Friday, February 11, 2005
Paruppu Podi Satham
This was one of the unforgettable instances in my life, munching a few moments on this event gives immense pleasure to me. I was really young that time and it was holiday time as we used to stay as a joint family alongside of my mom, dad, my uncle (dad’s younger bro) and my aunt and all the kids together. It was real fun because we were at least 4 people in the same age group and the other 2 were really young compared to us.
So we were very close pals and we enjoyed great days together.
We used to go to movies together with my dad or my uncle and we used to enjoy cycle rides to school with my uncle. On the way we used to shout “maady veedu – gopuram” seeing the tall trees and the big houses on the way to our school. My sister Anu who used to always excel in her studies, used to be very disciplined too. I was (rather Im) always careless and always used to get reprimanded from my mom for many things. If Im sent to a shop to buy something, I always used to buy some candies & sweets for the remaining money and never used to return back any money to my mom. And anu used to be very smart in negotiating with the vegetable market and she used to always get praises for such deeds. But we all enjoyed living together and we had a huge list of adventures to carry lot of memories on.
Once we were nearing the holiday season and we were desperately trying to stay away from school. We were eagerly awaiting the holidays and it looked extremely difficult to spend time in school. Since all of us are from the same school, we could not fool around my mom, because anu used to be extremely sincere. We cannot lie to our parents because an immediate and honest reference check is available. She always used to participate in the annual day functions and she would stage dance programs. We never participated in such events. On one occasion I remember, due to extreme compulsion from my mom, I went on stage for a sloka performance. I had struggled seeing so many people watching the show. Since it was a remote village, almost 80 to 90 percent of the population were available to watch such annual day functions conducted in schools. We used to go to other school annual day functions and others come to ours. I got extremely embarrassed before so much of crowd, who don’t enjoy the recital, I was forcibly pushed to do that. I stammered a little and was very happy when I completed the same and ran out of the stage.
I was really annoyed on the show and I screamed at my mom for making me participate in events like these. I also had options like dancing for cine songs, which was totally abandoned by mom. She used perform, classical type dances for cine songs which had some room of acceptance.
As anu used to be diligent and sincere our parents were really confident that she would take care of us and some times they let her take care of us. This time they all went to a function and on that day none of them available and we were real kids. Though the acquaintances would take care of us because it was a real friendly environment and there was no bothering that people would be left alone. I told her that I was really hungry and we had only rice at home. There was nothing else available that time and I was not willing to wait till something was made. We saw a bottle of dal powder (paruppu podi) on the loft and we thought we will have dal powder with rice, (paruppu podi satham). After a few tussles we were successful taking the bottle of dal powder from the loft and we planned to mix the dal powder with the rice. We didn’t know where the ghee or the oil was kept and we had only rice and dal powder to eat. So we decided to mix a little dal powder with rice and eat the same.
Normally, since it was a joint family food was prepared in plenty and that time rice was available in abundance. We took a large plate (my father’s plate) we used to call it “thada thada thattu” because it used to make lot of noise while eating. When my father used to eat, it used to make sound of movement up and down, it used to hit the ground frequently to make that noise since it was not a leveled plate. That used to be a large one and we took some rice for us which we would be in a position to eat and we put some dal powder on it. After the mixture, we realized that we had put the powder a little larger than it should have been and the trouble was there was no ghee or oil available to support. So it would be really difficult to eat the rice with that over dosage of dal powder, we thought we should mix some rice to suffice the mixture and when we added rice to the same, again there was a problem. This time there was a shortage of dal powder. I tasted the rice and told her that this would not taste good, and finally we thought we should add dal powder again. After a couple of iterations of the same, we were almost exhausted with the rice, which was available.
Almost the entire quantity of the rice was wasted in the process and we saw a huge amount of paruppu podi satham before us. We could only have two gulps of the same since it was not too good to taste without the ghee or the oil, we placed the plate there only and exhaled from the kitchen and we hid ourselves before our moms saw this.
