The dying art of "Sambar Powder Making"

From the time immemorial, I am used to eating Sambar Rice (sadham) as the first course in our traditional meal.  For that matter, our everyday meal is a traditional meal with 3 courses.. can't help it! One of my pet grouse in this regard is the general decline in the quality of the Sambhar being made at home.  (ok, I am making a bold statement here with the understanding that my wife doesn't read blogs, at the least my blog).

I wore my investigative hat to find out what is really causing this gradual decline in the quality.  I found out that in our house, we have moved away from the age-old traditional way of making the sambhar powder.  It used to be an elaborate exercise involving drying, frying, grinding of what not spices.  So the most plausible alternative to that is to buy the ready-made sambhar powder.

We moved to the ready-made sambhar powder few years ago and have experimented with all available brands starting from Sakthi Sambhar powder to Aaachi to Ambika, but never satisfied with any one of them.  But I always used to crib to my wife that the Sambhar is not up to the mark and I used to make some unwanted jokes like that she should go back to taking lessons on how to make sambhar all over again.

Since couple of weeks the quality of sambhar has improved dramatically, increasing my curiosity to what has happened to cause this positive surprise.  The answer lies in the packet of home-made sambhar powder delivered from my in-laws place.  What a difference to the taste of sambhar?

Now I have started telling my wife that instead of learning to make sambhar, she should learn the secrets of making the sambhar powder.  If luck shines on me, I will able to impress my wife to start making the sambhar powder at home instead of the off-the-shelf sambhar powder.   The only reply I have received so far is a "stern look"! 

I want my days to be packed!

I know it has been a long time since I wrote something.  Except for the forwarded New Year 2012 wishes, there is nothing I have written so far in this new year.  It is due to nothing but lethargy.  There are ample subjects to write about but my sheer inability to focus on this for the last so many weeks is the main culprit. 

It doesn't mean that I have been "very" busy with other things.  No. But that is how it happens with me.  I guess,  I like to work in pressure-cooker situations rather than take things at a leisurely pace.  It doesn't work with me, at all!  I have to still learn to do things even when there is no pressure to do.  Or I have to make it a point to write something like what this guy does, write every weekend! (Ok, he has also not updated for some time, it seems!)

Lord Muruga Temples in Chennai

I have got a bright idea. I want to visit as many Lord Muruga temples in Chennai and its nearabouts. I have the list of following Murugan temples, but would be happy to know if there are more:
1. Vadapalani Murugan Temple
2. Balamurugan Temple, Porur
3. Kandakottam, Parry Corner
4. Tiruporur Murugan Temple
5. Kundrathur Murugan Temple
6. Balamurugan Temple, in one of the by-lanes opposite to Valluvar Kottam
7. Murugan Temple on Eldams Road

Please send me details of more Lord Murugan Temples.

Like Father, Like Son!!

I am really astonished to see how my son has picked up things in life which closely resembles my childhood. Not one or two but so many things, which makes me believe that it is in his genes!!

These days, particularly, when the World Cup is on, I see my son waking up and asking for the paper the moment he gets up in the morning. I have to literally push him to have his morning tasks completed before he starts reading. It takes me back some 25 years ago when I used to wait for my turn to read the Hindu every morning. I was so crazy about Cricket then and I wanted to read the The Hindu for its cricket coverage and the odd photo or two. Those days The Hindu's cricket correspondent used to be R Mohan, whose flowery language and descriptions were read but never understood by me. But I continued to read that for many many years!! My father never parted with the sheets until he finished the whole paper. I used to crib and cry and wait for him to complete his reading. Just like that, my son does it these days.

Secondly, his interest towards the game has gone up substantially over the last 3 months or so. He regularly comes up and asks if he can go for Cricket coaching, which we sent him for 1 month before we stopped last April. He was very keen to continue even then but due to our pre-occupation and the distance to the coaching class, we took him off. I think we should put him back into that starting this summer. My pre-occupation can't be an excuse for not sending him for the coaching, which I dreamed so much about.

