Saturday, January 21, 2006

Be a Rebel

Over and over I have been playing the same song.. I am not able to decipher one word of the song.Probably I have not concentrated enough ( and I did not play it in a walkman ).I have hunted the net for lyrics .. ( I got some wrong ones).Two phrases struck me..
Be a Rebel
Lose Control
So easily said.. So very easily said.
Now who is a rebel ? Who is a revolutionist ? Is every rebel a forethinker ? Here is my defnition of a rebel. He is an objectivist looking for a long term real solution to the problem.wanting to lead life his own way and wanting to make a difference.He would be able to look farther into the future.
A bright kid in the class.With a different idea.New visualization twists to the actuals. I envy such people and I am really jealous of them.They seem to be every where.What are others supposed to do ? Sit back and watch them get brainstorming ideas every second ? Isnt it slightly unfair ? The nature and everything.
Some are born rebels. Some others try to get converted . You try hard . Very hard to think of some thing new. Some thing non conventional. Its a conscious attempt not spontaneous how many times are we successful ?
Are all rebels genius ? Being genius is so very different from being hard working. Any one can work hard.And the later does not imply the former.What percentage of what matters ? Or does anything matter at all ?

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Mattu Pongal : Brothers :Official Declaration:


Today is Mattu Pongal.I have always found mattu pongal to be more interesting than pongal itself.The reasons being

  1. The variety spread ( Pulli Sadam, Karudam, Chakkara pongal etc ) which is prepared .
  2. Kannu Podi.

Kannu Podi is a spl ritual on mattu pongal day. Its a simple fun ritual.A part of the previous night's food( Pongal day spread) is saved for the next morning. All the girls ( and ladies ) wake up early in the morning. Fresh Turmeric leaves ( The leaves from Manjal Kothu ) is purchased from market.The backyard is cleaned and is decorated with kolam. The manjal elai is laid on the kolam . The previous day's food ( Sadam, Kozhambu, Pongal along with banana ) is neatly laid on the leaf. ( Not to forget that U are allowed to keep only odd count pieces > 3 ).Now what is special ? Kannu Podi I have been told is kept for 3 reasons

  1. To please the Surya Bhagavan
  2. To feed the crows.
  3. The most important .. To pray for your brother and his well being.( An equivalent to Raksha bandan for the Tamzhil makkal)

Technically Kannu Podi should not mean anything to me.Because I dont have any boy sibling.Nor do I have any cousin brothers !!! I do have some second cousins . But they are little kids .And I cant term them as belonging to my generation.And I hardly meet them.

I had already mentioned this in one of my previous posts ( here ).And amma's cousin (Sriram) read it . Sriram and Sridhar are 2 ppl who are almost my brothers. In the family tree they would be placed at a level higher in the previous generation ( i.e My mom's generation) . ( i.e If I do a level order tree traversal they would not be in the same level as mine ;-) ). But Sriram's comment for the post in the Cbox kindled lots of emotions in me.So I thought on this Kannu Pongal day why not declare both of them as my brothers officially( and publicly).

So here I go :

Heyy Sriram & Sridhar . Today I officially declare both of u as my brothers.And Dont forget that U have all the brotherly responsibilities and u cant skip anything. ( I guess Ranju and maybe Poorna will also agree )

Here is a photo of the kannu podi.

A slight digression: Colour Kolams in the margazhi masam is also a ritual/tradition/practised activity.....Here is today's kolam. Kolams are a beautiful way to learn and enjoy graph colouring. Today's Kolam's Chromatic number is only 3. But we had lots of colours in small quantities .So we could not achieve optimality.Still here is the Kolam