NALLADHUKU KAALAM ILLAI

 

 Recently I watched a movie called 'Jerry Maguire', though the movie was average one I liked Tom's character very much. People being honest and acting according to their heart always are taken for granted and end up in the receiving end. His characterization was very nice and something where people can relate to.  I am pretty sure many of us must have had bitter experience in the past for being truthful/honest and often we wonder ‘Nalladhu kaalam illai’. Everything must be glossy and glamorous to get one’s attention and a celebrity draws so much attention from public for a six hours makeup whereas frontline healthcare warriors like Doctors, Nurses, Sanitary workers who are exposed to COVID patients and dress up with PPE kits for eight straight hours hardly get any notice. Recently I came across a gentleman whom I patronize for the past three decades had to close one of his Tiffin center due to poor response from public.

   Let me give you a rough idea as far as group of audience whom I would like to categorize into five groups – Group A, B, C, D and E as far as eating habits. If you take Dosa for example you may have a star hotel sell it for 500 (Group A), Family restaurant sell it for 250 (Group B), Bhavans sell it for 120 (Group C), Tiffin centers sell it for 50 (Group D) and road side shops sell it for 30 (Group E). A hard working couple in my area runs grocery store on top of that also a tiffin center. They serve breakfast and lunch and since food is kind of homemade they had steady flow of customers. Things were going good for the couple but with the growing number of roadside shops they were not able to compete with the price. With Covid they began to lose money too and finally had to close the shop recently.  This is unfortunate to see a well deserving and hard working couple close the shop. Road side shops have absolutely no overhead expense like rent, tax, maintenance, EB bills etc., and they are able to translate this to lower price which draws people towards them. Even road side owners are hard working and put up lots of time and effort to run the shop in a profitable manner.

 But if you look into both the cases I feel couple who closed the shop are victims of the system.  Road side owners bribe authorities/officials in order to run the shop at a prominent junction or a congested road, they also offer free food to these authorities to be in good books, create more congestion by having people stand around their shop, do not pay rent and in no way help in revenue generation for the corporation, makes the place messy by having food all round their place and the worst thing I personally hate is they draw so much of stray dogs in and around their shop. You give me a challenge that of making me watch one hour of Prathap Bothen’s speech I can but facing these stray dogs in the streets makes me realize I can run as fast as P.T Usha. Some people feel odd to stand in a road side shop hence choose tiffin centers who are grounded and people with humble background.  Facing unfair competition from road side shops they have no other choice other than to close their business.

So if you look at the loop – Why do people bribe? Because authorities are paid low salary; why are authorities paid low salary? Because respective departments do not allocate funds; why do departments run short of funds? Because Government does not allocate appropriately; why do government not allocate funds? Because they do not get anticipated taxes from public? Why do people not pay taxes properly? Because people are salaried with blue color jobs and do not fall under tax bracket? Why do people not earn enough to pay taxes? Because they do not have proper education; why do people not educate themselves? Because Education is becoming a costly affair and am afraid it may fall under luxury category in near future. If education is made affordable then I would call that as fixing the system. But that may never happen because most of the educational institutions are owned by Politicians. 

Rather than focusing on fixing the problem we need to fix the system. Road side shops should be encouraged to form SHG (Self help groups) and start to work collectively to improve their living conditions. But all these can be nice to read and good to watch on movies and if these have to be implemented then we need to inject young blood full of energy something similar to Shri.Jagan Mohan Reddy – Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. Unless we see system gets fixed it is always going to be dindigul towel on top of your head for honest folks with the slogan ‘Nalladhuku Kaalam Illai”

 

 

 

 

Idli Upma

 Life is joyful when things are kept simple and that is exactly what this blog is all about. There are numerous breakfast dishes out there with so much glitz and glamour but here we are with a simple dish called ‘Idly Upma’ which can take you by storm.  It requires very little time for preparation and the dish has been patented by ‘Tamilnadu Thaikulam’ and endorsed by ‘Tamilzhan’.  There is a English proverb which says ‘When the going gets tough then tough gets going’ and I would like to rephrase the proverb as ‘When there are leftover Idlis we make Idly upma and just to have more Idly upma we make more Idlis”.  With the advent of Microwave it has become more convenient to sprinkle water over Idly and keep it in the oven for 10 seconds on either sides which slowly resulted ‘RIP’ for Idly Upma. But off late the trend now is all the old stuff is getting new lease of life. 