Man with the Android!!

It sounds little phony, but it is!! Yes, I have a got a Android phone couple of weeks back after a nerve-wrecking decision making process!! There are two aspects to this Android phone which I would like to tell, one is the process of identifying the phone itself and second is the post-purchase experience of using a Android.

Before I move any further, I just want to make it very clear. I am not a gadget freak and can be considered a novice in these areas. You can understand better when I say that used my old phone's USB cable first time in 4 years to transfer the phonebook to the new phone.

When I decided to change my good old Sony Ericsson W810i after 4 years of use, the hottest thing on the phone circuit was the touch phone. Coupled with the pressure from the Junior, I didn't have a choice of buying different phone. He wanted a touchphone and probably that started the discussion on changing the phone.

Once it was decided that its going to be touch-phone, Android, seems to be the logical choice. I limited my budget to Rs10K knowing my usage habits and who is going to use it more. So I started shortlisting Android phones in that range, which resulted in Samsung Galaxy 5 and Micromax Andro as the top contenders. Doubts were also raised about the Android apps, so I started looking at alternate platforms like Symbian, Bada etc., Iphone was never in contention because of the huge price tag of Rs30K. No doubt why Apple is sitting on USD59.3 billion cash!!

It was a nerve wrecking 3 weeks period where I spent most of my time looking at the options available in the market. Somewhere down the line, the gut feeling was telling me to go for a time tested Symbian Qwerty phone from the Nokia stable instead of a touch phone. So it was a competition between my gut feeling and what I read and heard about the usefulness of Android phones. Finally, I over-ruled my gut feeling and bought a Samsung Galaxy 5 phone! It was definitely a moment of great relief if not ecstasy!

Its been two weeks since I started using the touch screen phone, I have to admit that it is very addictive. The build quality of Samsung Galaxy 5 is very good for the price point and I enjoy the silky smooth touch screen experience. I use the phone on a 2G network and even then the internet speed is good. The sound clarity is good while on the calls as well as when you play the music.

What annoys me the most is the battery drain. I charge the phone for 4 hours on the trot and I use it for 1 hour of browsing, half the battery is gone. I tried reducing the brightness of the screen to the barest minimum, downloaded the Android apps killer and didn't use the music at all. Even then a fully charged battery cant sustain you beyond 8 hours or so. This is ridiculous and I getting fed up with this phone already. If anybody has any idea how to extend the battery life, please mail me or drop me a comment.

Secondly, the data usage on the internet browsing seems to be way too high. This is not related to the phone per se, but I guess this is something to do with the Android OS. I have run a bill of Rs1200 on internet usage just for facebook /twitter updates and checking emails. I have hardly browsed other sites on the net like youtube or something, but still the data usage seems to be very high. It may be related to the service provider as well, but need to check that next month.

Overall, the phone is good if you have an appetite for charging it frequently, which I find totally annoying. In a country like India where during summers you go without electricity for 4 hours or so, this is not an ideal phone at all. Also when you travel, you need to remember to carry your charger even if you don't carry your undergarments!! If these Android phone manufacturers find a way out of this battery problem, I think Android would rule. Else, people would slowly revert back to time tested T9 keypad phones is my guess!

Now on Twitter

Folks, now I am on twitter as well. @venkysdiary.  Click here to follow me. I have been delaying my twitter debut for quite sometime but the bug finally hit me before the year-end.  I also found that most of the regular bloggers are updating regularly in Twitter compared to their blogs.  Usually you read somebody's blog, start liking it and get to follow their twitter posts as well. Has been trying out for the last few days and honestly am not very gung-ho with Twitter so far!? May be, I sound little different from most of the others who have tried Twitter and fallen for it!! But I think otherwise!

