Joyful Singapore

It has been a while since i wrote after i moved to Singapore 6 months ago. I had relocated to Singapore and have settled down quite smoothly than i had expected. I live in Tampines that quite close to my office in Changi Business park. It takes about half and hour if I take the MRT or 10 minutes if I take a cab. Needless to say Its a comfortable place to live. I have been to Singapore a couple of times before. But this is the first time I am here for long term and am able to feel the city. Its a small country and the facilities on par with what you get in the US. The city is well connected by train & bus all over. I presume its the cleanest city and a very safe city too, which was one of reasons i prefer this place than any other. But, the major attraction is its just a 4 hour flight from here to Chennai and I dont need to plan 6 months in advance for my travel. Food is another convenience here for south Indian vegetarians like me with restaurants like Saravana Bhavan and Ananda Bhavan having their branches all over the city.I plan to be here for a while and plan to bring my family in the near future. Nevertheless, the thought of Namma chennai  is always there and I visited Chennai once for a short vacation. I will write more about my life here in the forthcoming posts.

Traffic woes

I had been to Ritchie street today afternoon to get a hardware part fixed in my laptop. The fix took only about fifteen minutes, but the commute time was more than 3 hours to reach Ritchie street and come back home. Roads are blocked and vehicles diverted within the city (Chennai) for the metro rail construction. Roads with 4 lanes are reduced to just a passage that's big enough only for a single vehicle to pass. While i drove back, i thought that the mount road will be lane of vehicular chaos and took the beach road. I then understood that it was an experience of jumping onto the stove from the Pan. Vehicles were moving at a snail's pace with lot of vehicles coming in a cool way in the opposite direction. I now understand the reason for the frequent accidents on the beach road with buses and cars ramming vehicles coming in the opposite direction. I should thank Ilayaraja for helping me to keep my cool through out those 2 hours of nerve wrecking traffic chaos. Chennai seems to be in a transformation phase right now with the construction of the pillars and tracks for the metro rail. The plan seems to cover the busiest stretches of the city. I presume the city's transportation system will get a major face lift once the metro rail becomes  operational. Phase 1 may get completed by the end of 2013. The hope is that the car & two wheeler users will reduce their road usage with the advent of the metro rail system. Wherever available, electric trains seem to be the quickest means of transportation within the city. I am very hopeful that most of the vehicle users would prefer using this new means of transport instead of getting tormented by the traffic chaos to save a couple of minutes. So, the only option right now is to keep our patience intact while traversing through the main roads of the city and wait for the metro dawn.

Diwali Again

This year's Diwali is around the corner. The city is as usual ready to embrace  the festival of lights with a delightful fervor. I already see placards outside popular sweet stalls stating that they are ready to take bulk orders for sweets. When i was young(in school), buying sweets from a stall was not very common and there were not so many sweets shops around as they exist today. Unlike other festivals, sweets used to be made in large quantities at least 2 weeks before the festival. I came home everyday with my tongue trickling with droplets of saliva and taste buds ready to devour the variety of sweets that were made at home. Things changed a bit afterwards. Distributing sweets to employees in offices especially for Diwali became a practice  Both my parents were employed and, we waited for the sweet boxes they would bring home. We sometimes snatched those boxes from our parents while on the way, even before they could reach home. We relished them more as they would have exotic varieties of sweets than what my mother knew to make at home. For crackers, my father's office had a cooperative society that sold crackers at a price slightly lesser than the market prices. I would keep inquiring my father about the date on which the stalls would open lest i miss anything on my list as the crackers used to get sold out in those cooperative stalls very quickly. Buying crackers used to be done with so much fanfare at that time. We discussed in our friends circle as to when each of us will be buying crackers. At times, i used to take friends for buying crackers. What an happiness that was. Even crores of rupees would not get us back those days or the feeling. The energy and the spirit have dwindled down over the years. We don't celebrate now. But the fervor seems to be less. Today, I see even kids refraining from lighting crackers now as they are told by their teachers that child labor is involved. But i am pretty sure that these kids miss the excitement and amusement that we expected and enjoyed every moment on that day. Most of the time, Ignorance is Bliss.
 

Power of Prayer

"Prayer is the last resort and the ultimate resource left to  man where the human intellect fails."
- Mahasaya, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's disciple.
I have often thought about this powerful statement that i read from the book "A Search in Secret India" by the western Spiritual explorer Paul Brunton. When the whole world is aligned with reason and intellect, Is it worthwhile to put effort  on something that  purely depends on faith. How many of us have felt or at least agree with the fact that Prayer is a force that helps us to subconsciously concentrate only on things that are positive. Though i have heard and read a lot about self realization or emancipation, i have not really had such moments in life till now. But, i have a very strong belief that prayer can help you generate positive thoughts and in the long run create a mindset thats devoid of negative thoughts. It also aids in being calm while under pressure and can help you weigh merits and demerits of a situation and take an informed decision. The western philosophy of Auto Suggestion seems to work in a similar manner. Any thought positive or negative is a wave that spreads around you and amasses more of its kind from the surrounding universe until it becomes a tsunami. This eventually has an effect on how you react or respond to people or situations. I am sure that everyone prays for something constructive. The saying that Well begun is half done is grounded to the fact that the person has the right mindset in order to achieve what he wants to. I would say that this is also a kind of a prayer that is done subconsciously without even the individual realizing it. How do i cultivate the habit of praying often? Going to temples often can be a very good starting point. Temples are places where most of us tend to keep our egos out and try to remain our true self. Thats a place where we can start practicing the art of praying or auto suggetion. Once you get habituated to praying regularly, you will realize that you feel calm and your days are better than what you expected. Your talking will get reduced and you will start to judge content and not people. You will also realize that there is always a force that is ready to help you realize your positive goals. With our life span being very short, why do we need to litter our mind with anything negative. I believe it takes only practice to keep our mind bubbling with possitive thoughts all the time and prayer is the easiest way to achieve it.

