A for "Adho Mukha Svanasana"

This blog post is written as part of A to Z Challenge. This involves the challenge of a blog post on a topic starting with an alphabet on each day through the entire month of April excluding Sundays starting from A to Z. My simple posts will be themed after Yoga postures with my own creations as images.

Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward facing dog) is a simple posture to reverse the action of gravity on the body and get the blood flowing to the head with out the effort of the heart. While it tones the arms and legs, also straightens the spine. Thus it helps relieve pain from upper, middle and lower back.

Disclaimer: Yoga creates simple to complex impacts on the physical body. Make sure you consult your doctor and start the practice with a trained teacher.

Serene Sunday - Skype, Sun, Snow and Salad

*This post is part of The Chennai Bloggers Club's Serene Sunday series initiated to keep the spirit of blogging alive and challenging.*

My Sundays mostly would start of 4:55 AM to jump off the bed only to have my 5 AM alarm going off looooouud when I am in the middle of some active morning business in the washroom. I had been part of some physically active social life getting off for my early morning bicycle ride with my fellow buddies all the way to Mahabs, Kalpakkam or Pondy. Will be back home around noon for a cold shower (Do you even get to have cold shower at noon in Chennai??)  and then blow off some Sunday special like veg pulav or bisibele bath from my mom's kitchen to refill all the lost calories. The late evening is mostly filled with some beach bajji or Express Avenue window shopping or a Sathyam movie followed by Onion Rava dosa and Kasi halwa in ID!!.

As I dream of all that rolled under my blanket back here in Detroit, my phone goes off ringing as my sister calls from India at 9 AM on my Sunday morning today. Took some time off for the regular duties and logged on for some Skype video chatting with my sister and my entertaining niece, Shrutheka. With little talking to my sister, played some hide seek in the webcam with the little one as I still struggle to sort her character who is a sweet devil in action and an angel when still.

As the hunger starts mooting at around 11 AM, made some dosa and emptied the last spoon of vathakuzhambu that I got from India (rolling tears..). Spent some time window shopping on Amazon as the day gets better with some bright Sun out there. The weather.com still suggested cold temperature (-6 C) that I got myself out spending over 10 mins to dress up with 3 layers above the waist and 3 layers below.

Just that the day was sunny, but still had chill winds and uncleared pedestrians' pathway that had turned icy. Was thinking of a short run, but chose to walk crushing the snow instead of skidding on the ice. Picked some groceries from the Indian stores and a veggie delite salad from Subway walking back home thinking of what would I write here today. A late afternoon salad lunch and a short nap with Illayaraja music, I am awake again to write the post of my Serene Sunday.

Good morning India. Miss my Chennai Sunday.

6 stove toppers in 66 days

A non resident in India and an alien in America - where do I belong to?

Counting down 66 days of American life was very challenging when I have a tug of war against the watch and calendar that were slowed down like the Michigan traffic on a snowy day. Being naturally an outdoor person, felt very frustrated being locked in the house on every snowy day that I walk out on every opportunity of little sun. Still, the Sun loses to the clouds and snow most of the days. Food being my next big love, started exploring some cooking including that of operating a pressure cooker for the first time.

Gained some confidence after few experiments that at one point I spent most of my day at work reading cookery blogs and got kicked with some inspiration as a great foodie friend of mine, Kamalika won the SuperChef contest in Chennai! My status messages on GTalk went on to become my menu card for the day reading:

    "Steamed rice with lentil and spices", 

    "Flattened wheat bread with lentil soup",
    "Semolina boiled to thicken with vegetables and spices"

If you are wondering what they are: Pongal, Roti - Dhal and Rava Upma!! :-)

I had been trying almost 1 or 2 new items every week and keeping my heart and tummy contented unlike my previous visits to US. Down here, I am just rating the top 6 of what ever turned out well for me in my cooking in the last 66 days.

No. 6: Mushroom pepper fry

Have never even touched mushroom in my life though I order a mushroom soup or a mushroom fry every time I go to eat out in a restaurant. Initially picked a can of cut mushrooms in the groceries store and later replaced that with a small bag of raw mushroom that was double the quantity in half the price. The best part was that I was all cut and ready to 'boil' cook the mushroom in a saucepan until I heard from my cooking guide Deepa warning me to be careful while cooking mushroom!. Puzzled and went on to refer some recipe online for directions and ended having a spicy hot Mushroom pepper fry on a chill evening watching 'Chennai-600028' all alone on Youtube.