    In 1980’s and 1990’s Trichy had an advantage of having a Passport office other than the one in Chennai. So people down south rather than going all the way to Chennai come to Trichy to take care of their passport needs. So it was common to have relatives visit Trichy and the formula for food used to be “One oil item + one sweet + one dish with side” (I even remember the menu like Masala cheeyam/Vada for oil item, Kavun arisi / Kummayam for sweet item, Idly/Dosa/Idiyappam for the main dish served along with a side dish).  This was a great menu and time and tested one too which neither gave boredom nor overwhelming. It gave ample of time for people to meet and greet and exchange conversation.  Slowly definition of hospitality changed and concept of ‘Buffet’ was introduced. Once people believed ‘Ludo’ is better than ‘Thayam’ then it is difficult to change people’s perspective of seeing things. Even conservative community like mine is trapped and people started making an army of dishes. Though the intention is good but it is just overwhelming to see the number of dishes prepared by the host.

    Now let us go over Idly upma preparation which is quite simple. Make sure you pester your wife to make more idlis by that way there are leftover idlis from yesterday.  Sauté onion, Chana dal, urad dal and then add green chillies. Number of green chillies you may want to use is directly proportional to the number of co sisters your wife possess (remember green chillies add so much spice to the food item).  Add plenty of curry leaves (once again number of curry leaves may be directly proportional to the number of sister in laws your wife possess) and remember curry leaves adds so much flavor to the dish. Now cut the idlis into small chunks and mix it along with the onions and green chillies.  Making Idly takes few minutes – time it takes for Mother in law to appreciate their daughter whereas Idly upma just requires two minutes to cook – the time it takes for any Mother in law to appreciate Daughter in law for any of their work.  Now Idly upma is ready and it absolutely does not require any side dish.

   If you are running short of resources and you have to make best use of your current resources then Idly upma is a standing testimony. On top of not requiring any side dish you can either have it warm or even take it later. By this time if you are reminded of Devayani preparing Idly upma for her dad in Suryavamsam then we strike a same wavelength . 

 

Start the music  “Rosa poo nalla rosa poo” .....

 

 

 

COVID Vaccine

 Tamilnadu is waiting for Sundays, cricket fans are waiting for IPL and in particular Dhoni, US is waiting for Biden to take over, Japan is waiting for Olympics to start and if at all the whole world is waiting for something then it has to be COVID Vaccine. Covid-19 is something which has left no stone unturned irrespective of one’s social status, religion, country,  gender,  age etc., Initially it used to be a flash news that someone has been infected with Corona virus, then slowly it used to be friend’s friend, then friend ..Now pretty much every street has few cases in India and home quarantine has been so common which makes me feel many are eligible to participate in Big boss show. We had Nipah virus which was constrained to Kerala and it was categorized as ‘Epidemic’ making things lot easier though the state had to bravely fight and come out of it. COVID-19 is categorized as Pandemic which makes things very challenging since we are talking about diverse population spread across the globe.

 Let us look into different phases involved before a vaccine is introduced in the market. To start with preclinical research works happen pulling many parties together funded by many different groups together. Objective is to come up with a treatment that is safe and effective. It involves the following phases:

 Phase 0: Since this is the first phase a very small group of people (around 10 - 15 people) are considered. The aim is to see how a drug is processed and how it affects the body. 

 Phase 1: Less than 100 people are considered for this phase and the primary objective is to see the best dose of the new drug with the fewest side effects. Doctors start by giving very low doses to few patients and monitor them for side effects. This phase checks whether the body produces antibodies and at the end of this phase they must have figured out what is the optimal vaccine dosage. 

 Phase 2: This phase is carried out with hundreds of patients and some of the audience may be people belonging to a type of cancer. New combinations of drugs are tested. Apart from safety and effectiveness, dosage and immunization schedules are also taken care of this phase.  

 Phase 3: This phase is carried out with few thousands of patients and patients are categorized into different treatment groups. Computer program randomly picks individuals to form a treatment group and people normally have no clue which group they belong to. Every patient is studied carefully, and overall phase is 'Double blinded" which means neither clinical investigator nor the participant knows what sort of therapy is employed. This phase provides information to assess the benefits and risks of the new therapy before seeking approval from authorities. 

