Milline!

School teacher. Internet addict. Ambivert. Sweet-tooth. Artsy. 

[mirnaliniv]

Let me tell you a story...

It is my mum’s birthday today. It is so funny to address her so, let me say it better. It is my amma’s birthday today, sounds a lot better.

I still remember few birthdays, very few. One of them being hers. After living with my husband, birthdays and anniversaries have very little significance but I still like wishing people, ok I digress.

One thing I constantly tell people and have heard from many is that “Your parents are too cool”, indeed, my parents are very cool.

I’ll start from the fact that my parents actually dated each other for 11 years. Eleven freaking years. Which is roughly from 1969/70-1980, they got married in 1981. I always grew up thinking everyone around, that is parents of my friends too dated each other before getting married, the child me had a shock when I learnt it wasn’t that way in every home. Arranged marriages are very unheard of in my family, it was so, it is so. If only I’d told my parents to find a groom for me they’d have done a “what is the procedure to find a groom”, I think.

My parents were always honest about this, even when I was a child I knew my parents dated before getting married. Children understand a lot, trust me I am one living example.

The next fact, this is cooler than the previous one. My dad is younger than my mum, it sounds cooler when I say “my mum dated and married someone who is almost 3 years younger than her’. This was all in the 70s children, even now wait, we are in 2016, right? Even now I see/hear/read people debating about skewed priorities when a lady marries/dates someone way younger than her, and we are supposedly millennial and all that!

So I did not know this until I was around 18/19 one karthigai deepam or was it Krishna jayanti (I don’t remember well) but it was some festival and I was helping Amma, she very quietly starts a conversation (she hardly ever spoke much then), Minu I have to tell you something (this is a scary starter), trust me I thought she was going to ask me about the guy I was dating then or something like that. But then, very very cutely she tells me “Appa is actually younger than me, I mean I am older than Appa. I thought you should know” I could totally understand fully well now how much weight this information would have carried in her heart, she must’ve waited for me to reach the right age so that I don’t judge her. I don’t have a great memory but this incident is something that I’d proudly retell the coming generations of my family. How cool is my mum and how awesome is my dad?

She has even paid the term fee for his college education which he had discontinued in between. She was earning while he finished his education and also took care of her family, which was being headed by her widowed mother. She chose to stay with her for all practical reasons and that is how I grew up with my maternal grandmother.

She (my Amma) was earning way more than my Appa when they got married and it was so until about 3-4 years of their marriage, my dad told me this, when someone was discussing about a prospective alliance for a cousin and said ‘the girl is actually earning more than the boy, don’t know how to proceed’ and my dad said “so what?” This is what I grew up with, so what? My dad, I now know fully well is a feminist, in the true sense. I am no “daddy’s girl”,I am more of my Amma’s ponnu, but I am very proud of the man that my dad was and still is.

My Amma hardly wears any jewelry  and hardly has any materialistic needs (I kid you not, it is scary) but she wears a red stone gold ring on her left hand ring finger, I have always seen her wear that. I know why. That was Appa’s first gift to her during their courtship. It makes me want to cry every time she talks about it.

She is one hipster who got married at 32, and had my sister when she was 33, she apparently had no clue that she was pregnant and was joyfully cycling to commute to work, she thought she’d ‘just’ gained some fat in her tummy :D and she had me when she was 39, yes my mother n I are 4 generations apart. She never fussed about it and I never knew it was a big deal, I still think it isn’t a big deal.

She broke every rule and norm possible, to an extent where whatever we did seemed uncool or did not cut it to her level. So, basically we were boring children to very cool parents.

If you know me well, you know I never ask anyone their story of ‘how you met each other’, there are reasons, a) after growing up with my parents every other story is mostly boring b) my parents never asked me personal questions c) they never told me their story, but I sort of know from here n there that they met in some typewriting class (guess that was their browsing center/Facebook/tinder). I just made the reasons up but truly I think there is no cooler love story for me than theirs.

Happy birthday Amma, you are the coolest. 

This picture of hers is my favourite, Appa clicked it after she finished one of the shows with AIR, she used to host one apparently. I still have this saree with me. 

[mirnaliniv]

Kitchen, cooking and why you shouldn’t enter my cooking space.