The reasons for me is due to the limitation of 140 characters for a message, the need to continuously tweet as it a very short message form, and your frequencies should gel before you start appreciating the tweets of people whom you are following.  Not like a blog if you don't like it, you don't just visit it.  Once you start following somebody, whatever he/she tweets appears on your homepage on twitter.  At times I have found some tweets from the persons whom I follow on Twitter and wondered what they are talking about.  It is micro blogging where even your minute-by-minute emotions/thoughts can be shared.  Has the good and the bad parts.    On the privacy part as well, it is much more open and transparent and no way to chose your readers (blogs are no different, unless you make it private).

But I am not going to shy away from this new challenge of "tweeting away to glory".  Sadly, the biggest loser over the last few days is my blog.  My thought process is tuned to communicate everything in 140 characters or less now!! But I have plenty of topics to write about.  Will be back!!

PS: I wrote this post and published it once.  Then on reading it for myself I realised that I didn't communicate few things properly. So I tried to re-write this post.  Is Twitter taking a toll on my writing so soon!!??

Toasted bread and Rasam for breakfast - have you tried it?

Have you ever tried a toasted bread with Rasam.  I did yesterday, thanks to the Missus.  To start with when it was offered as the morning "tiffin" (டமில்ஸ் "டிபன்" என்று படிக்கவும்), was not very happy but grudgingly accepted it.  You also get a recommendation from the Missus that it would be nice, a completely loaded statement!! Haven't you ever tried it? No, in the last ten years.  How can you take your Missus recommendation for breakfast at face value?

There is always an element of suspicion that this "toasted bread and rasam" offer is a short-cut to escape the drudgery of getting into a full-scale "tiffin" preparation.  So when the bowl came with some 10 toasted bread slices and a big cup of rasam, I was giving a valiant smile and question why 10 toasted bread slices? You learn sweetly that half of that should go to the son and comes with the added responsibility of ensuring that he eats it as well.  You are going to try it for the first time in your life and here you have this!! Son, finicky with everything you eat, (finicky is an understatement) smiles at you sitting across the table. 

I started trying out the vicious combination first on myself before inflicting any gastrointestinal issues to the Son.  But then it tasted very different and I really enjoyed it.  Why I didn't try it for so long or why my Missus never offered me this so long?

The bread should be toasted to brown in colour and accompanied by piping hot rasam, preferably "thelinda" (தெளிந்த) rasam.  Tomato rasam goes well with bread but other genres of rasam should also just do fine.  Remember not to apply "butter" to the bread, because that defeats the purpose of careful eating.  White breads are better than Wheat bread. 

Try it out and let me know how it goes for you!!

PS: Son finished the plate before me without any prodding.  So this recipe is successful across age groups!!

No Pain, No Gain!

It is exactly one year since I stopped going to the gym regularly.  Yes, its a kind of revelation for some but that is the fact.  After being a regular at the gym for 2 straight years, a kind of self-pity and lethargy creeps in and it happened to me as well.  It all started with lame excuses like rains and holiday season.  The reasons came flowing as November rains in Chennai, that is, intermittently, late working hours, travelling too long to office, having a gym in the office itself then why outside etc.,  Most importantly at the bottom of my heart I longed for a break, I guess and I got it.

Originally, when I stopped in Dec'09, I was under the belief that I would start once the new year starts.  This new year didn't start exactly the way I wanted.  Was down with Chikunguniya in the last weeks of December and continued to experience weakness during the first month of year.  When there are people around you to tell that I should rest and not strain myself by going to the gym, would there be any motivation to go? Absolutely not.  Then came the job change in late Jan'10 and the long travel everyday.  It was draining my energy and I wanted the routine to settle before I hit the gym again.  But I could never settle and the office timings changed in between in April/May'10.  Back to square one.  Returned from office around 2'o clock in the night and going to gym in the morning was not at all a good option.

