How she made sambhar in the London borough of Tower Hamlets

She waves her hand above the saucepan. The oil is hot enough. She throws in the mustard seeds that burst into life, crackling. Adds the chopped onions. Saute the onions until translucent.. she reads her mother’s neat handwriting. Recipes written for onions that were bright violet in the cart that Muruga brought around every morning. Her mother would run down in a nightgown and haggle merrily with him before returning with the day’s vegetables. Small tomatoes, potatoes still covered in spots of mud. And a handful of bay leaves that he would throw in for free.

How would she be able to tell, here where onions were white, in clear plastic bags under the bright lights of the vegetable aisle at the Tesco?

She guesses the best she can while measuring out the spices. It takes several tries to get it right. Too much salt (add some potates to soak it up). Too little tamarind. Finally, she adds the sambhar podi from a tupperware container.

Neatly labelled in tamizh, packed and sent from home, brought over by a cousin returning from a vacation. It was saved for a special occasions - when she was cooking for friends, when they were having people over. If it was only for her, she’d just throw in the “Hot Chilli Powder” (suitable for Indian curries) that she buys at the store.

But today although she's dining alone she uses the sambhar podi. On this rainy Sunday afternoon, she's trying to recreate, in Liverpool Street, a tiny slice of Abhiramapuram.

Time 'n Tide

This weekend as the clocks went back, I gained an hour. A precious gift on a chilly Sunday morning with two 1 AMs

Instead of going back the entire hour at one go, like the rest of England and Europe (Yes, as someone who had to fill countless forms, shell out a 100 quid and jump through hoops to get a visa to Europe despite living in London (or is it because of), I still think they're two very seperate entities), I savoured and spent this hour throughout the day.

In the morning when I woke up, and wanted to snooze a li'l while longer - I gave myself twenty more minutes of Sunday morning under the covers - a very guilt free snooze unlike Monday or Tuesday morning snoozes where you know that the later you get up, the more emails you'll have to deal with in one go.

In the afternoon when I met girlfriends over for lunch, I gave myself an extra half hour of conversation, laughs and gossip before I had to leave.

And this morning, when I ran into work suffering from Monday morning blues, I stopped at a Starbucks, bought myself a caramel coffee with cinnamon, and gave myself ten extra minutes to savour it before getting to the rest of the day.

Now, I'm tempted to go forward every Friday evening, and give myself an extra hour all weekend!

Anti-Symmetry

My bathroom floor is covered with mats. We have two white ovals, which are not really ovals - more like elongated circles, and two blue circles. They are currently arranged on the floor in a neat row - oval circle oval circle. White Blue White Blue.

My inner self rebels daily against this symmetry. And as I sit there meditatively, I run through a seemingly infinite set of possibilities. Oval - Circles on top of each other - Oval. Blue in one corner with Whites in a straight line. Circle Circle and Ovals at right angles to each other. Blue White White Space and then Blue.

With three women trying to get to work at the same time, it is not long before I am jerked out of my morning reverie.

A Question of Character

A couple of months ago, my (currently) housemates and I were busy searching for a place to stay. We had a very simple set of requirements :

- It has to be close to work. No more than 17.5 minutes door to door by the fastest mode of transport as applicable

- The distance between the home and the nearest grocery store shall not exceed 7 minutes by walk (4 minutes if walking briskly) for the average girl clad in no higher than 1.8 inch heels.

- There shall be a minimum average of 1.2 people per square meter from 6am to 2am on weekdays and 8am to 4am on Friday/Saturday nights.

R. finally found a place that meets all these requirements. I and I (just to clarify one of these I's is me, as in myself the author of this post, the other is one of my housemates who's name starts with I. I don't have MPD.. yet) saw the photos, fell in love with it and agreed to put a deposit on it.

Before we got the place however, the landlord wanted a character reference for each of us. Knowing almost no one in London, I volunteered the name of someone I was to work with in the near future. For the sake of simplicity let us call him X.

A couple of days later, we received an email from the person handling the lettings process saying "blah blah blah gas check blah blah telephone blah blah deposit blah NatWest blah.. and Ms. Sunjahta's character check is outstanding"

I was obviously thrilled. What a wonderful beginning. It is nice to know how well one is regarded by people one is mildly acquainted with. Of course, one is of the opinion that one is upholder of moral principles and is of excellent character. Affirmation of this, of course, pleases one no end.

Until I received the following email from X :

Hi Sujatha, Sorry for not being able to fill in your charcater (sic.) form. I'm travelling in Germany.. will do it as soon as i get back on monday. Regds, X

Once all outstanding items were resolved however, one did get the house and is now happily ensconced in above. Albeit a little bit miffed at 'satisfactory' character ref.


I started this post last week. Meant to get back to it. Hit Publish by mistake. TechnoDolt

A Whale of a Time!

Over long travels far and wide, I have come to the great realization that I am a city person. I love the huge metropoli, with their sky-high real estate prices and crowded streets.


Ever so often... usually when I'm stuck in traffic for about 45 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon, I claim that I want to run away to a more pleasant environs. Where there are rolling meadows and clear air and clean water and... well... pretty much nothing else.



About 20 minutes into 'sitting quietly and contemplating nature' and I want to run to a coffee shop, take in a movie and shop at my neighbourhood grocery for everything from instant rava dosa mix to olives stuffed with pimientos.


As I said, I'm a city girl.


But on a recent excursion into more pristine environs, I had the luck to catch some of mother nature's truly outstanding creations.

Picture taken by Appa during Whale watching trip in Junea, Alaska. May-Jun 2007