If you follow me on my instagram, you by now know that I cook a lot (and eat it all too). I started cooking for myself very late in my life. In fact only after I moved away from my mum’s I did enter the kitchen. I am this lazy, spoilt last child who was very privileged too. Everybody else in my home cooked except me, cooking is a life skill guys, no matter how much one can argue about it. My mum was and is an all rounder. She worked as a teacher, managed a home which had 12 ppl first, then it had 9 and then it was just the 4 of us. She always wakes up at 4.30 am, goes for her morning walk, gardens, talks to crows (they respond too), cooks, reads paper, manages our temple accounts and in general she is the very definition of active and very 'nice'. My dad, can cook very well too! His pickling skills are excellent and makes excellent bisibelebath. My mum travels quite a bit and my dad never ate out, he always cooked his own meals. And my sister can make samosas and pedas before you can say ‘potluck’, so you can see that I had no reason to get inside the kitchen. They all did an excellent job of feeding me, and I ate and gave my expert opinion. 

In 2013, I got married to a person who has lived away from what is called ‘home’ for 11 years then and has survived hostel and mess food for all the time. For whom I decided that ‘we’ will cook at home and will make it a point to eat at home almost always. 

The first few weeks were a ‘fiasco’, that is the word to describe it. I made sambar with the wrong daal, I added the wrong masalas, he did not know which daal to use for tadka and I have burned few utensils in the name of cooking. We ate maggi and rice with paruppu podi and dozen other saviour podis that our mums gave. God bless them. 

From there, we really have come a long way. I cook mostly and I don’t want to blame Abishek for not cooking much, because it is my irritating habit of over-assisting him or instructing him and I just don’t let him try. Also, I criticise a lot (no, not the food but the process). I have this horrible habit, my kitchen needs to function the way I like even if someone volunteers to cook. My hands itch otherwise. I have no clue how I let my friend Ajit cook in my house. When my mum or my MIL visit us, I literally have to caution myself to not interfere in what they are doing, I know they obviously know better. (Damn, I can’t believe I confessed that). 

I also have another pain point, I am very, in fact super scared of letting anyone inside my kitchen. Wait, let me explain in detail. I have had friends come over and stay, some (most) are super sweet, they offer to help in the kitchen. I am very glad if they chop the vegetables (I hate it), some ppl like Pooja , Ajit  and Hamsini have even cooked in my kitchen, and I was super comfortable with that. 

But, in general if a friend is visiting for the first time I constantly am pricked when they enter the kitchen. I always feel I am being judged (not that they gave the vibes, it is just mostly in my head). Abishek and I are not super organised, our kitchen is not the cleanest or the most well organised, labelled place. We have tried, at least Abishek has, to organise the pantry, to arrange the boxes, to keep the baking stuff away from the everyday utensils but it never worked for me. Kitchen is the place where I almost experiment everyday, I treat it more like a lab. I am a very (can’t stress enough) messy cook. I can’t cook without leaving a trace of that days food. My mum and my MIL, wait my FIL is an excellent cook too, they all cook so neatly. After they cook there is not a trace of what they cooked, but once I am done cooking, it looks nothing less than a war front. There are a few dirty spatulas, there is flour on the floor and on the kitchen table, the gas top looks like it needs a scrub, there are pieces of vegetables on it, mostly coriander. Even I find it slightly painful but I don’t have kitchen OCD. So, our friend A has to wash all the vessels himself after they are done cooking, he has washed vessels in our home too (we don’t generally treat guests so badly, but friends don’t qualify guests, no?) I have tried too, to cook neatly, to clean up as soon as I cook, but Abishek does it mostly, I guilt trip him into doing it because he doesn’t cook (he chops, cleans but bullying him is my right and I exercise it :P) 

I have mostly seen clean kitchens, friends who cook without griming the kitchen and clean the utensils as soon as they are done cooking (H and A, you guys only) , my MIL who keeps cleaning the kitchen, my SIL whose kitchen looks like it was mostly never used but cooking happens there everyday. I feel I am this lonely duck here, who doesn’t organise well and I get over conscious when people visit me. I silently wish they’d never have to see my kitchen, at least when I am cooking! I get nervous and I feel that I’d be quoted as a non-example, “Oh at least our kitchen isn’t as bad as hers”, sigh! 

