In America

   pothichoru restaurant A new restaurant has started in Tracy that serves pothichoru, the traditional kerala meal of the common working man. Nostalgia has a power that the Michelin does not. As soon as I clicked go, the map said you have arrived.  Omelette, poricha meen, meen kari, chammandhi, payaru ularthiyathu, cheera thoran, puzhungalari choru, vaazhayila, news paper - andhassu! After wresting the mildly annoying software issues, and the long hard commute, when you come home to a pothichoru like this, it is a pothichoru to remember.  I am reminded of another pothichoru from a Fremont restaurant IIRC that we had had to celebrate Divya Brennan's story being published in a book. 

Minimal Elegant Decor The hall decor was planned out to be minimal for this year's onam, and had a quiet elegance to it.  The Maveli cutout is very effective and good value for money, an idea that Vipin Vasudevan had introduced last Onam, and executed on this one as well. Vipin Viswanathan's handmade vanji from last year made a reappearance as well this time, bringing in some grandeur. Pookkalam Pookkalam had looked good in the morning, and then a layer of rose petals were added all around, elevating the look considerably. Sruthi had done most of the work at the hall today morning, while Nithya, Ramshi, Divyas had done a lot of background work, with chasing flowers, and getting the petals ready. Lot of hardwork behind the beautiful pookkalam. Sound System Setup Girish came in with his two speakers, speaker stands, a woofer, two transmitters, two receivers, four mikes, a mixer, the sound cables, wires, laptop etc. Arun and myself were apprentices as Girish explained the setup he...

The humility with which Navneeth performed and spoke won over my heart instantly.  He started off with "Sripadham vidarnna saraseeruhathil". And continued to bring to light exquisite gems from the classical era of malayalam film music, carnatic music, hindi, bengali etc.  He delved into the details of the brilliance of the compositions. Not a lot of it registered for me. What registered was the grandeur of the songs.  It was a lovely evening and was well worth the three hours drive up from Tracy. It is thanks to the Music India Foundation's initiative that I actually got to experience the performance of Naveeth Unnikrishnan.  Ravi Menon has a passion for encouraging the music loving community, and yesterday evening was a wonderful manifestation of a lot of behind the scenes work, thanks to the entire team who worked behind this.

 I was deeply immersed in work. Exception stack traces were swimming around my head, and I was trying to hold the head at the right spot for the solution to surface in focus. That is when I saw a black object flying outside the window,  I looked out and saw the blue trash can also fly and fall into the ground..  I rushed downstairs. Ramshi slid her car windows down and gave me a packet with chicken curry and chemmeen curry and said.. " please keep the trash cans up..  in a bit of rush, have to pay the speeding ticket.."

Watched Revnant this weekend. DiCaprio crawled with excruciating struggle after being attacked by a bear. Reminded me of the scene from "Wolf of Wall Street" where he did the same crawl after an overdose of cocaine.  What made you crawl? What did you let crawl you? 

 Today's plan centers around Iftar at Rameez's home in Fremont. After lunch, we set out to Ikea, did some shopping of small items for my parents who are to return to India in a couple of days.    After Ikea, we did a nostalgia drive around our earlier Fremont home and school, and we reached his house at 7:13 PM , 2 minutes before ETA.     Fruits and glasses of juice were already on the teepoyee. We sat around in a sofa and waited for the sunset.  Aadu had the responsibility of alloting Ifthar snacks in the plates. In a very methodological fashion he placed "Petti pathal" and "Kozhiyada" in the plates. When it was time, "banku vili" was played in the portable speakers, and the fast was broken with dates, orange halfs and juice. The fast breaking had happened almost involuntarily as Rameez handed out the dates to everyone. As I was about to eat the prepared snacks, I found myself at a loss as I tried to find some coherence between Bajrangi and Empura...