Eggless cake!!!

I had really been sleeping the whole of this morning and resting to ensure my eyes are getting good rest!! I was in a mood to have hot phulkas today.I didnt even try to make lunch for the afternoon. There has been a newly opened north indian restaurant in the next street to our flat. S was kind enough to go and pick parcel for both of us for this afternoon. The thali quantity was too much! The phulkas are too good , but I didnt like their sabji that much! I feel I will make better than them..(am i thinking tooo high of myself in cooking ;))

As I again tried to sleep after the heavy thali , I was disturbed by a call from credit card marketing woman! I was soo irritated to be disturbed everyday with a call from the same bank!!

As I could not sleep further, I decided to try something to bake for us after loooong gap! Was a little concerned if the heat of the oven is good for my eyes at the current condition! I went through the dozen of eggless cake receipes posted my favorite food bloggers. One or the other ingredient was not be there and I had to drop the receipe. Finally, I found an eggless, dryfruit cake at CookatEase.

I had got the baking tray from my friend looooonnggg back for trial before I buy one! Finally, I put that into use..

As I was not sure on the tin size of the baking tray, I tried only half of the receipe above. Also, as per her notes in the receipe, I used powdered sugar instead of condensed milk. I felt the sweet to be on the higher side(may be will be fine for S!)

I ended up getting something like a short bread instead of cake, as the quantity was too small for the tin size! I would say for the first try the cake aka short bread, turned out to be fine. I was not very clear on the last instruction on cooling though. The post mentioned that I need to cool it in a plate, after removing it from the baking tin. I did the same, while the cake was still hot! So, what happened was the side on the tray side, was a little soggy and didnt dry at all. It was like a moist cake ;) It was actually very soft.

I waited patiently for sometime for S to get up from his unusual afternoon nap to get to taste the cake with tea. But, today he is sleeping for looooooooong!! :( I could not wait to share this with someone!Hence, this post :)

Dream or Reality?

We went for a night show fpr "INCEPTION" movie with my friend and family around two weeks back.

I got up the next day morning and complained of blurring of vision~

I went to to our family doctor and he seemed to be more concerned than I was. He referred me to an eye specialist. They did couple of eye examinations and felt that I would require much more specialised place to treat the same!

With the kind gesture of the doctors referred above, I somehow managed to get an appointment to the famous "ShankarNethralaya" with another eye specialist.

By then a week had passed and there has been further deterioration in my eye sight!

Myself and S were very much impressed with the organised procedures and process in ShankarNethralaya . There are series of tests conducted by different types of eye physicians in that hospital at a very subsidized cost as well. Finally, we met a cute, young doctor , who further did a round of examination.She made me feel really comfortable and not worry about my deteriorating vision with her soft voice and smiling face!! We thought , this young cute doctor to be the specialist whom I was supposed to meet. It turned out that she is her assistant ;)

Finally, we spent the whole day doing one test after the other and meeting another senior eye surgeon! He made the following statement" Your vision will not go away!". It sounded very blunt to me! But, what he was trying to refer was I could have a much serious problem of type of blood disorder which could have caused heomorrage in my eyes , which has in turn resulted in the blurring of vision. It seems the bleeding within the eye will stop on its own and my vision will eventually become normal.

That was end of another llooooooooooooonnng day(Friday).

For the first time, I felt why weekend came! My blood reports and doctor wont not be available during the weekend. I will need to wait for another 2 more days to know whats my health condition going to be!

My mood was sooo down that I pestered S to take me around for some shopping inspite of S kidding that I might not be able to differentiate the colors well ;) As usual, I ended up buying more than what I planned for!

It was monday afternoon and we went to ShankarNethralaya thinking that I could have a serious health problem!

All of sudden, my luck and HE were with me that all my reports turned out to be very normal!!

It really puzzled my doctors as well . They asked me not to worry about the cause of this internal bleeding in my eyes.

This is not a dream --- Its a reality which I had to go through for the last 2 weeks!

The positive outcome or thought process in my mind now is that I have decided that my to-be-conceived daughter will have to become an eye doctor. I always thought doctor profession to be a very demanding. They will have to struggle to get a balanced personal life. That is not the case with eye profession. Having visited ShankarNethralaya and talking to the doctors, I understand that there are so much of inter connectivity of eyes with other parts, that any other malfunction in the body, can be first seen as a symptom in the eye! The inspiration for this thought process has been the cute, smiling assistant doctor whom I met. I want a girl just like her :)

Unexpected Birthday Gift!