I have made peace with myself that I can’t cook neatly, I cook decent food and it seems like an achievement already, we both haven’t been poisoned because of the food I make. I am not scaring the ones who visit us, you are always welcome, we shall provide you the best filter coffee, some cookie or cake and even a good lunch or dinner but don’t expect a kitchen which looks straight out of a vim ad! 

 I am so glad I went ahead and tried making my own meal, because a) hungry me isn’t a nice version to see  b) cooking isn’t rocket science c) eating isn’t robotics. 

If you really are aspiring to start cooking by yourself all I can say is, go ahead and try. You will fail, the food might taste inedible for the first few attempts, you will feel exhausted but you will feel accomplished. Cooking teaches persistence, patience and perseverance. You don’t always need fancy equipments and ingredients, try making daal, rasam, rotis don’t have to be round you know? The ones that look like Australia also taste the same only. Enjoy the process of cooking, it is fun to make a dosai by yourself, even if it is not intact and crispy, it will bring joy to you, a sense of accomplishment. And don’t bother about being a messy cook, mostly good food comes out of the messiest kitchens :D 

I also recommend you read what Bosskar has to say about cooking for yourself. https://likeabosskar.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/cook-once/

[mirnaliniv]

Looking back at 2015... much beyond.

Been seeing a lot of people doing personal highlights of this year.

I too have been wanting to write this post for sometime now, not a very personal post but quite important.

I completed my fellowship with #teachforindia this year and I have been gathering few thoughts on it.

It was almost the 3rd time someone on social media asked ‘how was school, or oh no vacation for Christmas?’ and such and my reply was a very straight faced, grim, glum “I am no longer a teacher”. I thought some clarity about the fellowship and some experience sharing can be done. So, here we go.

Teach for India is a not for profit organization.All of us crib about the Indian education system right, about the lack of quality education or teachers and classrooms. Teach for India (TFI) is an organization working towards fixing this problem.

What do they do? They recruit people through a rigorous selection procedure, train them through a even more rigorous summer progromme and place them in a low income community classroom for 2 full years. Yes, this isn’t a part time job or voluntary service. It is a full time paid (a stipend is offered) “ job”.

I took this fellowship in 2013. I always wanted to be a teacher, I did have some facilitation and training experience in the past, but a fellowship doesn’t require you to have an experience in teaching.

So then what do they require? A minimum undergraduate degree in any field. And a lot of passion, yes. This fellowship isn’t very easy and their tagline very neatly mentions “are you ready for a challenge?” Trust me, it does live upto it. TFI has had and will have people with no teaching experience but just the will and the dedication to complete a task, we have seen people come up with exceptionally brilliant ideas and have also executed them in their classrooms with great success. There are days when people fail, but that is just another day of learning. You dust away, get up much more stronger and rise with another plan, another new day. 

Working with an organization like TFI where the vision is very clearly stated, where every person is working or is expected to work towards one focused goal is quite a task. We all are humans, we do have different perceptions towards things. But here all they ask you is to focus on that child whom you are working for.

Do not take up the fellowship because you want click cute pictures, the fellowship is beyond that. And trust me, TFI is not the only organization working around this problem, they are not the ultimate solution givers and they know it. TFI is one of those organizations who believe in people, in the power of collaborative effort, in empowering through education.

An acquaintance had had a baby just then and his wife had taken a sabbatical post the baby but wanted to work after a few months. So I asked if she was going to join the same organization, for which he very casually said “no, she’d may be take up something 'light’, like the TFI fellowship or teaching somewhere else”. Nothing makes me more sad and worrisome than to hear something like this. Please, please refrain from taking up the fellowship if you want to take up something ‘light’, nope! 

Teaching, isn’t easy. Be it the fellowship or elsewhere. It requires a lot of planning. Monthly, weekly, daily. Differentiated plans too because each child is different. From making a lesson plan, designing work sheets, classroom management, transition activities, energizers, homework plans and providing feedback on the work that kids turn in to reviewing lessons, school admin work and community (parent) engagement. The task list is endless.

Mindset of our so called young and educated mass is still not very exciting, we still don’t respect or consider teaching “ mainstream ”. It isn’t hipster to be a teacher, it is another job, a very important part in our system. 

TFI asks for 2 years , 2 full years from individuals who are interested and willing. A lot of people take up the fellowship, most of them complete it and later get back to pursue their career or few stay back in the education field too. A very small part do discontinue the fellowship mid-way, there a various reasons. Like I said, it is a challenge, not everyone can take it up and complete it. 