 Phase 4:  This phase happens post approval and helps to uncover any problem that would happen only when a large set of audience uses the drug. Doctors, Health practitioners learn more about how the drug works when used with other treatments. 

 

Status of current vaccines: Right now we have as many as nine vaccines in Phase 3, Fourteen in phase 2 and twenty four vaccines in phase 1 and hundreds of vaccines in preclinical stage. There are two vaccines in phase 3 which are showing promise.

As of now German company BioNTech, Pfizer based out of US and Chinese firm Fosun PhArma are jointly coming up with a vaccine and showing promising progress so far and they are raining with Funding measures from Trump administration.
Secondly Swedish company AstraZeneca and University of Oxford is coming up with a vaccine which looks promising as of now. US once again supported the effort by awarding a huge sum. AstraZeneca even went a step ahead and announced they may be able to deliver emergency vaccines by October based on their studies.

Let us look into the challenges in coming up with a vaccine:

 Side effects: This would be the topmost priority for researchers in making sure there are no side effects associated with the vaccine. Side effects may develop upon time so there is no other go other than to monitor closely how the vaccine is working. Being a pandemic, we may have a person having Fish & Chips in U.K; Triple whopper cheese sandwich in US and rice, rasam and potato fry in Tamil Nadu. Right from eating habits, lifestyle, and immune system everything matters in how side effects arise.  

Number of doses: If you look into other vaccine schedules like Hepatitis B, Typhoid, MMR, Varicella there are many doses one had to take and there is a pattern one has to follow before your body is fully resistant to such viruses. When it comes to Covid-19, by the time entire world came to know it was already March 2020.  So with the ongoing research if they establish a pattern that one has to take so many number of doses spread across a time interval then obviously it may take that much time before they say drug is effective.

 Strength of Dose:  We have several factors like age, gender, and people with co morbidity before determining strength of the dose. Once again research has to come up with solutions for this and can be a challenging task considering the virus is a pandemic.  

 Overall, I feel vaccine will take quite some time to come into the market. Since Covid-19 has pretty much got the entire world’s attention there is no problem as far as funding, manpower, manufacturing, logistics, warehousing, distribution etc., but the key is ‘Time’ required to come to a consensus; If a research proves that we need “3 doses of vaccine span across 12 months with equal intervals between each dosage” which means research took 1 year. Virus made its presence felt throughout the globe only by March 2020 and even if we assume research started in March then we are talking at least 12 months from that time with so many if’s and but’s to be considered in the equation. Assuming a vaccine will come any sooner is like trying to understand ‘Inception’ movie without reading Wikipedia – simply not possible.

 P.S: I will be super duper happy to get my opinion wrong as far as Vaccine’s timeline but if a vaccine comes now I will definitely doubt on its efficacy.

 

Three Powerful women and their Dressing !!

   All of us want to dress up as it gives a good feeling to be dressed up. There is a saying in tamil which says ‘Aal paadhi aadai paadhi’ which means the personality of a person is half and the other half which completes is dress. Ancient Tamils were aware of the psychological fact that the first seven seconds of meeting person influences the impression about a person. Hence they advised to dress accordingly so as to get a good first impression. I want to bring up three women in this blog whom I like for the work they have done in their respective field and their dressing.

Sushma swaraj: Sushma swaraj mam passed away in 2019 and when I came to know the news it was bit disturbing but as such I neither follow politics nor politicians at that time. Few days passed and something in my mind kept pricking thinking about her. Then I realized when I was in US I must have followed her on how active she was on social media with Indian Diaspora in order to bring back the deceased bodies back to hometown for the family to pay last respects. Best karma you could ever inherit is to do any help to the family when they have lost a person. She being the External affairs minister which is considered a very coveted role in the ministry had to fight against all odds – leaders, politics, ego clashes, opponent parties, logistics, religious sentiments of general public etc., Mam has always been very friendly and extremely efficient  and has been a great light of hope for the NRI public. No wonder she was tagged as India’s most loved foreign minister. I think somewhere in my mind I had great respect for her without my conscience. The way she carried herself especially amongst the global leaders was remarkable and she remained grounded as far as her dressing. She always has kumkum almost as big as a one rupee coin which is considered as a crime amongst teenage girls, always dressed up in Sari no matter whether she meets foreign delegates at home or her official visits to any part of the world.