Then the idea of utilising the gym in the office itself came up.  I got a good partner, Sadasivam as well.  I was regular for the first 10 days and again the long distance and general bad environment in work and life didn't support it any further.  I managed some thirty days of gym with breaks in between but that also fell through.  I switched job again in August and decided to get started with the gym.

I can't figure out why but it never happened in September to November.  Three months I loitered around without taking up any membership in the gym.  I think,  possibly it has something to do with my better than ever before scores on the Cholesterol and Lipid profile.  Even when I was regular to the gym, I never got  these beautiful figures over the last 2 years and suddenly with no gym for 9 months or so, you lipid profile shows excellent improvement.  I was not convinced about the numbers and did 2 further checks to confirm that the lipids profile has become better.  Then how one would get motivated to go to the gym??!

I should say, since the last 6 months or so, I have been eating crazily.  No restrictions on sweets and got emboldened with the lipid profile results.  But for the last one month or so, I have been feeling that I have been putting on weight.  When one fine morning I decided to check my weight, and it has gone up by 4 kgs over the last 12 months.  A kind of enlightenment happened.  Thought about the fact how I struggled for 2 years to bring down the weight by 10 kgs and finally gave it away all in the last 6 months was not meaningful.  So on Dec 1, I went back to my old gym, Abinaya and enrolled myself again.

My luck or lack of it with the gym doesn't end there.  The day I enrolled the gym announced that they are moving to a new premises and decided to shut shop for 7 days.  So I have to wait again for another 10 days before I started all over again.  I have been going to the gym the last 2 days and I am slowly trying to get back into my old routine of 45 minutes of work-outs.  I am determined this time that I should not let go and I have kept myself an ambition of losing this 4 kgs over the next 3 months.  By March'11 I should be back to where I was 12 months ago.

There is something to "Kalyana Sappadu"!

If I sit back and think what gives me immense happiness and pleasure these days, one of the things on top of the list is a good "Kalyana Sappadu".  I have knowingly or unknowingly been enjoying this for some years now, I would say.  

There is something to the kalyana sambar compared to the daily sambar made at home.  Accompanied by a mor-kuzhambu and pineapple rasam it makes it divine for me.  How often do you get that? May be, once in couple of months.  So whenever I get a chance, I have started enjoying every bit of it.  I slow down my pace of eating and try to grind it more than the usual.  I also ensure that I take sufficient amount of vegetables but most of the time, it ends with handful of potato or vazhakkai curry, which is not that good any day.  Then I follow it up with the choicest of payasam served in paper cups.  I don't subscribe to this way of payasam being served but the convenience of the caterer wins.  Then you wind it up with Thayir Sadam and manga urukkai.  I can bet, the manga urukkai's served at marriage feasts are the best.  Even better than what is made at home or you buy from Ambika Appalam Depot or Suswad or Grand Sweets. 

I feel heavy after a meal like this (who will not??) but the mood definitely becomes upbeat.  There is definitely a connection between good food and good spirits.  More the good food merrier you are most of the time!!

There is something to this "kalyana sappadu"!!  It is sinful!!

Man proposes and the ....

Other day, the Father and son leave home on a bike to go to the school.  On the way it was drizzling all along and they just manage to reach the school before getting completely wet.  The father was thinking that should he have taken the car to drop the son to the school after sensing that it is cloudy and overcast.  He is concerned more about the "loving" words he would receive when he goes back home from his lovely wife. 

As he was dropping the son at the school entrance, the gatekeeper announces that there is no school today on account of rains!! Son becomes jubilant and looks at the father victoriously. I don't think there is anything as sweet as this for a kid. Getting to know at the school entrance that there is an unexpected holiday.  As long as you are in school, these kind of things are a bonanza.