It was 8:30pm in the night of my birthday and Ramakrishnan Sir (President-founder of Amar Seva Sangam) was going to a music concert as part of a coutrallam tourism development initiative. Sir wanted to go there to show his gratitude to GangaiAmaran. He along with SPB had helped on another occasion, to conduct a fund raising music programme for ASSA. We had gone to meet Sir that evening. My father was busy with his training programme for the local school students and we were also in the hall watching the enthusiasm of the students during father’s programme. Sir suddently called over phone and asked if myself and S wanted to join him for the music concert! I didn’t know how to react! S was blank because he was not even aware of who GangaiAmaran was!

Yes, I was pleasantly surprised to see and hear a live concert of “Gangai-amaran” (Illayaraja’s younger brother) in the final day of “Saral thiruvizha” of Coutrallam. We got to see the local VIPs like Tirunelveli MLA, Tenkasi MLA, Tirunelveli District collector in close proximity! We were let in near to the front stage, when a crowd of close to 2000 people, were waiting behind of the hall (all bcoz we had gone with Sir). As we looked odd man out of that crowd, even the district collector asked us if we had come to collect some prize for competitions conducted as part of the tourism development during coutrallam season!! ;)

I shalll write more about the simple man Mr.Ramakrishnan and about his life changing event and our experiences in ASSA in my coming posts..

Live to Serve..

Followed to the fullest by all people associated with Amar Seva Sangam Association, is the motto of the NGO. My father had gone there to conduct free motivational training programmes for the employees of ASSA. So, we got a chance to spend 3 days in their premises as a guest. It’s a much calm place with ample of space, surrounded by lot of trees, good wind and good souls! I had heard a lot about Mr.Ramakrishnan, founder of ASSA through my father. We got a chance to meet him in person and understand the real service done by him this time! A little background about Mr. Ramakrishnan sir. He was studying engineering final year in 1976. He had an amibition to enter into army. He had gone for the army examination and as part of the test process had to jump from a huge height and unfortunately met with a major accident leading to complete paralysis of his body below neck! He required help of others for every little movement.
The below information is an excerpt from their annual magazine. This is a benediction from Bharat Ratna Late Shri. C. Subramaniam, first patron-in-chief of ASSA.
“
In 1981, he had the courage of conviction, injected and inspired by his mentor Dr.Amar Singh, and dared to establish a service organization and christened it as AMAR SEVA SANGAM by way of paying his humble but sincere gratitude and tribute to the doctor who has helped him out of the jaws of death during the accident in army tests!

Interestingly another crippled young man, Sankara Raman, Chartered accountant with a sizeable practice of his own in Madras, who happened to visit Ayikudy in January 1992, out of curiosity to see for himself what Ramakrishnan was doing there, lost no time in bidding good bye to his lucrative auditing practice and settled down in Ayikudy to help and work with Ramakrishnan. “
It was so motivating to see both these inspiring people in person and get to have a chat with them.
We wanted to see if we could also contribute to the ASSA through our educational background!As my husband was a finance background, he tried to understand their financial operations and tried to suggest some modifications during our short visit! I tried to understand the IT system. There needs lot of knowledgeable people& machines in networking to run the huge system in ASSA currently. I got to meet another young gentle man called Rajesh. He is currently looking after the IT system. He is also physically challenged and has no movement below his neck! I was very happy to see the confidence with which he spoke and didn’t show a bit of frustration over his current condition! I was very much moved to talk to such people! He has learnt software languages out of his own interest and is not a professional qualified person! They need a little bit of guidance to channelize the IT packages which they are developing for ASSA. I am not a trained in that area to support the same! I have tried to source a upcoming networking professional from Chennai to look their IT related issues and sort out their issues and help to improve their IT infrastructure for smooth running of ASSA. There is a need donations and knowledge youngsters for ensuring the smooth running of these systems!

We are trying to see if we can spread out this message about ASSA to more people to help to collect donations & qualified volunteers for a certain commited time !

I have to definitely mention about “Muthamma” aunty. We used to go there to the “Barrier free dining hall” for our lunch and dinner. We got to see many “special children” taken care so well by the staff there for serving food. Muthamma aunty has been in ASSA for the last 8 years in the kitchen session! She has an ever smiling face and serves food to all of the guests who come there!!

There are a few lessons learnt from this trip

I realized that I should not crib about the small health issues which I have! I can still move around, work and contribute monetarily to my family and society! It made me realize that there is more scope for social responsibility from my end and I should not just get constrained to my family alone!!

Unplugged

For those who have been wondering for the long silence from my end in responding to your personal wishes for my birthday –I had been completely cut-off from all communication mediums like internet, mobile network connectivity, paper , TV etc for the last 4 days.