Nirmala seetharaman: I consider myself very lucky to have witnessed her speech live in one of the events in Chennai. Being the Finance Minister there is a security protocol in place for her and much to the surprise of the organizers she came in advance and was taken to a private room for meet & greet with organizers; I was wandering around the hallway in ITC grand chola and saw her centimetres away and was awestruck to see her calm and composed demeanour.  I have to admit that my knowledge in Economics is very poor but have been following her ever since she took over as FM of India. Just to let you know she had Commerce ministry followed by Defence and now Finance ministry for the world’s biggest democratic country.  Obviously she got the post due to Arun Jaitley not able to resume due to health reasons but you cannot hide the fact she was a deserving and an eligible candidate for the post. Her portfolio is receiving lot of flak right now and sure will pull things together for a better tomorrow. With UPA’s 10 years rule there were far too many things to fix rather than to build economy and with implementations like Demonetisation and GST it was tough going for India Inc and business in general. Now with Covid, Indian economy is limping and it will be litmus test for her Ministry. But overall if you have some Economics background and a person following her speeches, media interviews etc., you will start to appreciate the person more. Now coming back to her dressing – I bet her sarees do not cost more than INR 2000 and you may need a binocular to see whether she wears any jewellery.

Sudha Murthy: She needs no introduction and I get a feeling of seeing a lady next door when I see her in media. I regret not reading her latest books but have enjoyed thoroughly reading her books in the past. Her stories are superlative of simple and it used to give a nostalgic feeling; moreover her writing is more content driven rather than trying to prove one’s proficiency in English language. I think her stories had an influence on me and it was around that time I started blog site. Being a Gold medallist she had so many options to pursue her career but she chose Philanthropy as her full time job. Through the Infosys foundation she has built thousands of houses in flood affected areas; helped in areas of Healthcare, education, empowerment of women, public hygiene for the poor and downtrodden. She has promoted literature by setting up thousands of libraries, helped setting up thousands of toilets for rural public and she has founded several orphanages. Her list of social work is endless and if you see her interviews you tend to get a feeling as if your own mom is speaking. She always has grey hair, absolutely no makeup and she will give you a feeling of exactly how a south Indian middle class woman looks. 

Now you might wonder what is the connection between personalities and their dressing. Well all I wanted to convey is dressing has got nothing to do with our personality. Purnima backyaraj actually a yesteryear actress but she is better known in Tamilnadu as a leading Blouse manufacturer for celebrities and believe her turnover would contribute .001 % to India's GDP; Every time during Diwali season Tamil nadu witnesses Heroes in the form of Tailors and women almost worship them. Michael Kors handbag, Revlon Nail polish define the style quotient and people's confidence level drops in a public gathering if they miss out on some of their style components ....Obviously people may say if I can come up with three great personalities with modest dressing then they can come up with hundreds of great personalities with sleek dressing sense; I am not here to complain about dressing but beyond dressing people should admire your character, nature and appreciate for who you are.

 

 

 

 

Misunderstanding explained through a Batch Job !!

   I think root cause for most of the problems happen due to misunderstanding between two parties – whether it is between two individuals, organizations, or countries.  Why do you think two co-sisters cannot get along well whereas two sisters fight but still end up being in good terms? Simple reason is people are not ready to understand each other when they hold the title of a ‘Co sister’ whereas people have the tenacity to bury the differences after a misunderstanding in an amicable way when they hold the title of a ‘Sister’. People also confuse Miscommunication with Misunderstanding – if Misunderstanding is termed as ‘Nonveg’ then miscommunication is a mere ‘Chicken’ as Misunderstanding is a broader term. Now I would like to explain misunderstanding through an example which happens often in India. 