Now the father and the son turn back to head home and by the time, the drizzle has stopped.  As if it rains only when you go to the school.  On the way back, the father and son strike a plan to tease the wife/mother, and play a practical joke.  They decide that they would head home together but the father would enter the home first with the lunch box in his hand telling the wife that he has forgotten to hand over the lunch box to the son.  The mother would definitely go wild at the father for his irresponsible behaviour and useless nature in general.  Then, as the drama was going on, the son would enter the house running saying that he has taken an auto to come back home to collect the lunch box.  Now the mother would go really wild seeing that the son had taken an auto on his own and the roof would fall. The plan was to allow the mother to vent her ire before the father-son duo would announce that school has declared a holiday and they were playing a practical joke on her!!!

Not all things go according to the plan in life, this included.  After elaborate rehearsal on the way back home, and fully prepared to enact the drama, they find the mother waiting for them at the entrance of the building.  Anti-climax! The mother welcomes the father and the son saying that her friends (son's classmates' mothers) have called her and told her about the holiday already.   She is eagerly waiting for the duo to come back home.

The man can only propose!!

Masai Mara - tribe from Africa

"Masai Mara is one of the very ancient tribes of Africa with history dating back to thousand of years.  They live in the grasslands of Kenya and Tanzania.  Cattle rearing is their main occupation and they would do all to protect their cattle.  Masai dance is a very famous dance and they dance for every occasion, be it birth, marriage or death.  They are nomadic tribe and keep moving from one place to the another.

Off late, they are finding it very difficult to lead a peaceful live due to constant intrusion of their lives by the tourists.  Their traditional lands have been taken over the Governments of Kenya and Tanzania to create wildlife parks.  The most famous of them is the Masai Mara Wildlife park. 

Masai Mara tribe has it own traditions and customs.  The men of their tribe wear the feathers of the animals they hunt.  Wearing a Lion's mane is the highest symbol of valour and strength. "

Wondering what happened to me! This is what I learned about this Masai Mara tribe when my son participated in the Fancy Dress competition last week.  It is a very elaborate exercise to prepare one for a fancy dress competition.  In this case, you have to dress him like an African tribe, so it involved additional effort of sourcing the dress, beads, headgear, spear and shield. 

I found out that there are shops who rent dresses for fancy dress competition and school/college dramas.  One among them is Costume Centre, below the Kodambakkam bridge.  I am surprised to see the amount of collection of dresses they have as well as how neatly they maintain them.  They don't lend dresses for cinmea shooting!!

It involved days of practice of the script, the masai dance and the song.  On the day of the competition, we were at the school to do the make-up and make him look like an African Masai.  The credit should go to my wife, who painstakingly collected all the details and the required dress materials.

All the kids, numbering 30, who performed on the stage on that day, did phenomenally well for their age.  They have collected so much of information about their tribe they were dressed like.  Rest of the students who didn't participate were the audience for this.  When each and every participant talked about their tribe, there were so much to know and learn and that is exactly the objective of the school as well.  The audience were very participative and the whole show was a good education and entertainment.  I loved being at the school on that day, for a change!!

My Cricketing Years

I somehow stupidly believed that I could be a successful cricketer and play cricket as my full-time profession,  if not for my father!!  I think every aspiring cricketer thinks that way.  Nevertheless, I spent good 12 years of my life, playing some form of cricket from gully cricket to being part of the district cricket team.  To borrow a famous phrase, I was thinking and living Cricket almost all the time. 

Those 12 years of my life, from 9 years to 21 years had all sort of experiences.  Few memorable and few forgettable!! I have done stupid things on and off the field in my cricketing career, if I may call so, as all great cricketers like Ian Botham, Viv Richards, Mohd Asif,  have done!! I have burnt bridges, ditched teams at the last moment, stopped talking to people, carried for long, despise  and superstitions.  When I look back, many of these actions looks juvenile.
I have been thinking about this for few days now and I want to chronicle them in a series of blog posts.  I have tentatively segregated them into four time periods but it can undergo change. 