Recipe here.

No. 5: Kathirikai Gothsu

In every Brahmin wedding, while all the women in the family sing and play around the long "Oonjal" ceremony, the men just take refugee in the dining hall going on the rounds of Pongal and Gothsu in the morning tiffin. So when I decided to make Pongal, obvious to make some Gothsu when there is some Brinjal.

Recipe here

Story on the Pongal and the pic coming later..

No. 4: Bhindi masala

When I made some Aalo-Bhindi fry and was telling about that, Deepa referred to her Bhindi masala recipe and wanted to me to try that. I followed her recipe though I had to compromise with ordinary onions against shallots and skipped curd as I always do. But when I tasted it with my Chapati, it just flew me away to my college days where we used to have excellent chapatis with super subjis including Bhindi masala at the Bombay chapati corner near Central Bus stand in Trichy. (WTH- ??? Only if you have eaten there, you can relish what I meant to say here.)

No. 3: Chunky Chapati

Have always loved Chapati, Roti, Naan, Phulka and all its related brothers and sisters except for the ones that were made in our college hostel. When I circled around looking at the chapati board and roller 5 times at the Indian stores the other day, I decided to buy it spending a whooping 15$ because I did not want to eat frozen chapatis for all my time in US. Having never made chapati, remember watching my mom kneading the dough in my young days. Did not go to any recipe and started kneading the dough on my own and decided to have it with my best known subji - Dhal. Got better in flattening in the first few chapatis and was very happy to see the third one bulging up promising that I do not have test my teeth on some flying saucers.

No. 2: Chakarai Pongal

Every one away from home, misses home every day. Just that it gets doubled on festivals and occasions when you miss your mom's food. Decided to make some Chakarai Pongal for the occasion of Pongal. While I was confused across many complicated recipes, got a simple one emailed by Deepa and followed that making my debut chakara Pongal. More story here.

No. 1: Ven Pongal

Most days affected by snow, I choose to work from home. But most of these had been less productive on my laptop as I was more productive in the kitchen. Following that list, the latest that happened this week was the Ven Pongal + Katharikai Gothsu. Had some basic knowledge of the Pongal after all that early morning temple prasadam in school days and the Pongal - sambhar vada combo that I have tasted every day at the Brilliant tutorials Kayendhi for many years until they disappeared. Again, no recipe reference for this one. Just the years of experience of eating!

The most important reason to rate this No 1 is not just the taste it retained even after 24 hours in the fridge but the funny incident when I took that for lunch the next day to office. I reheated the Pongal in microwave and got it to my desk to start eating my lunch. Another Tamil colleague sitting in the other side of my cubicle with no little view of my desk pinged me on the intranet messenger and asked "Pongal-a?? Vaasanai thookudhu". I was laughing all alone for a while.

I am determined to pursue my new found passion with the help of my whole big list of cooking expert friends and try 100 new recipes for the year. It is always easy to start from 0 to go to 100 you see :-P.

PS: In the above ratings, I have rated only the items that I was cooking for the first time and ignored my old specialties like Rava Upma, Dhal, Jeera rice, etc. I also ignored items that were too good to taste but most of the ingredients were ready made like Dosa, Idly and Pesto Pasta.

'Peace'varoopam

Dear Madam Amma,

My thanks from the deep heart in your commitment towards peace in (y)our (e)state of Tamil nadu. It has been evident from the beginning of your term how you reduced the noise across all corners of the state. First you silenced the excess noise created by the mixers and grinders early in the morning ensuring continuous unavailability of power across the state at all necessary instances. This also made sure that the noise pollution from the industries is also silenced.

The whole state of Tamilnadu was under the deep threat of violence to be caused Mulla Omar sitting in the north-west of corner of Afghanistan who got hurt by the wrong portrayal of the otherwise peace loving Talibans. Thanks for banning the movie Viswaroopam that was created with every ounce of planning to stir the third world war from the state of Tamilnadu in India.