Working in a low income community school means the infrastructure is very basic or non-existent. My school was on the ground floor of a chawl , this means our classrooms had hardly any sunlight or air. There were rats and of course cats. It also means classrooms with 45-50 kids inside a 150-200 sq.ft room with hardly any space for you to navigate. No separate bathroom for teachers or in some schools, no bathrooms at all, in some schools even if there is a bathroom no water at all, some schools are inside few communities in which children and everyone witness violence everyday. My classroom had a neighbour who sold Chinese food and peeled garlic at anytime of the day, cut cabbages everyday and when my class was a little noisy (all classrooms are noisy) she made sure that she barged in to yell the choicest of Marathi abuses, only sad part was that I did not understand the language :) 

Working in a low income community school also means that I met 96 (+2 who joined mid year) super aspiring children, who taught me a lot of life lessons that I wouldn’t have learnt otherwise. They have made me feel tired, exhausted and even angry, I have come home crying on few days. But, now when I look back they have made a very integral part of my life. The joy of being a teacher, an educator, a facilitator for children is something that cannot be described. It has to be experienced. 

I am not a social butterfly and I hardly had (have) friends, even in organizations that I have worked I hardly manage to be social, no not proud of it but that is how I am. I cannot handle noise, but 2013-2015 (May) my life was hardly silent. My class filled up all the silence in my life. After a day at school I would just want to get back home for a very quite time with the most mundane things of my life. Now, to think back I have no clue how I did it. How I woke up every single day to go into the riot that was my classroom. To solve issues that kids came up with, they laugh so easily, cry at the drop of a hat, fight for silly things and smile instantly. Children teach you that, to smile. In fact more often. 

I have a lot of beautiful memories. I even managed to digitize few. I ran a project page for my classroom on Facebook. I still go back to it, read them myself, look at some pictures and just smile. 

 They are all growing up. They all have dreams and aspirations. I just want them to grow up to be responsible citizens who can make their own choices. I want some of them to grow up and become awesome teachers. I miss being one, but hey “Once a teacher, always a teacher” :) 

[mirnaliniv]

No shave November. Forever.

An ideal world for me is the one which has beauty parlours that doesn’t “politely suggest” that you need to get a facial, a skin lightening, a tan removal, chocolate manicure, mango pedicure, hair ‘spa’ or a platinum filing for the nails. NO.

I am a very reluctant visitor to the beauty parlours, somehow I feel I do not belong there. May be because I am so used to applying kadala maavu to my face (Besan and curds, yes that is actually a thing) or may be because I do not have the patience to sit for a 2 hour 30 minute facial. Or even may be because the beauty parlour ladies give me this look of ‘what are you doing here?’ 

But, visits to the beauty salon has become almost inevitable. No, not the ones where one happily goes to chop their hair to a ‘U’ cut or a ‘V’ or a ‘feather’ (these were #inoldendays) but this is almost a military operation involving a dozen cutters, blades, scissors, may be few other lab equipments. Because now haircuts are graduated bob, one side shave and hair colours are emerald and electric blue...errrmm. 

Visiting a beauty parlour before festivals is a huge mistake. Sales targets, yes they too have them right? 

Sell, 200 golden mango sheen facial packages, sell 340929 dark decant chocolate waxing packages?! I mean what the hell is a chocolate wax? Are you even aware that the world is running short of cocoa? Irresponsible fellows. 

How do they achieve such humanly impossible targets? Fear. Panic. Agitate.Distress your customers. 

So, I go to this beauty parlour before Deepavali for very basic things. Wax my arms, pedicure my feet and thread my eyebrows. Simple requirements. 

But this person decides to politely suggest that my face has ‘dark spots’ and my eye has dark circles ‘at this age’, oh how tragic! Also, madam ‘your skin is so dark, do you go out in the sun so often?’, NO, I FREAKING LIVE IN AN ICE BOX ALL THE TIME. 

‘Medam, your feet is so kadak (rough), do you stay out so often?’ 

How does it matter? 

Why is it still not ‘ok’ to be dark? or have grey hair in the 20s? Why is it so important to have a blemish free skin? 