It was a nice little incident which happened and I hope anu would have enjoyed reading this in the blog…
So we were very close pals and we enjoyed great days together.
We used to go to movies together with my dad or my uncle and we used to enjoy cycle rides to school with my uncle. On the way we used to shout “maady veedu – gopuram” seeing the tall trees and the big houses on the way to our school. My sister Anu who used to always excel in her studies, used to be very disciplined too. I was (rather Im) always careless and always used to get reprimanded from my mom for many things. If Im sent to a shop to buy something, I always used to buy some candies & sweets for the remaining money and never used to return back any money to my mom. And anu used to be very smart in negotiating with the vegetable market and she used to always get praises for such deeds. But we all enjoyed living together and we had a huge list of adventures to carry lot of memories on.
Once we were nearing the holiday season and we were desperately trying to stay away from school. We were eagerly awaiting the holidays and it looked extremely difficult to spend time in school. Since all of us are from the same school, we could not fool around my mom, because anu used to be extremely sincere. We cannot lie to our parents because an immediate and honest reference check is available. She always used to participate in the annual day functions and she would stage dance programs. We never participated in such events. On one occasion I remember, due to extreme compulsion from my mom, I went on stage for a sloka performance. I had struggled seeing so many people watching the show. Since it was a remote village, almost 80 to 90 percent of the population were available to watch such annual day functions conducted in schools. We used to go to other school annual day functions and others come to ours. I got extremely embarrassed before so much of crowd, who don’t enjoy the recital, I was forcibly pushed to do that. I stammered a little and was very happy when I completed the same and ran out of the stage.
I was really annoyed on the show and I screamed at my mom for making me participate in events like these. I also had options like dancing for cine songs, which was totally abandoned by mom. She used perform, classical type dances for cine songs which had some room of acceptance.
As anu used to be diligent and sincere our parents were really confident that she would take care of us and some times they let her take care of us. This time they all went to a function and on that day none of them available and we were real kids. Though the acquaintances would take care of us because it was a real friendly environment and there was no bothering that people would be left alone. I told her that I was really hungry and we had only rice at home. There was nothing else available that time and I was not willing to wait till something was made. We saw a bottle of dal powder (paruppu podi) on the loft and we thought we will have dal powder with rice, (paruppu podi satham). After a few tussles we were successful taking the bottle of dal powder from the loft and we planned to mix the dal powder with the rice. We didn’t know where the ghee or the oil was kept and we had only rice and dal powder to eat. So we decided to mix a little dal powder with rice and eat the same.
Normally, since it was a joint family food was prepared in plenty and that time rice was available in abundance. We took a large plate (my father’s plate) we used to call it “thada thada thattu” because it used to make lot of noise while eating. When my father used to eat, it used to make sound of movement up and down, it used to hit the ground frequently to make that noise since it was not a leveled plate. That used to be a large one and we took some rice for us which we would be in a position to eat and we put some dal powder on it. After the mixture, we realized that we had put the powder a little larger than it should have been and the trouble was there was no ghee or oil available to support. So it would be really difficult to eat the rice with that over dosage of dal powder, we thought we should mix some rice to suffice the mixture and when we added rice to the same, again there was a problem. This time there was a shortage of dal powder. I tasted the rice and told her that this would not taste good, and finally we thought we should add dal powder again. After a couple of iterations of the same, we were almost exhausted with the rice, which was available.
Almost the entire quantity of the rice was wasted in the process and we saw a huge amount of paruppu podi satham before us. We could only have two gulps of the same since it was not too good to taste without the ghee or the oil, we placed the plate there only and exhaled from the kitchen and we hid ourselves before our moms saw this.
It was a nice little incident which happened and I hope anu would have enjoyed reading this in the blog…
# posted by Ram @ Chandru @ Kulitalai Amaanji : 2:29 AM
