Random Ramblings

2008-02-05T02:12:00.000-08:00

I've moved my blog to http://shikhabhattacharji.wordpress.com/

2008-01-27T22:30:00.000-08:00

More links. www.justchangeindia.com/news.asp Been using ubuntu and kompozer - but sadly there seem to be some compatibility issues with IE. I say everyone should just switch to mozilla firefox. NOW!

2007-10-21T01:55:00.001-07:00

I have a sore throat and have been croaking brokenly all morning. Finally, I've given up. Stopped trying. Stopped talking. Of course, Dilip's enjoying his sunday afternoon nap and my phone is switched off. So apart from the laptop, there isnt really anyone to talk to.... Still, I have my hour of silence.
I've always wondered how Gandhi managed to stop talking for one WHOLE day every week. I didnt try that once...but didnt get past one hour. This time though, the silence is involuntary.

However, my hour of silence is only silence on MY part. Around me, things go on as usual. The faint sound of traffic on the main road, the occasional autorickshaw zooming past our house, the watertank next door which is forever overflowing and dripping water onto the banana trees below (incidently, the banana trees, (or are they banana plants?) have a huge bees nest on them. Never seen one like that before, with a lovely concentric circular kind of pattern). The wind is noisy too, and rushes at you as if its trying to push you back into the house. I fight my way to the varanda and listen to more sounds. Clothes flapping on the line, the kids from Kottarvayal, a village just down the road, and the sudden burst of crackers in celebration of the poojas.
I make my way to the kitchen to find something to sooth my aching throat. More sounds there. The gas stove, the water bubbling and boiling, the rasping knife as I peel some ginger. Armed with hot ginger and honey, I smile as I listen to Dilip's deep breathing that is interrupted by the sudden contented snore.
It's not so bad this time. My world seems to be making enough noise to cover up for my involuntary silence.
(Throat, I hope your not listening to this though - because still I want you back!!)

2007-03-05T01:03:00.001-08:00

Finally, the wedding albums :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/shikhadilip

2006-10-14T19:06:00.000-07:00

since i havent said anything about Gudalur where i live now, or accord/just change india/ stan & mari/ my work etc...here's a little bit more

www.adivasi.net/amsnews.asp

2006-08-15T02:42:00.000-07:00

Do you know that
if EVERY indian buys atleast ONE hand-woven item of clothing in a year that would create enough demand for all the handloom weavers in the country.

So the next time you go shopping, THINK!

Happy Independence Day

2006-06-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

TRIPTI'S WEDDING!!!!!!!!!!

More about this beautiful day soon.

or perhaps check out tarun's blog after the Vellore reception!:)

2006-06-15T03:56:00.000-07:00

Sunset at Bissamcuttack is different every day!

THE SEA OF SUNSET

This is the land the sunset washes,
These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;
Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
These are the western mystery!

Night after night her purple traffic
Strews the landing with opal bales;
Merchantmen poise upon horizons,
Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.

Emily Dickinson, Nature XIII

2006-06-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

My adopted family
I lived with JAM Oommen during my time in Orissa, and i couldnt have had a more wonderful family! The Christian Hospital, Bissamcuttack, is a 200 bedded mission hospital, in the Rayagada District of Orissa. Johnny heads the Community Health Department (and was my Boss!) and Mercy is the Principal of the School of Nursing. Ashu (Ashish Oommen John) is between 6th and 7th grade, and an expert bowler and hindi-movie-song teacher! :) Ofcourse, one cant talk about Johnny and not mention Malaria (rumours are that the f. anophelese tremble at his name etc hehe) No, I didnt get malaria - but i was extra cautious and used odomos and a big blue mosquito net soaked in deltamethryn!

This is what the Hospital looks like from the hills behind (photos courtesy: G Zaman, Sara & Tue)

CHB was started over 50 yrs ago by Dr. Lis Madsen, a Danish Doctor and amazing person who began with a clinic on the church veranda. Today, CHB provides essential health care facilities in a state which has the HIGHEST death rate (9.8 per 1000 population), HIGHEST infant mortality rate (87 per 1000 live births), HIGHEST Maternal mortality rate (738 per 100,000 births) and about 50% of all malarial deaths in the country!

This part of Orissa is absolutely beautiful. Mitra (Madsen's Institute for Tribal & Rural Advancement) which is the Community Health wing of CHB, works in 50 villages in the area and the sights and sounds are absolutely stunning. A team of committed staff work hard to fulfill the mitra dream of

HEALTH FOR ALL
EDUCATION FOR ALL
ECONOMIC SECURITY FOR ALL
& SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT FOR ALL

