. The temple was still as beautiful as I remembered it to be. We took plenty of pictures and tried to decipher the sculptures and carvings as best as we could. In retrospect, we should have hired a guide here too (see below).

Views of the Gangai konda cholapuram temple.*

At Darasuram, thanks to my sister's suggestion, we hired a guide. Our mouths fell open as he showed us the amount of detailing that had gone into every pillar, every window, every ceiling and every wall of the temple. Each pillar showcased a different story or a different scene. Miniature sculptures too stayed true to intricate detailing. We could see for ourselves that what the guide had said in his intro was absolutely true: Darasuram truly was a temple built to celebrate beauty!

Darasuram temple up close.*

As we walked around the temple, I swelled with pride. After all, isn't it wonderful to know your ancestors were purveyors of such talent and beauty! I wished I could close my eyes and go back a 1000 years to the time the temple was built...

Staying true to the spirit of the trip, we were lucky to stay in a resort which was actually a renovated agraharam. The resort maintained its antique-rustic ambiance throughout its property which was totally delightful.

The agraharam turned resort.*

My only regret was that we did not have time to visit the Brihadeshwara temple. Next time, for sure!

But, as a lovely way to relive the trip, I picked up the English translation of Kalki's Ponniyin Selvan, a book I have wanted to read for a very long time (my mom and aunts have raved about it for as long as I can remember). I am told that this book is a part-fictional/part-historic account of the life of Raja Raja Cholan (the builder of the aforementioned Brihadeshwara temple). Mom and Dad had pointed out several historical places on our way back from Swamimalai and now as I read the book, I grin everytime a place I saw is mentioned!

Anytime you make a trip to Tamilnadu, earmark a couple of these days for these marvels of Chola architecture!

* Click on the collages to enlarge.

Mumbai times

Impromptu trips are just SO great. All of a sudden, a routine week turns into something very much worth looking forward to. We had one just this past week. We were going to Mumbai where my sister and BIL live! And from there to Alibagh for a weekend stay. With family and extended family. Yaay!

So thrilled was I that my grin remained intact even as I scampered hard to meet work deadlines, threw clothes together feverishly into a suitcase in 30 minutes, wound up things at home and survived a night with only 2.5 hours of sleep to make it to an early morning flight. S matched me grin for grin just like he matched my rushed pace.

South Mumbai is an awesome place. The entire area has an old-world feel about it with cobbled streets, pretty architecture and quaint stores. Only thing, I was warned again and again that the trip from the airport to Colaba in South Mumbai would be a long one.

For the first time in my life, I saw Murphy's law work in reverse*. First thing, we were out of the plane 5 minutes after it landed. And we got our luggage almost as soon as we reached the luggage carousel (usually the arrival of my luggage signifies that all the luggage on the plane has been unloaded. And no, I am not exaggerating). And then the traffic was so unusually light that by the time I was told over phone (I have no idea what is where in Mumbai and hence had telephonic directions relayed to me) that I would be crossing some particular land-mark, I had already left it far behind. I was at my sister's place about 40 minutes before anyone expected me to. Yeah, I knew it was going to be a great trip!

And a great trip it was. We managed to do some mall-walking, plenty of great-food hogging and total week-end vacationing. I have fallen in love with all kinds of parathas. The feeling of a hot, freshly made, flaky paratha melting in your mouth is simply too divine to describe.

The beautiful coast

Sand, rocks and the sea.

Alibagh is a calm weekend getaway from Mumbai. We stayed in a place built in a mango orchard (the mangoes were alphonsos!! Pity it is not mango season yet) in airy, bright rooms.

View from the room

We woke to the sounds of chirping birds and ocean waves. Had breakfast, lunch and dinner made off the organic vegetables from the farm and fresh fish from the ocean. Got our exercise from walking to the scenic coast and from playing badminton. Got plenty of unwind time with laughter, chatter, drinking steaming cups of ginger chai, reading on the hammock, playing cards and did I mention, laughter? I can totally get used to this.

The fun bunch of travelers

Sunset as seen from the Alibagh ferry area.

My only complaint is that the trip was too short. Still, am totally basking in the glow of an awesome break. Vive la impromptu trips!

* When something can go right, it will.

Exercise

I have talked (or rather whined) about my exercising in various posts in this blog. My primary goal when I first started to exercise on a regular basis was to lose some weight and get some muscular definition.

For folks who have never exercised in their entire lives, even a few days of exercising can show a difference when looking in the mirror. Even other people notice enough to comment upon the altered appearance. And having muscles where none were before brought a high on its own. In short, it was quite easy to keep going.

But then, all new activities soon get the patina of boredom due to repetition. And sure enough, exercising too lost its charm.