Back Home

I am back home now. Landed in Chennai yesterday morning after a long & tiring flight. No flight transports you back from America to India in less than 24 hours, atleast 22. Its a sea of difference between the streets of Manhattan to the streets of Chennai. But Namma Chennai is as sweet as ever with a sense of belongingness to the city prevailing in me all over. Slowly catching up with the news & events here in India and Chennai. The political heat is on with BJP stalling the parliment proceeding quoting the allotment of coal mines to private parties in an arbitrary manner. On the better side, The weather in Chennai seems to be getting better. The heat during the day seems to have simmered down a bit with a few spells having brought down the always soaring 35+ deg temperature.  I went to Pazhamudhir Solai to get vegetables today. Prices of vegetables seem to be under control. I have plans to take my daughter out sometime this week- She might not have been taken out last 2 months during my absence here except for her school and other classes. But she has her exams this week and I need to plan. Nevertheless, I have to go to office in a day & start getting engaged with my next assignment. But on the whole, i am happy to be back home.

Saravana Bhavan, New York

In continuation of my previous post on Saravana Bhavan dinner yesterday, i should admit that the taste was authentic south Indian and it just transported me to Chennai for those 30 minutes that it took to finish my dinner. It was a typical Saravana's style dinner with items such as Sambar, Rasam, Kootu, Vatha Kuzhambu, Appalam, Payasam and rice. It was just about 8:30 PM when i opened the pack with lot of fondness, i realized that the quantity of rice was less. Especially for a south Indian like me whose staple diet is Rice in different forms for BreakFast, Lunch and Dinner, the quantity i felt was just peanuts. Also, the rice had become cold and hardened. So, i made rice myself and consumed all the items given with a reasonably large quantity of rice. The taste of the items was just the same as what you would expect in any of the Saravana restaurants back in Chennai. In Chennai, they have a centralised kitched from where most of the items (At least for a meal) would get transported from. I was wondering as to how these guys manage to bring their authentic Saravana taste to all the places they go, be it Singapore or New York. Myself and my daughter have always been a fan of Saravana. My daughter will not agree for a lunch or dinner in any of the hotels other than the HSB, Like wise, most of my cousins have tuned their taste buds to the taste of the HSB Masala Dosa and Sambar. When i called my cousin today to tell him about my tryst with the HSB in New York, he asked me to call later. The reason was that he was in Saravana Bhavan having a Masala Dosa in  and wanted to enjoy the Savor of the moment. Chennai or New York, that's the magic of HSB. I am sure you would agree.

Saravana Bhavan, New York

I have been trying out different restaurants in the last couple of weeks, here in New York. But none could satisfy the taste buds of a person who has been eating authentic south Indian food at Home and  restaurants like Saravana Bhavan   and Annalakshmi, back in Chennai. So today, i was determined to have my dinner in Saravana Bhavan. I had called my friend yesterday and had asked him the way to one of my favorite restaurants, the HSB. I was also longing for a good Filter Coffee so much last couple of weeks which was a granted back home. The Saravana's or HSB for short is located at the begining of the 28th Street in the Lexington Avenue, New York. I have got used to the concept of Avenues and Streets of Manhattan due to my commute to the Park Avenue office every day. But otherwise too, there should not be a problem finding a spot in New York with a bit of a direction sense, for the reason that Manhattan is very neatly divided into Avenues and Streets. If you know the Number, Street and Avenue, you can reach your destination without much help from others. I set out for my dinner errand at about 5 PM and headed straight to the 33rd street. From there, it was about a 20 minute walk to the HSB. The ambience was great with tamil songs being played to give a feel that you are in a hotel which is a hallmark in Chennai, though the place right now was New York. The place was clean and well organized except that the waiters could have been a bit more friendly rather than being mechanical, according to my judgement. I ordered a coffee as soon as i entered and could not have my dinner there as it was just quarter to six which is too early for my dinner. So, i ordered a takeway of a South Indian Meal to be consumed at home later. I then took a walk back to the subway station on Lexington to head back to my Hotel. I will post again about the taste of the food items. I plan to go there whenever possible, but will take a bit of time and effort. But anyway, Saravana Bhavan is a name thats worth the money and effort whether its Chennai or New York.