I don’t generally get angry at the girls in a beauty parlour, because they are merely doing the job of a sales person too. But if your customer wants a pedicure, just get done with it and give a good foot massage for brownie karma points. You do not have to make them feel humiliated and embarrassed or be ultra rude to them by pointing out that they have a pimple or split ends. Or tell they ‘need’ an upper lip threading, no bro I am part of ‘No shave November’ forever. 

What is even worse? I have witnessed women panicking and getting sold to shitty packages which need you to pay a sum with which you can have 500 plates of pani puri! (That is almost all your life, ok may be a little less due to inflation the coming years but still).

Now, again I have to go scouting for another parlour. There is water in Mars but still finding a good beauty parlour and a tailor (don’t get me started on this) is still a cumbersome exercise. 

[mirnaliniv]

Retro shot glasses.

[mirnaliniv]

I painted a kettle. Kalamkari design on an aluminum kettle.

[mirnaliniv]

I took my twitter break quite seriously!

[mirnaliniv]

Coasters. I took my twitter break quite seriously.

[mirnaliniv]

Monochrome

[mirnaliniv]

Tried to recreate Kalamkari peacock on a wine bottle.

[mirnaliniv]

Only women can do stem cell? We are new to this and for your info my wife is 7 months carrying. So she can register any where?

Oh not at all. Both men n women can register to be donor.

[mirnaliniv]

How long did the whole stem cell process take from being contacted to being done with it? I'll be visiting India for about 2-3 weeks next time, I'd like to know if I could be done in that short duration. Right now, I'm found to be anemic and because of this recurring problem, I've donated blood only twice in my whole entire life! :'( Will this affect stem cell donation as well?

Hi Neeru, You should be identified a match first. Only then a master check up is done n the entire process took me roughly 15 days.

[mirnaliniv]

I have never been happier to be human.

 This post isn’t to rekindle my writing spirits or whatsoever but I honestly felt the need to write this, few friends urged that I write about this (actually did not inform many because of several concerns) 

Few weeks back Abishek (my husband) lost his best friend Imran to cancer. It was all very sudden, we came to know around Feb this year that Imran was diagnosed with cancer and Abishek had already thought that during his next visit to Chennai he’d go meet him. But it was very unfortunate that on a Thursday morning we came to know about his demise. Abishek and his friends left to Nagpur to pay their respects to him for one last time. A family friend recalled about how Imran’s cancer took him away in a span of few weeks. He is survived by his wife and 2 children. They are staying back in Nagpur. This incident left us quite bothered, we were slightly taken aback by the uncertainties in life. 

Exactly 3 days later an old colleague of mine (I worked in a genetic research firm in Chennai for a year) sent me a text message asking me if she could speak to me. This wasn’t normal because she was an acquaintance and I found no connection in her wanting to talk to me. I was going to a student’s house that evening and asked her to contact me after 7pm.

Some phone calls are very strange and at times life changing. This was one. She (K) called me to inform me that I was found a match for a child who has a certain type of cancer and requested if I am willing to be a donor. 

Let me explain this even more in detail. Long time ago when I was in this genetic research firm I registered myself to be a stem cell donor. We humans can donate our stem cells which could be collected and used to cure cancer and certain other life threatening diseases by stem cell therapy. I have worked on HLA (human leucokocyte antigen typing) and finding matches isn’t very normal majorly because we lack databases. 

So what do I mean by I registered myself? It means I was giving my name and contact details and also my swab sample from my cheek to help analysis and store my data. I did this in 2011 and I had almost forgotten about it. So this news quite shook me. I couldn’t think of anything else but Imran!  Abishek and I aren’t believers of the existence of a super natural power. We are very (mostly) rational and this seemed logical enough for us. For me though it was some message this universe was trying to tell us.

So I agreed to be a donor and went ahead with the procedure. What did I do? Step-1: I was counselled by a specialist (oncologist) and a physician about the entire process, I could clarify my doubts about the side effects (selfish human I am, selfish) about the time I need to be giving  in this and few other basic medical concerns. 

Step-2: I was done a master health check-up to see that I am fit and not suffering from any medical conditions or affected by any virus. 

Step-3: I was injected with a Neupogen (http://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-9370/neupogen-inj/details) that would increase the stem cell production in my body and push it to my blood stream. (I took the injections for 5 days with the doctors doing a CBC to confirm the presence of CD34 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3231531/)  and increase in my blood cell count) 

Step-4: Stem cell collection. It was just peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) collection and happened over few hours with my blood being collected through my veins in the arms,  there was a machine which was separating my RBCs and collecting only my stemcells which were present in the buffy coat and returning the rest of the blood back to my body. 