  Consider party Mr.ABC as remitter and parties Mr.XYZ and MR.UVW are two beneficiaries; As part of settling bills Mr.ABC owes money to both parties Mr.XYZ and Mr.UVW; Assume Mr.ABC and Mr.XYZ are neighbors whereas Mr.ABC and Mr.UVW belong to same community. NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) is a common mode of payment used by people to transfer funds. Once NEFT is initiated few steps happen in the background like remitting bank preparing a Structured Financial messaging solution (SFMS) message and sending it to service center, service center forwarding same to National clearing cell, RBI ; RBI at the clearing center sorts the transactions bank wise and prepare accounting entries, bank-wise messages are then transmitted to respective banks and finally receiving bank process the remittance message received from RBI and effect the credit to the beneficiary account. Usually each bank has a batch job at set time intervals like 9am, 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm to process these transactions. Imagine at 11.15 am Mr.ABC has sent INR 42000 to party Mr.XYZ and at 11.50 am sent INR 55000 to party Mr.UVW; Now when Mr.ABC sent money to Mr.XYZ he must have sent a confirmation message informing the same and Mr.XYZ instead of keeping quiet he wants to act smart by informing party Mr.UVW; Mr.UVW is pissed off hearing this and thinks Mr.ABC is being partial to neighbors; Much to his delight at 12.05 pm Mr.UVW got money into his account too and he informs the same to Mr.XYZ; Now it is the turn of Mr.XYZ to get pissed off with Mr.ABC since he feels Mr.ABC is partial to people from his own community even though he has got his money credited into his account pretty much at the same time. But we all know that the batch job which happened at 12pm took care of both the transactions at the same time. But people do not ‘Understand’ what went in the background and started spreading hatred, now you see through a simple example of how enmity is spread in modern world? 

  People believe Ego is the biggest threat to human relationship but according to me misunderstanding is the root cause of everything; Even for the simplest of all reasons like if a person hasn’t turned up for our invite we immediately misunderstand him and in turn do the same rather than trying to ‘understand’ the reason for the person’s absence. Our understanding with charity is if we make a poor child educate then that will eradicate poverty completely for his family, but have we tried to ‘understand’ health and environment are bigger threats and that needs much more help than ever before? Education is key to success, but my understanding is Health and creating a good environment for future generation is as important as providing Education. Overall, personally I feel there is lack of ‘understanding’ on lots of aspects even amongst the literate society and hope we take measures to understand things before a decision is made.

 

Loopholes (aka) Cycle gap la Auto !!

   Normally I try to provide facts and express my opinion on a particular topic but this blog is going to be a different experience for me since I just want to highlight on a particular topic and leave up to the reader to reflect on it. I was prompted to come up with this topic based on my shopping experience since I realized loopholes is there anywhere and everywhere.

Fish and its math:

     People prefer Fish fry vs Fish kulambu and this creates imbalance as far as how rate is calculated. Let’s assume one kg of fish with head is 500 INR and without Head is 600 INR (Demand is more); Now a trader who is influential and cash savvy may place wholesale order for 100 kilos of fish without head and end up getting fancy price of 400 rs/kg due to its volume of business. This guy visits different market and sells fish without head still for 500/kg thereby crashing local market. Well there is nothing wrong since the guy is being smart, but the problem is trade does not happen in a fair manner and creates internal conflicts amongst vendors and therefore Unions are formed where rules are formulated. Now comes the bigger problem – Union creates politics and rules are exploited in the name of Loopholes.

Unemployment Calculation in US

    Unemployment rate is a key economic indicator and a closely followed one in USA as it helps to understand health of the economy for one of the biggest democracies in the world. But the way it is calculated leaves everyone puzzled. In simple terms unemployment rate is nothing but dividing the number of unemployed persons by the number of persons in the labor force and multiplying that figure by 100; Problem comes in how we define “Unemployed” and “Labor force” – good percentage of people who are part of Employment discrimination are not part of labor force (termed as ‘Discouraged’ workers) and also people who have been searching for employment in the last 12 months but not in the last 4 weeks are not part of the labor force (termed as ‘Marginally attached workers’); Excluding these two sections from the labor force gives an underestimated Unemployment rate. By this way they keep the panic down amongst public , save money on providing unemployment benefits etc., But you may think this is more of a flaw and not Loophole ? Read the final paragraph

 

Business entertainment tax in Canada

  Basically business entertainment tax in Canada allows businesses to deduct upto 50% on the costs of entertainment. Some of the examples that fall under this category are Costs of ticket for theatre/concert/athletic event, costs of private boxes at sports facilities, cost of cruises, cost of admission to fashion shows, costs of entertaining guests at clubs and the most difficult part is how do we police such activities hence it is one of the most abused tax loopholes in the country.