Though I knew that exercising was helping me be fit and look better, it was still not a good enough motivation for me to do it regularly. Then I hit upon the idea of signing up for fitness classes. Knowing me, I knew I would feel guilty if I paid for classes and did not go since it would mean that the cost of every class I missed went down the drain (unlike the gym where I could always reason that I would go "tomorrow", though tomorrow sometimes never came for several weeks)

I was right. Where gyms had failed, fitness classes kept me exercising regularly. All this was back in the US.

Then, after we moved back to India, the first few months were too busy to think about resuming a regular fitness routine. I finally got back to exercising regularly in December. And of course, in January, I promptly fell sick. Fever and cough and cold and body-pain encourage lounging on the bed and not exercising.

Finally, I began to feel much better towards the end of January but (according to me  - I am great at finding excuses) still not in exercising shape. After all, I was feeling lethargic most of the time, sniffly-nosed and consequently, cranky .

But then after a week of excuses, even I became tired of them and finally decided that sniffles or not, I was going to start exercising regularly. I had exercised for 3 days in a row when it suddenly hit me that on all those 3 days, I was not lethargic and though the sniffles remained, they no longer made my cranky.

It did not take me too long to realize the only change I had made to my daily routine was to exercise. I had read in several sources about how exercise gives you energy and releases mood-enhancing endorphins. But, while I had always  agreed with being in a good-mood post-exercise (I attributed this to the wonderful feeling of knowing that I did not need to exercise for the rest of the day), I had always pooh-poohed the increased energy theory. Run over by a truck was what I usually felt like after exercising.

But now, I was a believer! I did have great energy for the rest of the day, the noon-time slump notwithstanding. And with this realization came another. Where I had not been motivated by the carrots of "being fit and looking good", I was motivated by "great energy and feel-good factor".

Not to say that I have now become an exercise freak. I still have to push myself to exercise on most of my designated exercise-days and I still sometimes continue lie down in bed long after being wide awake since getting up means having to exercise. However, it has become easier to not skip exercising and not come up with lame excuses since I started looking at exercise as something I do for mental and physical well-being and not for vanity.

Of course, since I have been enlightened only for a few weeks now, it is still too early to tell if this enlightenment too shall pass or not. Still, I am happy that it is working for now!

Indane

Indane is a great Indian company which sells LPG cylinders. Indane considers itself to be God's gift to Indians and makes sure you treat it with respect. After you register for a new connection with them, you wait, wait, wait and continue waiting till it generously decides to bestow a new connection to your name. Oh, the connection is not free or anything, of course, you have to pay for it. That way you can pay and feel extremely grateful for getting something you paid for too. Win-win all the way.

Among the other rules for getting a gas connection, is the rule that you should not have any other gas cylinder in house when procuring a connection. So essentially, when you wait, wait, wait, wait and continue to wait, you are expected to subsist with either wood-stoves or induction stoves or just keep buying your food from hotels. Since most people are not insane (wood stoves are too smoky, induction-stoves - haha, with the highly reliable electricity available here, you are kidding, right?, hotels would be too expensive and unhealthy), they borrow gas cylinders from kindhearted friends or relatives while they wait for the new connection to appear.

We applied for our LPG connection in August last year. After months of telling us they were processing our application, we finally got approval in the first week of February this year. Yaay, we got it in just 7 months - aren't we extra blessed or what? Right during the application process, S told the gas agency folks that we had a borrowed connection with a borrowed regulator due to the long drawn-out process of getting a new connection. Shouldn't be a problem, S was told.

Two days ago, a gas inspector came over to our place. Not for inspecting that the kitchen is well-ventilated or that the gas cylinder would be kept in a safe place. No siree - that would actually make the inspection useful.Turns out, his only job was to make sure that there was no other gas connection in the house.

Since I had no intention of dragging the borrowed cylinder and hiding it under the bed as soon as I saw the gas-inspector at the door, the inspector saw the borrowed cylinder in all its glory. The inspector then magnanimously told me that he would not report the existence of the other cylinder so we could get our own connection. I could not believe how he could shamelessly declare that while Indane took its own sweet time to grant us a connection, we are not supposed to have any alternatives. However, I did not say anything. In retrospect, this was apparently a mistake*.

Today I call up the Indane gas-agency asking what happened to our first cylinder which was supposed to have been delivered hours after the gas-inspection took place. Then we got the news.

After seven months of making us wait, the Indane Gods had gotten angry with us. Since we had a gas cylinder in the house, they had decided to cancel our application.

