Manimals

Well, what exactly is a manimal? A man-animal aka "Purushaa-mirugham" in Tamil.

It is a scary looking stead for the gods. Oh, yes, the mind is still in Mylapore..

This one was on a weekday and there were high school examinations in the state government schools smack in the middle of the festival and the crowd was not as big or as enthusiastic. The local government is atheist and these days, the poor kids from Mylapore have to study while all the bands are playing outside. Now that, is tough!)

Just like the attendence on the last day of a cricket test match that was a definite draw, this crowd was comprised only of the real ardent devotees who were going for the record books to say "I attended every day!".

Still it was fun to watch as they did the rounds faster. The photo sampler follows..

Purushaa-mirugam (the manimal)

Singham (Lion)

Puli (Tiger)

All of them in series..

My theory? The whole idea of having a utsavam is to entertain kids and get them to like the temple and associated concepts at an early age.

This was the "catch them young" marketing campaign?

They definitely succeeded in catching me.

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Check List

Thanks for all your comments!

A follow up to Wish List...

A day with my dad where he gets to talk and I get to keep quiet for once

Check

Although it was a very emotional and tired dad who mostly gave me the "life is short, make sure you do this after my time... blah .. blah.." bit and I listened and then gave him a retaliatory lecture on why life is what happens when you play with grandkids at this age.. Yep Sujatha Ramesh was right on the previous comment. I do not stay quiet for long.

A day with my grandpa and grandma, put my head on her lap and sleep for a minute, even if only a minute, just like when I was a small kid, put my ear to grandpas tummy and listen to rumbling noises and giggle
Check

I could not say bye to my grandparents this time. It was too difficult. My grandpa keeps falling down into his imaginary chair and hurts himself one too many times a week. He has good days and bad days. Happened to catch this on one of his good days!

a trip to kapalishwar temple in mylapore with grandparents, share a goli soda with my brother, a paalgoa for each of us with a transluscent paper with the kapali temple on the paper in bright red, some kaara sevai from the ambika appalam depot, a stop at RUBY stores to buy a chandamama or champak, watch grandma bargain with the vegetable vendors

Check check check check .. . hmm lets see.. went with my mum and aunts, uncle , different people, different days and times (10AM, 4AM, 8 AM, 9AM) to see the "utsavam" where they carried the gods on various vahanams. You will get the complete Kabali Kovil Utsavam series over the weekend! here is a sample ..

a trip to the marina with my brother and sister and some soan papdi from the cute bell jar

No beach trip. Did buy some Soan Papdi from grand sweets for Jr. and the little one though

a jackie chan movie at alankar with my brother

Right now the only thing my brother is watching is angio scans on a CD. this has to wait for better times or just wait for time...

So do the next three things. Mom walks and stands enough in hospital waiting rooms. She was sooo tired after the trip to the utsavam on the "ther" day, it was hard to watch.

walking around the srigery mutt temple behind my mom

perform topaz blade surgery on my sisters dolls with my brother as assistant surgeon

watch my dad bargain with an autorickshaw driver for 15 minutes for a trip that might take him only ten

Dad does not have his bargaining voice back yet. He also cannot pull off that brick walk away from the auto with the "if you dont come down to my price, I am walking.." dialogue. My dad almost tangos with the auto driver.. it is a dance and the drivers do the sequence of negotiating in this weird way almost to humor themselves. This time every auto driver in the stand told me "enna saar.. appa-vukku attack vandhudche..avara romba miss pannarom saar!" and I went WTF? he is my appa, you guys talk as though he is yours! Guess the man touches peoples lives in ways I cannot understand.

fold clothes from the clothesline on the terrace and watch the kites

Check . No kites in April. fold clothes I did!

eat pori kadalai from Kapali kadalai Nilayam and savor it one rice grain at a time, and marvel at how some pori tastes a little bland, some a little salty and once in a while that single grain of arisi pori just tastes perfect!

Check. A full post on that later..

etc.

etc.

etc.

Some of these might come true soon in some form or other. The rest will be retreived from permanent memory, savored in otherwise sad times, and be neatly tucked back in, for the sights, sounds and smells of a time long gone are still in the head, with definition better than any blue ray disk can offer, better than any photo or video ever stored.

Life takes you places, but sometimes when it takes you to the same place, there is a certain magic to it!

At one point when the plane was half way across the pacific ocean, it felt like a "trishanku sorgam", neither here nor there, halfway from parents, halfway from kids.. too many words, too many emotions, tears that came from nowhere while sitting in the middle of a sea of people at 35000 feet, tears that could not be put in words or in the right context, because every thought as a parent came with an instant contradiction as a child and it all stopped after letting go of the whole thought process and just giving into the fact that not all questions have good answers. Not everything is right, or wrong.