Here are more ideas to curb violence and continue peace in our state:

1. In line with your vision to maintain peace in the state of Tamil nadu, we request you to pass an immediate ordinance under section 7A (amendment to include TV along with theatres). This will henceforth stop all News channels available for view in Tamil nadu to telecast any news that conveys people about the violence or attack across any country caused by people of any community so that it does not hurt the sentiments of that community or stir violence from other communities.

2. All news paper columns should be reviewed by the Home secretary of Tamilnadu to ensure that you can maintain (f)law in order.

There are Germans and there are Nazis. The Germans are a bunch of intelligent people who have made some big contributions to the world of science and industrial development. The whole world appreciate their intelligence and their struggle in reforming a country breaking walls in between. The Nazis were a bunch of mislead hooligans who call themselves of German origin by blood. In that analogy, there are Muslims and there are Talibans. PERIOD. Every educated person in the world knows the difference between both. So if you take care of educating the people in the state, the peace takes care of itself. You can send home even those 9000 police you have to maintain peace.

If 'activity' refers to a man and 'creativity' refers to a woman in the qualities of a human being, you just forced a Burka on the woman in the name of religion. Remember, even Islam leaves 'Burka' to the choice of a woman.

Chakarai Pongal - a debutant's story.

Running back into the nostalgia of that Pongal celebrations where my dad used to do Surya Pooja over that concentric circles Sangu Kolam in the half shaded mutram (an open roof space in the middle of the house), I had no business other than ringing that pooja bell when ever my dad tells and drool over that hot Chakara Pongal and other special items on the menu while they come out for the Neivedhyam (symbolic offerings in the trust that God will not eat anything) at the end of the Pooja.

Will run immediately to the kitchen after the Pooja  where my grandma would have a plate of little pongal and little rice that I need to put at a designated spot in the open area behind the kitchen for what half a dozen crows wait everyday at the stroke of 11 AM. On the return, I get to have one full dabara of hot chakara pongal with a spoon to be blown, tasted and gulped, swinging in the long oonjal (swing) along with my sister watching those special programs on Podhigai Channel in the 15" Black and White Uptron TV. Yeah, I also do the antenna pole rotation every time there are more grains in the middle of the program.

Time has gone by and finally here I am, a Pongal day when I have to actually work!! :-(

I brought with a load of utensils as told earlier. Thought of making some Chakara Pongal to hook on to the customs from the roots. It may not be as good as Mom made Pongal, but still I can call it Home made Pongal. :-)

The last time I made a sweet all myself was Rava Kesari during school days. For Chakara Pongal, got lost in the various recipes and ingredients and finally got saved with a simple recipe mailed over by my foodie friend Deepa Iyer. Purchased most of the ingredients from the Indian groceries around the next street but after a double thought skipped cashews alone in the list since I felt it was a bad idea to stock cashews at home as there were no small packs. 

Woke up at 5 AM, did 12 rounds of Suryanamaskars in place of the Surya pooja. Took a nice hot shower and ventured into the kitchen at around 6 AM. Followed the recipe very diligently and modified a bit by reducing the jaggery little to my taste. 

Somewhere in the recipe it read,
"elaichi powder - 1/4 tsp (if you get whole elaichi - you can roast and grind)"

Grind?? I do not have a mixer!! That Rava Kesari experience came in handy. Powdering elaichi by just ramming it does not work. Rolled it in a thick plastic sheet along with a small pinch of sugar and rammed it to powder.

Since I decided to replace cashews with almonds for the final dressing, had to soak that in warm water for a while and peel the skin off. Roasted the almonds and raisins together in a scoop of ghee. 
I was pretty excited by my first attempt of cooking something on my own and was taking pics at each step. Was trying hard to get focus and lost time to get the nuts and raisins little over roasted. :-(

Closed my eyes and prayed Suryabhagavan for a min who was yet to show up even at 7:00 AM here in Detroit and tasted a spoon of the pongal that already looked promising. 'Yep, yummy!!'. I have always loved or tolerated what I cook. To re-assure the taste, offered bit of it to my roomie and he said 'Nice'. Still was not very sure about the taste and packed the remaining in the fridge. My roomie took some more from the fridge in the evening along with his dinner and said, 'really very nice man' without me asking about it!!. So my day is made. 

 Happy Pongal.

The curious of case of a Pressure cooker

During my first visit to the states 6 years ago, I had some one lending me an electric rice cooker. It just had 3 pieces and I had to wash 2. The rice container and the lid.