Tax exemption for Agricultural Income in India

  This seems to be a great initiative to promote agricultural sector but then why do we see many farmers getting into suicide every year and pretty much every region in India. It clearly shows farmers are not the beneficiary of this tax loophole but it is the wealthy politicians who make maximum use of this one. So this is how it works – Politicians fixes a Benami person, buys a huge land under Benami’s name, thereby converts black into white, all the black money from unknown sources is shown as income from agriculture and hence gets tax exempted. Do you think this is more of a flaw and not loophole ? Read next paragraph

   Now that I have given few examples I think these are not flaws but ‘Loopholes’ that exists in the system deliberately by that way people can take advantage. Both ruling party and opposition party take advantage of these provisions and these are not kept in the dark instead it is thrown wide open to public to make use of these loopholes thereby allowing people to exploit the rules to their advantage. Loopholes exists in every region across the globe and pretty much every aspect of living like Healthcare, Insurance, Income tax, Agriculture, Immigration, Free trade agreements etc.,

 

Ration saga in Tamil Nadu

      Fair Price Shops aka Ration shops is the topic I have chosen and am going to walk you through the world of Ration shop operations in Tamil Nadu. Before that let us quickly go through the organization, its objectives, some statistics etc., Civil supplies and Consumer protection department has an Organizational structure headed by Minister of Food department followed by many hierarchies of subordinates. They have a system called as Public Distribution system (PDS) in Tamil Nadu to facilitate the operation part and policy comes from Food and consumer protection department of Tamil Nadu. PDS comprises of several stakeholders to carry out its day to day operations. Some of PDS objectives is to ensure affordable prices of essential commodities, ensure availability of essential commodities etc., PDS has been implemented in 38 districts, 310 taluks, 34773 fair price shops and there are 2+crore family cards, 6.7 crores + beneficiaries etc., I think coming up with statistics may be due to watching excessive Vijayakanth movies during my childhood. If you think Ration cards are those old card types with worn down looks then I am sorry you got it wrong. Now they call it as ‘Smart cards’ and they appear just like your credit card and very handy to keep it in your wallet. They have a workflow in place and when people show the card, system sends an OTP and once OTP is verified you get what you want and everything you got comes as a SMS to your mobile and gets updated in the system too. Pretty cool stuff since they even have an App to track everything. Overall, they both have a system and process in place to carry out the operations. So far so good …..


      Population of Tamil nadu is roughly seven crores so it is almost 100% true that 90-100% of the people get benefitted from Fair price shops since if you look at beneficiaries it is 6.7+ crores; Our people have a habit that even if they had Oothappam for breakfast they behave as if they had Cheese Ravioli. People often feel embarrassed and shy to go to Ration shops hence they either have their staff or maid go to their behalf. For this service people usually tip 20 INR since the person takes the effort to go, stand in the queue and carry the stuff and does all this by merely showing the smart card. Officer is not supposed to hand over stuff by merely seeing the card since the cardholder has to appear in person but there is a ‘Deal’ worked out between officer and our staff which makes things possible --------Point no.1; Now Ration officers are more than eligible to work as antagonist for Tamil Heroes since they always have Ponnanbalam sort of looks even for Purnam viswanathan sort of individuals visiting the shop. They have this bad policy of forcing people to buy something on top of the commodities they give. This could be Match box, Salt, Wheat flour etc., and this tactic is to make up for the free flow of revenue and staff usually gets stuff worth 20 or 30 every trip ------------------Point no.2; Human Psychology works in such a way that when we get some stuff for a good deal we don’t tend to check it thoroughly and that is what happens since we don’t weigh whether we got 1kg of sugar or 750 grams (no prize for guessing what happened to the missing 250 grams of sugar) ------------------Point no.3; Now that we got the monthly stuff from fair price shops people are happy but not every time we get good stuff from these shops since sometimes we tend to get average stuff too and on those occasions we pass the stuff to needy or to the person who helped us. This could have been a deliberate attempt by the person himself since they know by bringing in inferior stuff from the shop they may sense there is a good chance that stuff would be directed to them eventually --------------Point no.4; Now if you sum up all points it outweighs the advantages you inherit by going to the Ration shops3.


    Hence, I decided to take the plunge myself and realized 2 to 3pm is a time where Sun shows no mercy and it is considered to be Non peak time. But seldom did I realize if God gave me brains it is the same God that must have given Brains to my friends too ..One fine afternoon when I went I spotted one of my friend and both of us had Bhagyaraj sort of smiles ..Thanks to Corona ..due to Mask we were wearing we couldn’t see each other smiles evidently …I just want you to watch the following scene in Mouvna Raagam before I can express what each of us thought


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_FKNjX0lZxg


(Listen from 15:50 onwards ….)