Step-5: sending away product to required recipient through a coordinator  from Datri. (I have no role in this) 

Step-6: The recipients immunity is completely compromised and all the cancer cells killed by chemotherapy. Now the recipient will undergo a stem cell transfusion (the stem cells that were collected from the donor) and new WBCs get generated for the recipient, they are now survivors. True fighters! 

It was quite simple for me and I was back home without any pain. Only my arms are slightly punctured in the places where they took blood from and blue but that will heal in a weeks time. 

Did I have any pain during the process? 

No, It was as simple as a blood donation. 

Did I feel uncomfortable during any time? 

I had slight back pain and headache after I took the injection but I was already informed about it and was given paracetamol. If someone who is weaker than us physically is undergoing chemotherapy (here in my case way younger than me) I am sure we could withstand a back pain for few hours! 

Did I have trouble convincing my family? 

Abishek was very supportive from the time he heard about this. We both decided not to tell both our parents right now (it might scare them when they hear it over phone, we ‘might’ tell them when we go to Chennai, or mostly we will not because they have way too many concerns about me and my health. I would just tell I did a blood donation. But Datri coordinators are more than willing to talk to your family if required, as for me Abishek was convinced and only that mattered to me. 

Do I know details about my recipient?

This is extremely confidential information to share on social media, but the donor does know who the recipient is and what exact disorder are they suffering from. Datri will also arrange for a donor-recipient meet later. 

Do I have to spend anything for this? 

Nothing at all, all your commute costs and the other medical expenses that is involved in the procedure is taken care by Datri. You don’t spend anything . You are NOT paid for this, it is completely a voluntary donation.  

Does my location matter? 

No, you could be living in any part of India and go ahead with registering. Datri has coordinators and tie-ups with major hospitals and centers. All you need to do is fill a form and give a sample of your buccal (cheek) swab, the kit will be provided when you register. 

I am not the first person to have done this. Datri has done 93 stem cell donations already across India. Their coordinators are extremely hardworking and dealing superbly well with the doctors (who weren’t too polite to them except the lady doctor who did my procedure) Special mentions to nurses and the helper ladies who were with me during the procedure, they were truly supportive and strong. 

Why should I register myself to be a donor? 

I would honestly appreciate and infact urge you to register yourself to be a donor at Datri. Our country needs a wider donor database, because Cancer as you might have read/heard even witnessed has become fairly common and it can be cured using stem cell therapy. For that we need donor databases. Everyday Datri gets so many requests from all over the country. They do donor drives across India. They do drives in corporate offices and companies. You can visit their site  http://www.datriworld.org/ , or free feel to ping me on twitter/ or in this blog. I would be glad to connect you with Datri and their coordinators.

Germany and few other countries in the West are way ahead in Stem cell therapy because of their donor databases and the awareness among the public about this is high. Just hoping that this post might help to create some awareness. Please do register to be a donor. You might be a reason for someone living and the feeling it quite incredible. 

Like I said I have never been happier to be human like I am right now. 

[mirnaliniv]

For you!

 Warning: Don't read this if you love animals, especially dogs.

May,2000. On a very sunny Saturday evening my sister came home with this fluffy white looking really small, silent , lost looking pup who looked positively very cute but Brownie did not like him, at the first sight. The next day morning we open the gates and this white fluffy thing isn’t there in the front portico. We stare at Brownie but she was looking very innocent. We searched all over the apartment but in vain! My sister started sobbing and said a prayer to God, promised to visit the Neelankarai Sai Baba temple too. Few hours later a lady from the neighbourhood came screaming at us and asked if a white dog belonged to us, she also said that we better clean up all the mess. We went running to see her place and found that Tommy had littered the entire stair-case and was sitting in the terrace not knowing how to get back!

This was 12 years back. And now this morning I woke up very groggily only to find that the he isn’t alive anymore. It hasn’t sunk in yet. I haven’t cried this bad after paati’s demise. I know this house isn’t gonna be the same anymore.

 12 years and more… that is half my life. He lost his eye-sight few months back, it was a struggle. He wouldn’t know where to go, this place was his home and he felt strange here. The same staircase where he used to climb everyday wasn’t the same anymore. He got lost in every corner. He also started missing Amma is what I strangely feel. Also, I feel really guilty for having not been at home all the time to take care of him.

