Light of the Lamp

 Hi friends,                Wishing all of you peaceful and good days this last month of this year. As with every year, this year too has almost whisked past us forcing us to welcome the approaching year and to look back this year with introspection. As always, I am the person who not only like to travel, but record the details of the journey to a new place. This year also, travel was restricted due to the deadlier second wave of the pandemic during April-May. It was heart-wrenching to witness many youngsters and middle-aged people in India die of Covid. As a result of that, there were crowds in the Government health centers and hospitals to get vaccinated at the earliest. Lucky people like us could wade through the second wave, hoping and praying there won't be any more waves and human losses.                                  Our leisure travel was also restricted  this year. In the beginning of this year, we had gone to Mysore and renewed the details of that wonderful city again.

      Hi friends,            I had the intention of writing something about Tokyo Olympics, the Paralympics that followed and India' s sterling performances in both these Olympics. But because of postponement for no apparent reasons, it didn't happen and the steam died down.                       Before I turn back again , another anniversary of the famous September 11 has arrived. This is a landmark anniversary as 20 years have passed after that fatal day, which changed the way America dealt with terrorism. It was my first trip to USA in 2001 and we were newly married. My husband left on September 4th, 2001 to California  via Washington to arrange for our accommodation. I was to travel around end of September. Technologically, it was the early era of cell phones and also pre social media.  I stayed back with my in-laws and tv, hotmail, rediffmail were the only other means to get information and stay connected. I was otherwise apprehensive as it will be real long hours by fligh

 Hi friends, #longread #longpostalert                 This is one area I was wanting to write for a long time. I am from a Tamil Brahmin family and it is common in our community to train girls in Carnatic music. When I was small, my dad arranged for a music teacher to come to my  house to teach me in person twice a week. Those days, the music learning was more informal meaning that I did not pass certification courses of varied levels as is seen today. I learnt from basics up to keethanas for about 5 to 6 years and stopped when I reached 10th.  My teacher or 'paattu vadhyar ' as we used to address her was short, soft spoken and simple and used to go to houses to make extra income other than from what she earned from  a school. My parents did not have a musical background or knowledge and so I learnt just like a 'good girl ' without asking questions or doubts.  We used to go to Chennai every year during our summer holidays to be with our grandparents and cousins. Our eld

 Hi everyone,                In a multilingual country like India, it is of small wonder that there will be politics over different languages. A recent news of a hospital in Delhi banning the use of Malayalam among the nurses caught my attention.                          As many of us are aware, majority of nurses working in the Indian hospitals are from Kerala. There are many nurses working abroad because of better pay than in India. Nursing job is among the thankless jobs which involves long working hours and in shifts and the pay being less compared to doctors. One day, a Nursing superintendent of G B Pant Hospital woke up and felt that he/she was tired of hearing too much of Malayalam and issued a notice directing the nurses to communicate either in Hindi or English among themselves while in hospital, as it was believed that the usage of the unknown Malayalam language was causing helplessness and inconvenience among the patients and colleagues. As expected, it received a strong bac

 Hi friends,            Some invicible ice blocks are much more hard to be broken than the real ice blocks!                When Mr, Pinarayi Vijayan won a resounding success this year to lead a successive term in Kerala as Chief Minister, a large part of it is to be attributed to the hard work put in by the health Minister K K Shailaja to contain COVID 19 crisis so that the positivity rate was one of the lowest not only in India, but around the world! Fondly known as Shailaja teacher, because she was a physics teacher before venturing into politics full time, the health ministry under her made lot of progress and put up a bold fight against Nipah virus. She gained international attention and some countries were looking her as a role model for their own fight against covid.  Compared to many other states in India, the testing, tracking, spreading awareness and educating public about following covid protocol is much more efficient in Kerala. Everybody voted her hands down and she won the

 Hello,             Fellow Indians, stay safe , healthy and follow covid appropriate behaviour to save yourself and people around you. This is obviously one of the toughest times India is facing due to the careless behavior of one section of population and the politicians who cared only about their own survival.                                       By seeing the title, I think some of you would have guessed what I am going to write about. 'The great Indian kitchen' which was released in January in the online platforms is a powerful, silently piercing movie, for which there will not be the likes of it anytime soon. Much has been said and written about it that I will not go into the length and breadth of this classic Malayalam movie. Those who are yet to watch this, I recommend this a must watch. If a movie needs to be good and powerful, the story, direction, cast should be good and it need not necessarily have superstars as this one has proved.  It did prick the conscience of b

 Hi friends,            Why don't I write something on my birthday? As I have told before, in this space, I can write about anything under sun. Well, not always. I can't freely express my political views because they are contrary to the majority. Since, I have not joined any political party, it is waste of energy putting down my political thoughts here.                                   One safe and universal topic I can always write about is food. I am a medium foodie which does show in my body!! I like all kinds of food which are vegetarian and that includes global varieties of cuisines. Some of them are Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Italian, English, Mediterranean, a host of unknown cuisines and of course Indian. Indian means all of South Indian cuisines and North Indian. South Indian means Madaraasi, as addressed by Hindi people! And Madaraasi means idlis, dosas, sambar, chutney! I am a Tamilian from Kerala, who is always fond of dosas. That does not mean I am less fond of idlis.

 Hi friends,                Just as we thought the pandemic is under control in India, it is spiralling upwards and we are watching with helplessness and also hoping that vaccines will start working soonest bringing back the carefree life we had BC or before corona.              Well, the purpose of this topic is not to write about COVID. It is about the bird paintings  I have been into for the past few years. I would have mentioned before that I have ventured into artworks of different kinds after my marriage. I still don't have an answer as to why I did not draw or paint during my school days.  As they say, for everything there is a time. From pottery paintings,  I have done nib paintings,  acrylic paintings,  oil paintings,  pastels, water colour paintings and some mixed media. I love to sketch, draw faces, eyes, though I need to explore in depth in that area. Somewhere,  I started drawing and painting birds from the photos, mostly from Google. Bird-watching and capturing their

 Hi friends,                Iam back again sooner than expected, as I would like to share something which will always remain close to my heart. As with any of us, the home where we spend our childhood years will be etched in our minds throughout our life. Wherever we go and settle or go out in search of better prospects or career, revisiting the childhood home stirs up sentiments, feelings of attachment similar to seeing our parents, brings up lots of memories. I still keep having dreams of my childhood home, though my parents no longer live there.                  Our childhood home was quite a charming one. It was at the heart of Thiruvananthapuram city and we just had to walk for less than 10 minutes to school. The area was Chirakulam road which was close to Secretariat and lot of other Government offices and banks. In MG road, there were lots of shops of different kinds, and hotels too. There was a British council library, Eloor lending library which we used to go frequently.  The