Imagine myself as Revathi and my friend as Mohan ….Now mind voice starts ….


Myself: Aaha ipo naan enna panradhu

Naan inga vanthutaenu yaar kitayum sollada please

Sollamatenu sathiyama sollu naan indha jenmathuku un friend a vae irupaen …



My friend: Neeyum sollamaetunu sathiyama sollu naanum indha jenmathuku un friend a vae irupaen3


Myself: Evlo periya Industrialist a irunthutu nee inga varuvanu naan nenachu kuda paakala


My friend: Nee US return irundum nee Fair rice shops ku varuvanu naan nenachu kuda paakala


Mind voice ends ….



   Now that I have walked through the Ration scenario I want to highlight something too. As you can see the Trust factor in the case of the staff for a mere 100-200 rupees transaction; Imagine businesses worth lakhs and crores on what is happening on day to day operations; Proprietors try to be on top of things until they are 60 or to put it in better words until their Health cooperates. But once their health deteriorates with kids settled either abroad or in IT industry the staff has the final say in the Business. Worst part is owners are aware of everything that is going on but with no major financial commitments and not much help from the next generation they are forced to run the business at the cost of staff’s misbehavior. If the staff is young, has good hold of Business operations then with the help of bank and his in laws funding he starts something on his own thereby bringing the downfall of the company he worked. Bitter truth is some of the Businesses which were having glorious run in 80’s and 90’s are not able to stand up to the current Business culture prevailing in the state. Though GST and Corona are having major impact on the Business I believe these are seasonal and can be ironed out but the black sheep in the form of disloyal staff is a major problem every Business has to handle.

Arulmigu Thayumana Swamy Temple

    Being my 100^th blog I wanted the topic related to Religious aspects and hence chose to write one on Sri Thayumanavar Swamy temple, Trichy. World is going through lot of turmoil – Corona has been devastating so far, Locust attacks on agricultural land, Floyd’s death in USA, Pregnant elephant death in Kerala, Cyclone in west Bengal etc., There could be ‘n’ number of discussions going around for the root cause of these events but the underlying truth is Humans have become more and more greedy. I got one forward recently saying what did Athi varadhar do for Corona, I think the message was not right. Whole world is blaming China for the sort of devastating effects Corona has created across the globe but my point is there is something beyond to that fact and Mother nature is punishing Human beings in a very hard way. Humans want to destroy flora and Fauna and wanted to enjoy nature as much as possible but the point is Nature belongs to all of us and all of us have to coexist in this world.


    Since I cannot voice for whole of India let me brief about Corona situation in Tamil nadu – Tamil nadu has been doing some very good testing, recovery rate is decent and fatality rate is low. But media highlights only the growing number of cases but concern is in the last few days lockdown measures have been relaxed and people started to move around freely. Though there are lots of room for improvement on Testing and treating patients I would like to appreciate the government for the work they have done so far. I cannot imagine the situation in Tamil nadu in case if Corona would have taken over the state since we lack in Infrastructure, Healthcare system is poor, Health and hygiene is treated no big deal etc., On top of Indian drugs and Immunity factor there is a big advantage Tamil Nadu holds – it is Punniya Boomi for many different reasons. Look at how many glorious temples state possess, number of Yaga salai, Kumbaabhishekams, Abhishekam, Alangaram, Chariot festivals, Paal kudam, Kavadi, Padha yatra, Thiruvizha, Sami purapaadu, Homams, Kootu prarthanais, Archanais, Poojas etc., that is happening across the state. State roughly has around 16000 villages and Temple activities is part and parcel of our living. Though I have no clue what is in store in the coming months with Corona, I am positive that divine intervention will happen and not just save Tamil Nadu or India but whole world to come out of this crisis. Only way world can be a better place to live is to show love, empathy towards fellow human beings and towards Flora and Fauna. One such tool to do so is turning into Religious activities – if you host a party there is a good chance some people may envy your growth but when you host a Bhajan/Pooja there is positive vibration and almost leaves no room for negative thoughts amongst the public.


