ODDS AND ENDS

More odds than ends, really.

Since retiring to the not-so-salubrious environs of Chennai I have become the family shopper; ie, I started doing the family shopping which is something I had not done the previous forty-plus years. With retirement my excuses for not taking responsibility for the weekly chore had evaporated. What was at first a chore soon became quite an entertainment, owing not so much to the "retail high" as to the many amusements and diversions it provided.

Studies show that spending money lights  up the human brain like a Christmas tree, just as it does under sexual stimulation or addictive drugs. If I were to wire myself to an FMRI machine while I do my shopping, I am sure it will show similar results, even when I don't actually buy anything or spend any money. Each one of us gets our kicks differently, and mine is finding interesting odds and ends. You could say that shopping is my vertical expression of a horizontal desire....

So what excites and amuses me so much ? It is the exciting range of goods on offer. Take the ordinary Gujju Thali for example. It is many things to many people, but I never thought of it as colourful as the following blurb claims, if you forgive the bad spelling:

Are they promoting a meal reddened by chillies, or is it a Gujju Thali  redefined? Whatever it actually is, the mystery is  killing me - even as it excites me. I've been there a few times and am no closer to solving the mystery than I was at the beginning.

I also get excited when I see a "charming" oatmeal breakfast such as this:

It is not only charming, but "vigorous" as well, not to mention that it contains all-important fibre. Who can say no to a bit of vigour and fibre in the morning ?  I wish I had known of the rejuvenating properties of oatmeal earlier - I would have indulged a lot more for a lot longer, secure in the knowledge that regular oatmeal breakfasts would set everything right.

We Tamils experienced The Italian Connection a few centuries before the rest of India. Some say even longer. Reportedly Romans traded with the Tamils; but then Romans traded with everyone, went everywhere, and subjugated everyone. Our connection was the Jesuit Father Constanzo Joseph Beschi who came to convert and got converted instead to the cause of Tamil literature. I would have said "seduced" by Tamil, but I have to show proper respect to a man of the cloth. 

Beschi adopted a Tamil name, Veeramamuni, and translated the "Thiru Kural" into Latin (his adopted name translates somewhat clumsily as The Great and Valiant Saint  in English - valour and sainthood don't usually go together except in the cause of proselytizing which was what he came here to do). Not sure how much proselytizing he did, but he did an awful lot of translating of Tamil works. He aimed to introduce to the world with the beauty of Tamil literature. Introduction of an Italian of a different sort to a member of modern Indian royalty happened centuries later and would have deleterious consequences for the country. 

The Italian connection with Tamilnadu goes far deeper than poetry and politics: it is today firmly rooted in food habits. What could be more Italian than Pasta, and more Tamil than "Payasam"? The former is a humble day to day staple and the latter the desert for special occasions and comes in as many variations as there are deities and gods in our culture (even the die-hard atheists and "rationalists" partake of the ceremonial Payasam). The melding of the two is as unique as the union of a scion of the Indian Political Royalty with an Italian waitress. We celebrate this union thus:

We Tamils are also people of soul. That we have sold it to devils of a certain political persuasion is neither here nor there. We used to write soulful poetry the like of which Fr.Beschi translated; now we write soulful film songs. Most of our movies involve the handsome hero looking soulfully into the eyes of the pretty and generously built heroine and singing soulful songs with the camera panning, at the critical moment, to a flower being vigourously pollinated by an amourous bee. How did we get so soulful? Surely not just on Idlies and Dosas? We can attribute our soulfulness to stuff like the following which are soulful as well as fulfilling, not to mention delicious and healthy:

As the label suggests, it isn't just soulful, it fills our souls. With so much soulfull foods is it any surprise that we all  are somewhat full of figure? 

We used to have a matinee idol running the state when he was not running around trees chasing ladies half his age, imitating the busy bee with the vigourous mien and amourous intent. One day he passed away. Now his on-screen love interest does that job - not running around  trees, mind you, but running the state and giving us the run-around. They used to team up in many a Raja-Rani movie. One eatery  immortalizes this on-screen pairing in the form of a dumpling:

Any suggestion as to her resemblance to a largish dumpling is entirely unfounded and totally mischievous.