During my visit to the states last year, I stayed in a hotel and used a the large sauce pan to cook rice. It took a long time to cook. But still had just 2 pieces to wash. The pan and the lid.

This time, my mom and my sister insisted on carrying a pressure cooker with all necessary accessories - 8 pieces!!

To begin, how I packed it?

The lid and gasket together  between my sweaters and towel. (2/8)

The pan with 3 of my favorite T-shirts rolled in it. (3/8)

The rice vessel with my thermal wear tucked in it.(4/8)

The dhal vessel with my dry fit shirts. (5/8)

The cook rack and the top plate between my jeans pants. (7/8)

and the weight separately in the side zip. (8/8)

For the weight that this occupied, I compromised on some books and favorite T-shirts. :-(

The safe package was untouched during all my days in the hotel room and unpacked everything when I moved to an apartment.

Today with out any prior experience of handling any cooking in a pressure cooker, I successfully cooked rice in it. Not too dry and not too smashed either.. Yay!!

The pressure cooker did take less time than my sauce pan. But have 7 pieces left over to wash!!

My humble thought:

Time for cooking in a sauce pan             Time for cooking in a pressure cooker
                      +                               <                                 +
Time for washing a sauce pan                 Time for washing a pressure cooker.


What next?
The curious story of The Idly Paanai!!

The Economy 'Glass'

This is my third overseas travel in 6 years and to the same place again. But what is so unique is about this one is that I am traveling without a return ticket. This time, I am off to Detroit, MI, USA for a new position offered by our organization's US wing, LMS North America. Having lived a very social life outdoors in Chennai recent years, it was an opportunity to shake my butt off the lazy routine and get some serious learning and little savings. While I lift my life from a happy life to comfortable life, there are lot of others I encountered in the travel going from struggle to self-containment or conflict to peace.

As you can see, the Economy class travel is a transparent glass with not much concealing as the First class or Business class. I had over 24 hours to reach my destination and filled with lot of entertainment out through the glass. While I jumped a long queue of 20+ passengers waiting to check-in, just because I checked-in already online, I had other factors to slow me down. While I filled in those immigration forms, started helping a barber flying to Muscat all the way from Kambam. Soon landed up helping fill forms for half a dozen of them flying in Emirates Airlines to Sharjah or else where through. All of them helpers, drivers, carpenters and masons from Trichy, Orathanadu, Cuddalore, etc. That is what I defined as struggle to self-containment.

While I cherished the 'extra leg room' upgrade offered for free on the fly to Hong Kong with a Indian student on the route to Los Angeles who slept for most of the time, I did not miss the young mother with an infant on her lap for 90% of the fly time and even managed to eat holding the heavy tray of food in one hand and the baby still sleeping on her elbow and lap. No cribbing. No smiling. Just a neutral face all the way.

Got an extra 30 mins on what was supposed to be a 50 mins layover in Hong Kong. Huh.. a 14 hour fly is still pending! Happy to have the adjacent seat empty and a comfortable aisle seat. My first conversation was to help a totally confused young lad in the other aisle seat when he was handed over the Immigration and customs declaration forms. The boy was 21 from Bangladesh, traveling with his mom to US and could not even express what Visa he was traveling on. Initially degraded down on my English to help him understand what those forms are meant for and he was so ignorant that he said that his sister in Chicago would come and fill the forms for him after reaching the destination. Later he got to know that I am from India and we agreed to communicate in Hindi that we both agreed to crusade by the end of the travel. The younger chatterbox was downplaying Bangladesh all his talks and told a lot about his family with brothers settled in UK, sister settled in US and his dad who took treatment in Apollo Hospitals, Chennai 10 years ago and passed away later in Dhaka. Only while reading his Passport to fill the immigration forms, I realized that he was traveling in an immigrant Visa and his old mom already had a Green card. This young lad wants to get settled in US, far away from Bangladesh where their family had been through catastrophes. This is what I defined as conflict to peace. 

The long 4 hours layover in Chicago turned out to be a 5.5 hours layover. A whole lot of respects to the mothers who travel all alone with hyperactive kids managing to feed them, convince them and walk/roll them from one gate to another every time it is changed. The little I can do was to help pull their extra cabin baggage from one gate to another.

After celebrating Christmas across 4 cities, here I am in Detroit finally!!