Friday, August 12, 2011

Eventful Varalakshmi Vratham

My sis had been on her feet for the past 2-3 days, so much cleaning, thanks to estate wide outer white washing yes’day. And special house cleaning for varalakshmi vratham.

Special Pooja Lunch

Mom usually comes home for lunch around 12:35-45 pm. On a typical day, we start preparing a lunch of sambar kootu a little after 12 pm and lunch would be ready piping hot just as she steps in. Today, however sis took charge of shopping for vegetables and cooking for the goddess and I just did helping around. I opted to fry the humble ulundu vadais and ended up with a hot oil drop on my instep. My pranic healing teachers mentioned how they had healed the hot oil spill burn during diwali murukku preparation. Tomorrow will tell whether my self-healing was effective.

After puja, it was nice virundhu on verdant banana leaves complete with vada, payasam, poriyal, sambar, rasam, curd. Married ladies came home luckily during lunch hour, so that we could serve them something. We would talk about having agreement with African nations for buying minerals and transferring technology and do nothing (so far) about Somalian famine. India and China would go on talking about double digit food inflation. With impending lorry strike and rotting grains in godowns, supply chain bottlenecks (wonder how effective Mega Food Parks are), our home minister would say food inflation is because of ‘sustained demand'. Demand for food is basic, fundamental, not everyone is a sanyasi to live on air for a lifetime without food or water. Am not able to recollect the name of the old lady in ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ who went without food and water rest of her life, since her MIL scolded her for eating too much, when she was still a child bride. Wondering, if Food security bill would ever come out of paper clutter. Funny world, when our ministers interchange nationality of octogenarian prisoner, prioritize commerce over health. Some tamasha indeed.


Earthquake

Around 11:30 a.m., I was sprawled on the sofa and my sister was standing and for a split second, I felt a swoosh, as if the sofa was shoved. I asked my sister, if she felt it and she replied no. I just left it at that. During lunch, calls started pouring in from my bil and sil from Sriperumbudur, asking about earthquake. Wonder what happened to our home that is still under finishing patchups, which does not have any earthquake resistant structural support.

This is the second time, I have felt tremors. The first time was early morning during December 26, 2004 tsunami. I was too lazy to even get up from my sleep, in spite of the floor shaking. If just 3+ can crack buildings like this, my thoughts ran back to 8.9 in Japan on March 11 and the 5.9 one yesterday. And how Tagore and others reprimanded Gandhiji for his statement that ‘earthquake was providential retribution for India’s failure to eradicate untouchability’ during 1934 Bihar earthquake.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

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SS said...

Thank you so much for your kind words. Glad you liked the posts.