• Uncrowned King of Gully Cricket @ PAK Stadium 
• Graduating to "Cricket Ball"
• With the Big Boys
• Fading out

It is going to take sometime before I can complete these and not sure if I should wait for completing all the four before posting or post it as and when I complete something.   Surely, it is going to re-kindle my memories and I want to re-live those glorious years where there were no pressure, except for performing on the field.  I will give it the best shot!

Welcome relief, though temporary, from bulk sms menance

Due to the impending Ayodhya verdict, the Govt. of India has banned the bulk sms by the telecom operators.  This ban is effective from 23 Sep to 29 Sep.  Oh, what a relief it is, I say!  No SMS from anybody except for the odd one.  Otherwise, I receive close to some 40 sms everyday ranging from yellow water conversion, to equity advisory to housemaids.  The most notorious of them all is the equity advisory tips which I receive from entities which I dont have any relation or never done business with them.  The names run like Bull trade, Vimal Stocks, Dream Gains, Sure trade, First Call and so many like that.  I dont know how these guys got my number but with a very porous system like what we have in India it is no big deal to get hold of numbers.  I myself receive many messages saying that the database of 2 lakh Chennai HNI's (!) available for Rs1500/- or so!!!!

So it is a welcome break from these troublesome SMS and I am enjoying it!!!

Back online after a short hiatus!

I switched on the computer today at home after 7 days. I didn't check my mails, Facebook & orkut updates and not even the emails. The reason being simple: I didn't feel like doing that. I guess it happens to me once in a while where I don't feel like even switching on the computer. Just carried on living a life outside the web. Yes, it is possible folks, you can also try it out!

It is easier to avoid getting online on weekdays as you would anyways have lot of things to do. But during the weekends you invariably end up sitting in front of the computer trying to read all the facebook updates, updating the blog, checking and replying to emails and in bargain gaining few choice words from the wife. Ennathan panniviyo intha computer munnale ukkanthu.. konjam paiyyan kooduyum time spend panna ennavam? (Dont know what you do sitting in front of the computer the whole day.. can spend some time with the boy instead) is the normal refrain. Possibly true, as I end up sitting in front of the computer for a good 3 hours or so every time I log in. Even now, I am sitting online for the last 45 minutes! I don't have the habit of finishing things in a swift manner, particularly online.

Thayir Sadam on Sunday afternoon!

Just finished a plate of Thayir Sadam evenly mixed with morning Sambar, chou-chou kootu and a bit of Manga thokku.. was licking till the last drop.. whoever found this magic dish should be a genius!

To be honest, I am not a kind of person who goes overboard about Thayir Sadam, but today was an exceptional day. I think it has to do with the kind of curd you use to a great extent.

What kind of buyer you are?

I was told few days back that I always have a "list of things to buy" at any point of time but would never decide soon and buy. Who can pass a comment like that other than the better half! I agree that I maintain a virtual list to things which I would love to buy. Though I have a list of things to buy and many of them are affordable, I always deliberate a lot before I buy anything. Sometimes delaying the purchase is useful so that I can avoid wasteful expenditure but many a times it spoils the mood of the people around, particularly when I take days to decide on something. Even now, I carry a little lengthy buying list consisting of a cycle ( needs a separate story!), bike, desktop, car, centrepiece, personal wardrobe, car upholstery, paint work for the house and etc., Many out of the above list are easily affordable but I have never been an impulsive buyer.

I have seen people deciding and buying things in a jiffy. On the contrary I tend to live through the buying decision in my mind before I actually purchase. The advantage is, when I imagine about the product and its usage, I tend to get a better understanding of its utility value and my ability to use. This process naturally takes longer time for me to be completed before I get moving to the next stage of actual purchase. It is more of somebody's nature which determines their buying habits but in my opinion it can be fine-tuned, as in my case. In my earlier days, I have remained an impulsive buyer and over a period of time I have moved away from that. Is it more to do with the increasing age? May be!

What kind of buyer you are? Impulsive or a patient buyer like me.