  There are so many beautiful temples in Trichy and one such temple is Sri Thayumanavar temple. I would like to go over the sthala varalaru about this temple. Rockfort is not just Trichy’s identity but also pride of the city. Lord Manicka Vinayagar graces from the foot hill temple and Uchi Pillayar at top of the temple. Arulmigu Thayumanavar temple is situated on the Rock fort enroute to the Uchi Pillayar temple on the hill top (roughly climbing around 200 steps from foot hill of the Malaikottai). At set timings we can see Othuvar group come and sing before the lord and trust me just to listen to those tamil verses is a fantastic experience. Now let me go over the story about this temple. According to the legend there was a woman who was living on other side of the Cauvery river who is a pious devotee of Lord shiva of this temple. She is a regular visitor of the temple and that continued even during her pregnancy. One day after her darshan she found the river was flooded and she cannot pass through the river. As she waited for river’s flow to subside, she developed severe labor pain. Since she was in Labor people around her stopped her trying to cross the river. But the woman was desperate to go back home since she felt her mother would be the ideal person to help her out during labor. Lord Shiva came to her, disguised as her mother, and helped her deliver the baby safely and then disappeared. Later when her actual mother came asking for her, woman realized it was lord shiva who came to her rescue in disguise. As Lord Shiva himself served her devotee as a mother here the main deity is called ‘Thayumanavar’ (God who is also the Mother). This incident is celebrated as a special event called “Chettipenn Maruthuvam” on the fifth day of the Chithirai festival. Name of the Ambal is ‘Mattuvarkuzhali’.


   Those who had lost their Mothers pray here for his grace hoping that he would guide them throughout their life. Pregnant woman and their husband pray to lord Thayumanavar for a safe delivery of the child. Delivery is blissful experience but what goes into the making is something Lord must bless the whole process. Practice that is followed is after successful delivery of the baby, people offer Plantains to the God. One can see people carrying ‘Vazhaithaar’ all the way upto the temple and after offering to Thayumanavar people distribute it among other devotees in the temple and take some back home.



Visit below URL for the slogam that has to be recited for safe delivery:

http://singaporechettinadrecipes.blogspot.com/2016/10/slokam-for-normal-delivery-for-pregnant.html



    Now coming to my role in this Venduthal. Many of you may want to do thanksgiving but for some reason you may not be able to do so for various practical reasons. Ideal thing would be for you to come in person and offer thanksgiving but in the event you are not able to do so I can offer you help in doing this thanksgiving task. Apart from the fact that I wanted to help people there is also another reason and that is I intend to visit this temple more and that is not happening now and your request may be a commitment for me. So there could be your wife, daughter, sister, In laws, Friend, Neighbor or anyone for that matter and you can offer your prayers for a safe delivery of the child. Once baby has been delivered successfully if you would like me to offer thanksgiving on your behalf reach out to me personally (sundarbuddy@gmail.com; PH: Seven-five-four-zero zero Five nine zero nine four). Since this is for religious matters you can pay me once I am done with Thanksgiving task. Roughly we are talking about 600 – 800 INR (300 to 500 for Vazhaithaar based on its size, 50-100 for the guy carrying it to top of the temple, believe 50 Rs ticket to temple for the service, 5 Rs archanai ticket, other misc minor expense etc.,) I can send my NEFT information and you can deposit electronically once I am done with the offering. Also when you message me I will get the archanai details.

 

   For people who want to come to this beautiful temple here are some tips. N.S.B road in Trichy is equivalent to Renganathar street in Chennai so be mindful of the traffic. You need to park your car at Singarathope and then walk down to the temple else ask your driver to drop you at the temple and then park the car. Manicka Vinayagar is at the foot hills and you have have a quick darshan. Before that you may need to order Vazhaithaar at the bottom and pay the guy the money for the vazhaithaar and to lift it to the temple. Kindly get his phone number since he may wait for more folks to join since he can lift everything at one go. You may also want to buy ticket for the service as well as archanai ticket. Also note temple close bit early in the night around 8 pm so kindly check the timings before your trip. Once you reach the temple priest will do the Archanai, offering to lord with curtains closed and then give back the vazhaithaar to you. You need to bring knife, some newspapers and tissue with you to distribute the bananas. In matter of few minutes you might have distributed all the bananas and then you can take some with you. You can also plan to go top of the temple and visit Uchi Pillayar.


யான் பெற்ற இன்பம் பெறுக இவ்வையகம்