Some decisions take you far physically, others take you far mentally. Have known people staying in the same house without as much as saying a word to each other for decades and people who care for each other very much living on opposite sides of the globe. All of us make choices and live with them and find brilliant ways to justify our day to day actions, from brushing or not brushing our teeth to deciding to have children to relocating to far off places.. and to everyone and nobodys bewilderment, life does go on.

All said and done, felt the magic. Still feeling it inside.

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Zipping through

To Chennai and back in eight days is a zipping through experience.

Visiting a dad who is recovering, albeit with complications
Meeting grandpa who are not doing very well
Grapling with the same issue of being a "remote child" all over again and coming up with no tangible solutions.

On the bright side, after 17 years got to see Kapali Rock! He sure rocks during the festival season. Took videos and photos of the Kapaleeshwar temple Utsavam and showed it to dad, grandparents, other uncles and aunts who are not able to move around easily anymore. They were all happy that they got to see the festival, as though they were actually there.

On the brighter side, got to spend time with everyone in India and got the most important things on the wish list done.

Things will never be the same again, now that I have seen my dad the way he is. Have to learn to adjust to the fact that this is a new phase in life, for everyone in the family.

Jr. and the little one both had tears in their eyes when they came and hugged me today. They were struggling to find words to express how they missed me. They just wimpered like puppies after seeing me.

Hopefully, the development of a molecular transporter is a top priority on Obama's Act on science and technology. Or for that matter the little thingy that the Star Trek doc's hold in their hand and heal people.

Over the next few weeks, there will be posts, a lot of them, taking you to Mylapore and Mandaiveli... sometimes to 1979, sometimes to 1992, to 2009 and back to 1987. Same place, different time... kind of like the TV Series Lost, without the light flashes and the bad guys.

All that if things pan out in Chennai and all goes well.

Here is to growing old!

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Wish list

A day with my dad where he gets to talk and I get to keep quiet for once

A day with my grandpa and grandma, put my head on her lap and sleep for a minute, even if only a minute, just like when I was a small kid, put my ear to grandpas tummy and listen to rumbling noises and giggle

a trip to kapalishwar temple in mylapore with grandparents, share a goli soda with my brother, a paalgoa for each of us with a transluscent paper with the kapali temple on the paper in bright red, some kaara sevai from the ambika appalam depot, a stop at RUBY stores to buy a chandamama or champak, watch grandma bargain with the vegetable vendors

a trip to the marina with my brother and sister and some soan papdi from the cute bell jar

a jackie chan movie at alankar with my brother

walking around the srigery mutt temple behind my mom

perform topaz blade surgery on my sisters dolls with my brother as assistant surgeon

watch my dad bargain with an autorickshaw driver for 15 minutes for a trip that might take him only ten

fold clothes from the clothesline on the terrace and watch the kites

eat pori kadalai from Kapali kadalai Nilayam and savor it one rice grain at a time, and marvel at how some pori tastes a little bland, some a little salty and once in a while that single grain of arisi pori just tastes perfect!

etc.

etc.

etc.

Some of these might come true soon in some form or other. The rest will be retreived from permanent memory, savored in otherwise sad times, and be neatly tucked back in, for the sights, sounds and smells of a time long gone are still in the head, with definition better than any blue ray disk can offer, better than any photo or video ever stored.

Life takes you places, but sometimes when it takes you to the same place, there is a certain magic to it!

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Happiness is..

The first time I actually participated in any underwear purchasing was sometime in high school.

Till then, it was totally done at the parent's mercy, mostly my dad's. They would guess our sizes and buy us underwear. The sizes would be +/- 10% and if lucky we would grow into it within the year! If not, we will suffer through it till a parent or grandpa figured out that something went horribly wrong and correct the mistake.

Around the time in high school, there was one trip to what was Hari Textiles in Mylapore where an old gentlemen who owned the store engaged us in this three way conversation:

Dad : Sir, payyanukku size 70 jatti oru ara dozen edunga. (Sir, get my boy 1/2 dozen briefs in size 70cm)

OG (older gentlemen) : (Looks up and down, it was more like up at my dads face, down at my waist then up at my dads face again. Scratches his chin with style that would make Dumbledore proud and pronounces his verdict) Payyanukku 75 podunga sir! (make him wear 75 at least)

Dad : Ille Sir, 75 romba loosa irukkum. Neenga 70ye kudunga. (No Sir, 75 will be too loose. Give him only a 70cm)

Me : (my happiness literally hanging in the balance) Why don't you let me try it on and I can tell you if it is comfortable!