 He was there throughout. During my schooling, my college days, when Akka got married to Mohan, when I started going out with Abishek, A used to come home to see me and he loved him too, for Tommy reminded him of his lost Tuffy.

We were also planning on what to do while the entire family would be away for our wedding, should we take him along to the marriage hall. Also, I was wondering how would Chait (my new nephew) would react on seeing Tommy and vice-versa. But, sadly all this isn’t gonna happen. May be I should just live with the fact that he isn’t there anymore.

Buried in a corner inside this very house all I hope is for his soul to rest in peace. I might get another dog in future but you are very special Tommy. I grew up with you. And, I will miss you. 

These flowers bloomed in today and are for you Tommy... even they look crest-fallen. 

[mirnaliniv]

What if she was a terrorist?

How careless one could be to have forgotten their mobile phone at workplace and not to have realized it till having boarded a train? Well, #YaItsMe . Slightly panic mode was on as I realized that my phone wasn't there inside my bag nor inside my denim pockets, but I had my doubts if I had left it back at my workplace. So, I got down from the train at Mambalam station only to be so frustrated in finding the PCO booth (which seem to be a rarity these days) but I did find one, but the goddamn phone wasn't working :| #ThirdWorldProblems , then I went to the VLR stall where I asked the guy if there was a phone which I could use

Me: Anna, phone? (I almost did a Bharatnatiyam to enact it) 

He: There is one booth near the steps

Me:Andha phone velai seyyalai

He: Oh, nalla thamizh pesareengale... 

Me: :| 

Then, a very kind gentleman offered me his mobile phone I refused politely but he said ''Ille medam, edho urgency dhaane use pannikonga' , So, I called up my mobile (I don't remember any other number by heart ) and no one answered. Once, twice.. no use. Then I took my visiting card and rang my office land line, thankfully Boss was still there and he said my phone was indeed at office. 

I thanked the gentleman and took the train back to work (what all idiocy during a weekend), haggled with the auto-driver, who replied to me in English despite me talking in Thamizh :-/ (#Posh Medras auto-drivers are posh) and finally reached my workplace where Boss was roaring with laughter. 

The matter is, the very kind gentleman who had offered me his mobile phone had called up office (from dialed numbers #WellOfCourse) and asked what place was this, who were I and lots of questions, Boss thanked him for the help and told I had forgotten my mobile and this #KindGentleman and said 'Sir, please give me the details I had asked for, What if she was a terrorist'  

:D Loff and let loff, happy weekend y'all! 

[mirnaliniv]

K for kollywood , B for Blade

'If music is a religion, mottai is God'... Anybody who had known me long enough or has been following me on #twitter would know by now that I worship Ilayaraja's music. Last even was a test to my faith, no not in terms of the quality of #Mottai 's music but I had to endure a lot of talk which made no sense to me, also which wasted a lot of time and provided sleeping pills to a lot like me. 

'Nethaan en ponvasantham' (#NEPV) is Gautham Vasudev Menon's new flick which has Mottai's music. GVM's movies has a set of audience which he has earned through the past 10 years or so and with IR rarely composing film music these days , you obviously know how much hype has surrounded the movie which launched the trailer just few months ago. 

Yesterday was the audio launch of NEPV. I was really thrilled. Attending a live concert for the second consecutive year, damn my stars must be really lucky. I had to bite my tongue and swallow my words later. 

The program was supposed to start by 6.30pm , like every other #Kollywood show even this did not start on time. We waited till 7.15, only to witness a very winding and badly made AV on Raja with the musicians of his orchestra praising him. And 'Ilaya nila pozhigiradhe' was slaughtered to death with Mano's nasal voice... 

''Hurray to Hungary'' 

Here comes very few ''nice'' parts of the concert, I listened to a symphony for the very first time in my life, the concert last December had 7 members from Budapest here. But this time the entire orchestra were present and I have only one word to describe them- ''Stupendous'' . They performed very few selected numbers of Mottai (from the 80's and early 90's) , like Putham pudhu kaalai, Raaja Kaiya vacha and Sundari kannal oru seidhi (from the Anupallavi-the war beat to the Charanam) such perfect co-ordination, very well orchestrated and performed just to blow our minds, it was soul-stirring to be very honest. Yet again, #Mottai is the boss here. Compositions which are older than a decade sound evergreen, stir your soul and leave you in awe. 

