Spiritual time out

At times the workings of the supreme are mysterious and different .
He truly doesnt need us humans to fight for him .
Iam only a seeker and i make no edictments on matters spiritual because the truth is I dont know !
But i do believe
Belief comes out of what you learn from your birth and how you rationalise it with the limited faculties available to you .

Without rationality it becomes dogma .

Strangely being a Hindu gives one the liberty to choose from being a seeker and /or a believer .
One can go to temples pray to an idol but viewing it as a God because the concept is so abstract that we need a form known to us to comprehend or wander the Himalayas knowing the nature around spells God in its every rustle .
One can say that there is nothing neither heaven nor hell and no superior inhabitant sitting atop the clouds with a magic wand .
That too is fine .
One of the best statement i heard
 (I wouldnt call it a joke ) is when God met man both said later ....Today I met my creator .

Another may find the positivity in a place of worship is what his God is .
The vibrations that trill his phreomones to joy be it in the resplendence of an idol or the nuances of a ritual prayer and prostration done with piety or in the rhytm of a choral or a sermon from the altar .

That feeling of fullness is spiritual bliss where you just know or feel the presence of God though like the blind men and the elephant you accept him or her (gender important these days ) based on your sensitivity .
Thats why temples were built in a fashion to increase that sensitivity  from  footwear less feet  or by the glow of   lit lamps or to the  listening to cymbals and drums in ritual music or by the adornments of an idol these senses of every visitor is heightened .

Temples and places of worship  are recharge centers for our souls .

Our views on things one  knows nothing about  by the tiny chinks open to one .

Within these limited parameters we form our opinions which are subject to changes once our vision gets widened and to me that happens when the time comes or when a soul is ready for it .

So till then lets rejoice in our belief never ever transgressing in anothers for true religion of the heart is accomodative and not combative .
Its all encompassing and never competitive .

Sorry for this rambling .

These were some thoughts that came out when we talked on this topic yesterday morning when we went to drop Shyam in the airport .

It was a spiritual time out with our son  .

Amitabh Bachan

From the lipstick toting, tree hugging ,Hindi film heroes of the seventies who sang mournful sings to thier doe eyed heroines, there arose a tall lanky denim clad young man ,with a far away look in his eyes  who looked lean mean and hungry in the film Deewar !

I still remember the scene where he bolts the huge shed to thrash the goondah bunches and teeters out to wet his head under a public tap .

Amitabh Bachan had arrived .

Though Zanjeer had come before this I think ,where the bonhomie the young police officer had with that mischivous Pathan rogue Pran ,it didnt make the next chapter like Deewar did .
Though the clean mammas boy Sashi kapoor did win all that brawn and power by a simple statement
Mere paas maa hoon .

Those were days when films taken were imprinted into our cerebral crevices with boiling seals forever .

Amitabh strode like a colosuss to steal   the popularity of the most popular superstar Hindi cinema had ever seen, Rajesh khanna ,with his twinkling eyes,where charming giggling girls by the gallon became screaming banshees in his presence .

And then on to becoming  the reigning don in so many films that brought tears ,happiness ,and wow ,from the audience  for decades ,this one man film industry had no equal to his  talent charisma and presence .
People loved him for everything even when he romanced the other woman the dusky temptress Rekha the cleopatra of Hindi filmdom and they even made a film where he enacted the real life role in Silsila with his wife and Woh .

Whether it is the time he  was by the side of his friend our former PM shri Rajiv Gandhi ,or as a politician in dusty UP ,or as an anchor doling out  crores in prime time TV ,or as a failed buisnessman in the US of A or  even when millions had  wept for him in a hospital bed in Mumbai ,or as just a floating most famous voice in documentaries he was the winner always .

A life time of talent,charm professionalism,skills,etiquette,grace,style,sauveness,and dignity.
As he moved into seventies and fell into roles like the aged lawyer who fights for the rights of women ,or became the son of his lanky actor son ,and so many more roles .

He still sang danced, emoted ,even loved and floored forever .

He spoke in his baritone voice the most famous in the nation which once was rejected in audition by a foolish AIR ..

Today this colossus is 77 and awaiting the Dada Saheb Palke award for life time achievement and rightly so too .

May I be one of the millions who wish and pray for this great actor and human being AMITABH BACHAN to get long healthy years ahead when he continues to make us happy .

...

 wish him the v best

Harimohan

Mutton olarthiyathu

Mutton Olarthiyathu .

Being a reasonably good cook of the malayalee culinary USB the Beef olarthiyathu, today I made a mutton version of the famous Syrian Christian dish ..
Kerala is the land of spices,coconuts,green canopy of trees,lashing waves  lapping backwaters,verdant hills and dark forests.

The damp humid and warm greenhouse it is , has many culinary delights which grew out of years of its kaleidoscopic influences from all over the world .