Caps and the summer

It is summer time in Chennai. One of the easiest ways to keep yourselves protected from Sun is to wear a cap when you go out. I have this habit of wearing caps whenever I go out in the sun. I think I picked up this habit from my father. My father always used to wear a cap and still continues with that on many occasions. I love wearing caps. At some point in time, it was even joked by my friends that I can't be seen without the cap. I started having a collection of caps. But off late, thanks to the increased usage of cars in my life, the habit of wearing a cap is coming down with me. But whenever there is an opportunity I grab it with both hands.

I am trying to introduce this habit with my son. He was very reluctant to wear a cap to start with. He will reject the idea outright and off late with great reluctance he is wearing one while going to school. That too, he would remove the cap a good 50 meters before the school. I don’t understand what his problem is and why he doesn’t want to wear one. I keep insisting that he should wear a cap at least while he plays cricket in the sun but again he won’t listen to that. The other day we were at the cricket ground watching a coaching camp for youngsters and I saw many of the young kids wearing a cap. I showed that to him and asked him if he would be wearing a cap when he goes for cricket coaching camp. He said immediately a "No" and looked around. He got attracted to one guy who was wearing a cricket hat which caught his fascination. So he has agreed to wear a cricket hat rather than a cap. Cap is a strict no no with him. I can’t figure that out why still. But something is better than nothing.

Some days move slow

Some days are quite different in a way that time doesn't move at all. Today was one such day. Got up in the morning and started reading the regular set of newspapers. Even after reading the papers I turn around to see that the time is only 8 am. Go and borrow another set of newspapers from the next house and start reading them. I continue to read the outlook magazine, try to sleep for sometime and wake up to see that the time was 10 am. With the afternoon timing, I somehow felt that time is not moving at all. Somedays it happens like this. Whatever you do you still find lot of time left. But did the spare time usefully then the answer is no.

Does it happen to others as well?

Missing my driving!!

I have been taking the company cab for the last 45 days or so. Because of this, I hardly got any chance to drive my car. It is one of the longest periods I have not driven my car in the last 6 plus years. I always wanted to drive to office and did it too for few days but due to the odd timings and the distance I have been advised “sternly” not to drive. So I decided to respect the advice and desisted from driving. During the weekends, you have the option to drive but somehow over the last few weeks it so happened that we never went out to a place which required a car.

At last, a week ago I drove my car for a good 25 kilometers in the city traffic and felt really happy about it. Before starting, I thought I would be little scratchy in my driving but it was contrary to that. I was comfortable driving in the morning traffic. The gear changes were happening smoothly and it was again back to business as usual. Then I realized that how deeply I miss my car and the driving. Driving gives me great pleasure is what I realized. Many can claim that Chennai traffic is not worth the effort, but I beg to differ.

I have always been on my own transport but now with the company pick up and drop; you are dependant on somebody to a great extent for commuting. You have to ensure that you are at the pick up spot well in time and leave exactly on time at the allotted hour. Absence of your car removes lot of flexibility from the work life. I really look forward to start driving again… I want my freedom back!!

The last 10 days

The last 10 days have been hectic, to say the least. Pongal, health and the change of job were all there. The health continues to improve but still I believe there is some distance to go. Pongal came and went. The celebrations were as usual. But the good thing is the 4 day break. But I hardly ventured out and remained indoors.

Joined a new employer after spending more than 5 years with the previous one. Keeping my fingers crossed on how this would turn out to be. I can tell you, moving from one employer to another is a difficult one. Leave alone the emotional issues, the process of getting relieved from one organisation and joining another organisation is a herculean task. So many forms to be completed and submitted, laptop and other office material to be handed back, you don't get salary for the last month of work as it would be part of the settlement, deletion of id's and accesses etc., makes it a not so smooth process.

Then you head to the new company and undergo all the troubles of understanding the new employee systems and procedures, apply for accesses, id's, salary accounts, pf accounts etc., Not done it for sometime, so sounds little confusing. Guess things would settle down soon.