But I totally get it - how dare we mere mortals use borrowed LPG till the Indane Gods decided our time to use a LPG cylinder had come? Stupid, stupid mortals! When you are registered with Indane, till Indane says so, you don't get to use LPG. And hear ye mortal, Indane shalt make you repent your presumptuous folly. No LPG connection for you!

Thus, as of today, we are no longer in line for receiving our own LPG connection from Indane.

All this is happening in a the country which is aiming to become a future superpower. Bless its little heart.

p.s. BTW, the name of the gas-agency is Kalarani and it is located in Mylapore. Just letting you know so you know upfront what you are facing in case you get cursed and get assigned to them!

* When S went to the gas agency, he said the employees there actually hinted something like we had not grovelled enough for the connection. I guess I should have shed copious tears of gratitude and kissed the gas-inspector's feet when he magnanimously said he would not report the borrowed cylinder. Totally my fault.

Operation Zero Crack

While being the first to admit that I am quite far from the Miss World mold, I am nevertheless quite vain about a few physical features of mine. When I was kid, I used to love the smooth feel of my ankles. For some unfathomable reason, cracked heels were disgusting things to me and I would primly inform my mom that she and my aunts had ugly feet when those horrible heel cracks appeared (for some inexplicable reason, mom continued to love me). I had no idea back then that cracked heels were prone to afflict adults more. Instead, I just assumed that I had been born with divinely blessed perfect heels.

Fast forward to adulthood. Regular readers of this blog will know my penchant and fondness for moisturizing. If a person bathes themselves in moisturizer I guess that person's heels will have a very hard time trying to crack. So, while I did not make the connection, I continued to have smooth heels and I continued to believe in my divine perfect heels.

Fast forward some more. Last year we moved back to India. As I said, moisturizers were mostly unnecessary in Chennai and I had to regretfully give up on using so much. Then, the winter set in. Now, in Chennai, you have to look really carefully to find winter. About two days of the ceiling fan being unnecessary and winter is over. Still, the air does tend to get a bit drier than usual.

Fast forward to a few days ago. I was climbing the stairs to my in-laws house ahead of S when he asked, "Hey Archu, are those cracks in your heels?" I froze mid-step. Just like in that ad where a teenage boy calls a prematurely graying lady "aunty" and the lady hears echoes of "aunty, aunty, aunty", I could hear echoes of "cracked heels, cracked heels, cracked heels".

Stunned, I checked my feet and sure enough, I could spot two cracks on each heel. Noooooooooooooooo. All I could think about for the rest of the visit was "I need to get rid of the cracked heels NOW." How could I have neglected my favorite activity (moisturizing) so much?

Now I have launched Operation Zero Crack. I soak my feet in warm water and scrub my feet morning and night. Then douse them in moisturizer and cover my feet with socks. So what if I look like a geriatric wearing socks in 29C weather? Getting rid of the heel cracks is priority #1.

After 4 days of this routine, I don't know if the heel cracks are healing. But I do know that I have the cleanest feet in the whole of Chennai.

Here's to crack-less heels!

Only in India

For the past three days, celebration (read, eating plenty of yummy food) has been in full swing in honor of Pongal, the harvest festival.

I ate sugarcane today after eons. I still remember the days of yore when we kids used to spread plenty of newspapers on the ground and then seat ourselves in a circle around them and chew and spit the sugarcane husks away to glory. This was probably a negative calorie activity since tearing away the sugarcane's outer layer, chewing the inner layer, spitting the husk out and navigating through the sugarcane eyelets (kanu) used to be quite energy-consuming. This was the macho (and time intensive) way of eating the sugarcanes - the cut and cleaned pieces were for sissies. We kids used to enjoy this ritual a lot and it was one of the highlights of Pongal.

Today, maattu (cow) pongal day, as I stuffed yet another vada into my mouth at my parents' place, I was thinking about how Pongal has mostly lost its significance for urban dwellers. After all, hardly anyone living in a city is tending to farms in their backyards that they can give thanks to their hardworking farm-animals or for a bountiful harvest. Still, considering that Pongal comes with its share of festival food and celebrations, I really was not complaining too much.

Later in the night, as S and me set off home, we bade good bye to my parents and took the elevator downstairs. We were about to walk out of the building when the strangest sight met our eyes. Standing outside the building was a cow and her calf!

The cow had tiny bells tied to its horns. Both the cow and the calf looked resplendent in the silk clothes covering them and the garlands of flowers and glittering paper hanging around their necks. In front of them stood one of the ladies of the apartment complex, venerating them with aarti as the animal-caretaker looked on.

So what if we can't give thanks to our own cows? Just rent-a-cow :-)! Still, it was great to see maattu pongal being celebrated in its true spirit!

There is still one more day of Pongal left tomorrow. So:

Wish you a very Happy Pongal!