K for Kollywood, B for Blade. 

Never in my life will I attend a Kollywood based function again. I had enough yesterday, one area where Mottai fails. He needs his ego massaged every now and then, so yesterday we witnessed the people who have a Permanent Gold card membership in ego-massage club for Mottai. 

GVM - this man usually talks a lot when he gets hold of a mike and yesterday he also sang (err,#ok) well, it was his movie so the audience had to undergo this punishment at own cost (sondha selavula suniyam) 

Everybody starting from Santhanam (well, he did provide some moments of comic relief , but he too sang praises of 'whyIlayarajaisthegreatestmusician' , Then came Bharathiraja  __/\__ (en iniya thamizh makkale), and he kept saying he 'Laowes Ilayaraja' , and 'he is the man' , words like Hightegh and Gowdham made few of us go ROFL. 

BaluMahendra... all of us had tears. Because 70% of the audiences had started yawning by this time. 

Suriya was called upon the stage to 'introduce' a song, he was jumping up and down, over-killed, and was again repeating 'whyIlayarajaisthegreatestmusician' in a different tense and speech, spoke 1 line about the #NEPV song and left. 

K for Kollywood, B for Blade- KB is the blade master. Enuff said. 

Suraj Jagan's performance of 'Pudikala maamu' was out of the place, he was dancing and performing like no one was watching. 

Karthik did a fabulous performance with his 'Kaatrai konjam' , he was amazing as usual. The one guy of this generation of singers who does justice to a tune by Mottai. 

The title track 'Neethaane enthan ponvasantham' by Sunitha Sarathy was a Pathos and had Mottai stamped all over the song. 

There was this man named 'Yuvan Shankar Raja' who cannot sing without autotune, his Saindhu saindhu has a intoxicating lull to it, but Yuvan CANNOT sing live, but the female vocalist Ramya has a beautiful voice. Brilliant diction and great pitch. She saved and made up for Yuvan's sloppy show. 

And dearest members of Kollywood, world knows that Mottai is one maestro, why beat about the same bush ?? Very disappointed. 

[mirnaliniv]

Vision,mission-frustration and constipation

After contemplating for hours whether to write this or not, so here is the next rant.

'Be the change you want to see, Vision 2020, Progressive India', heard all this a zillion times? 

Well, I am an optimist too. I try to seek light at the end of every tunnel and that I am working with an organization which has it's objective very focused to lead, light and to create a gateway for the marginalized children. 

The past few months have given me a field experience on how the Government here is so good announcing all schemes with very fancy names . So like every other day they (Gov) decide to announce of those new schemes and now the focus was on school education , arts and music need to be a part of the curriculum (samcheer kalvi) , and as my organization work based on arts , we were given the 'privilege' of designing the curriculum and conducting workshops for teachers, so they in turn teach their wards. 

We have been working for the past 4 months, tirelessly framing the syllabus incorporating the best of art curriculum's from the world, consulting experts, creating a structured approach and translating it to Thamizh. Government here did not commit anything about the budget which was allotted for this scheme, so we found investors who would fund this program. 

We do all of this AND the highly esteemed officials here haven't given us the dates for us to conduct the workshop for teachers and to deliver them the materials, the venue was fixed after we had pressurized for few weeks. So me and my TL go to visit the venue and inform the headmistress of the school about the possible dates for the workshop, she gives a very uneasy look and says

'that is a local holiday, ma'am we cannot have the workshop'

we fumbled for words and asked, err..why? Apparently it is Onam on that day, oh ok, so can it be Thursday, Friday and Saturday then?

HM: Workshop on Saturday? Can you please ask JC sir?

And we call the man who was supposed to give us heads up for a start and the following was the lamest excuse I ever heard . 

'You can't have it from September 5th , it's Teacher's day, and the week following it is the start of quarterly exams and there is vacation after that' , oh ...Did you say August 29-31? I thought it was September..

Err, dearest educated bureaucrat when did EVER September have 31 days???? 

And now after spending months working on a project, We do not even know when we can deliver it in spite of bearing all the costs. 

I do not know why should there be any improvement and dreams of aspiring to be a developed nation et al that jazz. GO(I) rot in hell.