I have been on a 4 days vacation to places in and around Tenkasi, Tamilnadu. Most of the events I had encountered on my vacation - have lot of pleasant surprises, fun, learning.

Now- I would have to get back to reality and catch up with all the piled-up pending tasks at home and office.

I will catch up soon on trying to capture my rejuvenating trip in detail.

PTA –in real spirit

I have somehow missed this post .Its been there in my draft for so long. rather its going to almost a year now!!

I happened to be part of a different type of parents –teachers meeting in Ayakudi - a small village near Tenkasi, Down south of Tamilnadu.

As part of Subramanya Trust run my Mr.Ramakrishnan Sir, this is mainly concentrating on trying to improve the education standards of the children of the neighbourhood of Ayakudi. Ramakrishnan Sir had called all the parents of the students associated with the tuition center (on a late evening). In spite of his physically challenged condition, he made sure he was present for the meeting. Actually, only 50% of the parents had turned up for the meeting. The teachers of the tuition centers were all studying in colleges and doing this as a part-time work for a small amount of stipend for the same!

The children were not from a single school. They were studying in different schools in the neighbourhood. He remembered every single child’s name and called them out one by one. He told the child’s parent on their educational progress and their regularity in attending tuition. It was very much an unbiased opinion and straight to the face! As my father had conducted free personality development training programs for those children during our 4 day trip, we 3 of us were also invited by Ramakrishnann Sir. (something like a chief guest ;)). I was suddently asked by Ramakrishnan Sir to say something to those students & parents group! I was pleasantly surprised and was speechless! I just spoke few words to wish them to study well!!

My memory went back to the parents teachers meeting in my school. I had studied in SPIC township, Tuticorin till my secondary school. As it was a township, we mostly knew all our classmates family as well. It’s a fanfare event for the parents to meet the teachers in our school. Many aunties would come with newly bought sarees and jewellery for such meetings. They will try to use high language and try to talk for long with the teacher. It would be partially about their child and more of general gossip.

NRI to R2I

Time is running soo fast- It’s been a year today since we shifted back to India. I can call myself a happy R2I(!?)
It would not be fair if I say my transition phase of R2I was very good! I did have my own round of cribbing after moving back. I still find that I do make references of people, place and atmosphere which I liked about sophisticated Singapore to my known circle here!! I feel I make references, hoping some day our India will also learn and adopt the good things from other foreign countries.
I will want to recollect about some of my memories as NRI during my stint of close to 3 years in Singapore.
The first thing I remember about Singapore is the building we lived-Grandeur8 condo. It was a well maintained complex and we got a beautiful pool facing ground floor flat with a BIG patio!! I used to love staring the well maintained pool with a hot cup of tea early in the morning. I feel Grandeur8 really helped us to unwind and relax amidst the hectic lifestyle we had. We learnt swimming and tennis there as well. I wish I could start getting back to the routine of swimming. I have been a little lazy and not gone to explore one around my neighbourhood in Chennai. That’s been a looong pending item from my end.
Next thing which I remember is the bus service. Myself and S would love to go on a long travel by local bus. I would get undivided attention from my better half [without any other gadget distractions]. Half of our important conversations would happen in the bus.
I also agree with most R2I people’s opinion that we tend to watch more of our own mother tongue movies abroad than we do in India. It was quite easy to get tickets and we did watch of lot of tamil /hindi movies. Within walking distance from our apartment, we had a theatre which filmed English movies. So, we ended up watching more English movies as well.
I guess food and me go together. I love food and that too authentic Indian food are my all time favorite! We had lots of small joints in and around Little India like Gangothree, Murugan Idli Kadai etc, which we used to frequently visit. I have to say about the Yishun Mariyamman koil and a small food joint behind the temple premises! Food is dead cheap there and I like to sit down on the floor and eat there. Sometimes, I have my own doubts if I go there for temple or for food! The place my office was located had no good Indian food options. Back those days I was a lazy bun to get up and cook early in the mornings! I developed good rapport in office with many Indian colleagues because of Annalakshmi. Many Indian colleagues of different department knew me for the simple reason that I helped to order Indian food from Annalakshmi for many in my office! ;)
I learnt to appreciate the importance of domestic helpers, which we very much take for granted in India. In India, we have the luxury of having helpers clean our entire house, wash utensils for all 7 days of the week and still pay them a very meagre amount(still crib if she doesn’t turn up even for one day!!)

Developed a few close friends as well and learnt a lot culturally from my colleagues.

Given a chance will we want to go out of India again? I would say time alone will answer this question - As one part of the heart wants to remain in Chennai as I am slowly settling down here, while the other part of the heart wants to explore or test new waters!