 At times when the rest of India had prohibitions to travel beyond the black oceans ,the shores of Kerala had Europeans,Arabs,and Jews,pouring in .

In AD 52 St Thomas was said to have spread the word of Christ in the South of Kerala ,and centuries later when the Portugese came and were surprised to know that Christianity existed in this land years back .

The advent of Islam in the 6 th century,
 Jewish refugees  ,
Arab ,European,Chinese traders or colonisers ,
 African slaves ,
little Kerala had more foriegners in it than the rest of India .

The land absorbed thier culinary skills and secrets ,and with time it melded and moulded them with local recipes using locally available food matireal thus giving birth to an unique kerala cuisine of which the Beef olarthiyathu occupies a primma donna position .

The Mallu loves his drink and his parotta and for both this was the best side dish made .

So today I wanted to be a bit different in making a Mutton olarthiyathu as this was not much heard of .

The core ingredient is the Coconut
Ie liberal use of coconut oil and coconut bits .
I went to Thripunithura market as a morning walk to buy mutton from my weekly regular butcher.

I tenderised boneless mutton  pieces with some curd, all spices ,salt ,for an hour

Later pressure cooked for 2 whistles and  kept it aside .

Took a frying pan heated coconut oil sauted ginger garlic pieces with coconut chunks ,added whole spices ,small onion cut well ,salt ,coriander ,turmeric,chilly powder in that order and once well blended added tomatoe ,curry leaves and later cooked meat .

The next part is the real secret of olarthiyathu .

One needs patience and hard work to go one churning the mix in low heat for a long time till all liquid disappears .

Add a bit of coconut oil when it turns dry
Add some pepper powder and meat masala nearing the end and later green curry leaves .

By now it would be brown black ,but not burnt or charred .

Mutton olarthiyathu is ready and yummy .

Maha memories

For someone born and brought up in Madras todays Chennai ,Mahabalipuram is like the back of his elbow.
From childhood its the quintissential escursion point for schools .
Year after year we were bundled into bumpy buses with home made sandwiches and waved off by indulgent mothers to this place .
In the hot sun we used to try to push down the butter stone precariously positioned appearing to roll down at touch of a finger but elephants couldnt budge them .
For centuries they have stayed there and they did too when another indi chini bai bai happened today .
1962 bai bai turned sour as the Chinese marched into Arunachal pradesh .
We did see those places too in snow clad hill tops off Tawang when our Bolero was willing but we werent ,dazzled by snow blindness we told the driver to get back to safety , forgetting Madhuri lake where a jumping Shah rukh had frolicked with Madhuri Dikshit .
We felt good that day to know Shah Rukh had stayed in our suite in Tawam tourist bungalow tired after his exertions with a curvy Madhuri ..i mean in shooting dont u get me wrong there .

Coming back to Mahabalipuram in tbe days of romancing my present wife we had made a trip to soft murmurings in Arjunas penance and later as freshly married couple in our yezdi .
The Shore temple gave a great photo op for reunion of my classmates brats with bellies for a stud only get together as the wind lashed the waves ,we drowned our nostalgias in iced bacardis .

How could we forget the family get together in a sea food place when we crunched into shelled delicacies gazing at the silhoutted shore temple .

But today lighted and burnished mahabalipuram was shown to the world as never before
Modi the wizard is surely a great marketing executive for our tourism .

Masala Times

Good Morning

To me ordering breakfast in a vegetarian hotel has never been a big deal for my choices are written in stone .
My family orders for me if iam still parking and tell the waiter...the strong coffee should come along with the dosa neither before nor after and ..please make it piping hot ....
The tons of masala dosas that would have contributed to the lard deposited in my body have done their bit to give me a smile for the day ,a small prize one pays for a big gift .
Good masala dosas are never dry nor dripping with oil .
They are just in the middle .
They are golden brown with a promising middle .
The edges to me should never be paper thin nor carpenter hard .
They need to Aishwarya Roy slim .
The filler potatoe masala should be blended smooth with right flavours and tinge of spiciness being very careful not to trip over the crevasse
It should rather sit on the precipe but never falling to doom .
The ghee should be smelt before tasted .
It should waft gently into our nostrils and stimulate the olfactory bulbs waking up the cerebral masala dosa centers (iam sure i have them ) and then a million suns bursts at the first succulent bite ..
The chutneys are always the side actors and can never replace the hero dosa and heroine masala .
My vada too needs to be in the right sense it cant be cold ,it should be warm ,with crusted exteriors and soft insides just like all good people are .

The best chutney to go with uzzhunu vada is the fresh coconut dry chutney not the watery liquid one .
The Coffee to me preferably south indian  filter coffee
I can settle for a Bru or a sunrise if well made .
Milk undiluted with enough coffee powder with just a spoon of sugar hot and scalding is my coffee
Any lesser version i frown upon
So thats it
Its always better to tell ones choices
Never know where my next masala dosa is from 😁