Dad and OG seem to look at me with disapproval. That worries me because as agreeing adults, they could suddenly unite and come to a consensus. The fact that there was no 72.5cm option to average out their opinions made me even more wary! What if they settle for 70?! So I put on one puppy look for OG's sake.

OG : Jatti ellam try panna mudiyaadhu thambi. Venumna ippidi vachchu kaataren..(you cannot try on a brief. I can place it on your waist and show you). goes on to place the 70 along my waist!

Doing some instant Pythagoras calculations in my head using my waist size, distance between my navel and my you know whats, with some coefficients of elasticity of common cotton fabric thrown in for good measure, horror of horrors, the thing looked like it could be a close call!

Me : I will go with 75cm!

My Dad looked disappointed, either with me for not taking his side or at OG for having the balls to contradict him in front of his son...

Dad: Sure'aaa da ? (Are you sure?)

Me : Yes. Sure!

Dad : Okay Saar. 1/2 dozen kudungaa (give half a dozen). Make sure you give him only dark colors. He likes dark colors. (For once he was right. In those days, there was a strong liking for dark colors).

My dad would treat buying underwear for me or my brother with the same seriousness as he would buy brinjals and okra in the Mylapore vegetable market. Approximately eyeball quality or quantity, start bargaining, purchase!

Five minutes later, after settling for a 10% discount as repeat customer, we both walked out happy! Dad with the 10% price reduction and me with the 6.66% size addition.

Since that day(to the present), 99% of the brief purchasing has been done at the same Hari Textiles store in Mylapore. One thing has been constant. It has always been the same VIP brand with a simple red tag across the front of the waist band which said "VIP" with the size in cms written on the side.

99% because I did stray from being loyal to HariTex and VIP during a three year continuous stint in the US of A. If you are making a trip every two years or every year in some cases, you can predict sizes and purchase accordingly. Three years on the same size with cheese pizza as your main diet can cause some serious issues. So there was a "brief" fling with Jockeys.

The rest of the purchases, all in 1/2 dozen or dozen quantities have been made at that Chennai Landmark. Well, it should be a Landmark, because that place and that man have single handedly ensured that many TamBram boys have retained some semblance of a sperm count, in spite of their dads doing the undie shopping for them during their most important years!

In short, a whole generation of TamBrams owe their existance to that store and that salesman. Now why do we reminesce about those good old days?

The recent India trip in September, was wrapped up with a last minute trip to Hari Textiles. (it is almost always the last minute wrap up purchase item!)

Now that yours truly has almost transformed into his daddy over the years, the conversation went like this:

Me : Sir oru ara dozen VIP kudunga!(give me a half dozen VIP briefs)

OG : ?!?!

Me : Sorry. Size 90 oru ara dozen kudunga. (Sorry, give me half dozen size 90cms)

OG : ?!?! (does a Dumbledore again)

Me : Enna Sir yosikkareenga ?(what are you thinking?)

OG : Endha kaalaththula Sir neenga size 90? At least 100 venum! (in which eon were you a size 90 ? You need at least a 100 centimeters now!)

Was a little upset that OG put me aside like a little puppy and in a protesting note stated..

Me: Ille saar. Naan ippo 90 dhan podaren (No Sir. I wear a size 90 now) and go on to pull out the VIP tag from behind my belt buckle to show him the "90 cms" written in size 12 Helvetica.

OG : Neenga 90cm potta romba tighta irukkum. Not healthy. Sadaa irritatedaa iruppenga.. (if you wear 90cm it will be too tight. you will be constantly irritated)

Me : (looking at San who is about to split her sides laughing, and also knowing that OG ranks somewhere next to Master Yoda on the inter galactic intelligence scale, somewhere higher than even my all knowing dad!) Neenga sonna sairyaa dhan Saar irukkum. Size 100-e kudunga. (If you say so, it will be right. Give me the size 100.)

Some people never learn, and some people here is just an indirect reference to myself!

After coming back from India, a week or two went by before one of the new 100cms was picked at random from the brief drawer.

That entire morning went by with me walking around work with a noticeable difference in my level of chirpiness! So much that at the lunch table a friend commented "What is up with you? You seem to be very happy and comfortable today!"

The "comfortable" word connected a lot of dots in my head instantly. It was noticeably obvious. The secret to the local happiness was found. It was the luxury of 10 extra centimeters of elastic around the waist and Pythagoras working his mathemagic away from the hypotenuse.

Happiness was,is and will be, wearing the right size underwear!!

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