2006-05-30T23:58:00.000-07:00

2006-05-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

the family with tesmi and shyama

2006-05-30T23:52:00.000-07:00

two weeks in londonium - at Gill's place, at Gauri/Sameer's

2006-05-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

These are some snaps taken at Priya's place on Marylebone High Street. We all went to Sameers place after that to meet dilip's friends from lse days. Gauri i had met before, but it was really nice to see the rest and put faces to the names. Have to ask Prasant for snaps of the evening. It was good to see Priya after a while. lots has been happening in both our lives and it was good to catch up. She took us out to a really nice Thai place on sunday night. Busaba, which is just down the road is sort of a thai-wagamama canteen-type place with really nice. Even i tried the calamari, which for a non-fish connoisseur like me, was really something! We were rather late and they were in a rush to close tho, and kept reminding us by ringing a beautiful old gong! we also watched Guess Who?, a nice film, sort of the reverse of Guess who's coming to dinner? I had wanted to go to Lalibela, which is my favourite place in the whole of london (apart from Food for Thought). next time i guess! Oh! and we saw Shyama briefly as well!! which was really good. more later on stratford-upon-avon as well. Parents and aunty joyce are going there tomorrow! and to watch the Lion King as well at the Lyceum! i hope appa takes them through the lse :)
Oh...and of course, my bejewelled feet deserve a picture...sadly i forgot about them...and gill's awesome GREEN sandals are now at Gauri's place! but apparently i have reserved the right to claim them back at any time!

2006-05-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

I just spent 12 days in the UK... and being back in London, in the lusty month of May (and gosh - was it windy and rainy?!?!) reminded me of a lovely show i watched in the Regent's Park Theatre last year. Camelot. Regent's park used to be part of the hunting grounds of King Henry VIII, so it was all rather appropriate! the show has such fantastic songs, and there couldnt be a more beautiful setting!
this is the cast at the end of the show, and the other snap is of Onyema, Alice, me and John, who trudged all the way from Butler's Wharf to Camelot!! :)

2006-02-26T18:58:00.000-08:00

One good habit i picked up when in London was listening to BBC radio. I actually miss it when i'm in Bissamcuttack! BBC7 is currently running the story of Jean Valjean, in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables - sadly i'll probably only be able to catch the first few episodes. Les Mis is one of my favourite musicals as well. i remember tripti telling me the whole story in great detail years ago, after she watched it in the west end. and then watching it at Palace theatre (esp since shaftsbury ave was just down the road from me!!) i dont think i'll ever forget the revolution of the students or the scenes in the sewers under Paris. or Javerts suicide as he jumps off a bridge into the river Seine, which is another brillliantly stunning scene. Interestingly, I first heard of Victor Hugo when i was ten. we had a lesson in our English textbook at school which was the story of 'The Bishop's Candlesticks'. I guess i was a little disappointed when the story that epitomised Les Mis for me actually took up not more than ONE minute at the beginning of the show and the Bishop was most certainly not the hero! :) well...one lives and learns.Speaking of Bishops, my grandmother's brother is one of that species. and i must admit that he is a real live hero! hes eighty seven years old and travels around the world on his own, preaching, teaching and more. I'd be totally satisfied if I could do about half the things he does at that age!! Does he have silver candle sticks in his house in the linear town that is Kerala? i wonder...
heres a snap of him with his sisters and brother (taken on ammachi's 80th Birthday in Nov 2005)

2006-02-24T08:05:00.000-08:00

THINK THINK THINK!

Amma and me started to watch "Father, Son and the Holy war" by Anand Patwardhan. We got through only one cd, but even that was so thought-provoking. the film begins with the Mumbai riots, and delves into the issues of communal hatred and violence. interestingly, this sort of flows into a reflection on how women are treated by religion and religious institutions. how mother goddess, mother nature and other manifestations of the female form which bore life were replaced by male-centred phallic worship, the female being subdued by the male, the husband.
What struck me most, listening to all the examples he used, was how men are unthinkingly and subconciously brainwashed into gendered thinking, and how women UNTHINKINGLY accept and progagate the same. why is that we cant THINK for ourselves? isnt that what some claim makes us 'different' from all other living beings - that great ability to think and reason? sadly none of us seem to use that facility. i wonder what the world would be like if we did?
Do watch the film - it raises lots of issues that are hardly thought about, let alone spoken of or discussed. they need to be spoken about, decried and de-normalised.

2006-02-23T02:01:00.000-08:00

To make up for not having blogged since the beginning of the new year, i have exciting news :)
this is spilling the beans actually...so i wont mention names yet, but my best best bestest friend is getting married in june!! Shes a doctor, and hopes to start a masters course in anatomy soon. ive known her pretty much since the day we were born (yes yes, i am still a month and 10 days OLDER!) and we've shared all kinds experiences (mentionable, and some not so mentionable)
So todays blog is just to wish her a TON of love and luck and hugs and all things good :)

ps. i'm back home from Bissamcuttack, Orissa and have been lazing around doing nothing trying to look after a rather nasty peptic ulcer. ammas also home with a bad viral and no voice at all, so i'm pretending to be nurse :)

2005-12-30T22:05:00.000-08:00

GIVE A LITTLE SOMETHING SPECIAL

This year, thanks to Nina and Troels, friends from Bissamcuttack, all our christmas decorations were hand-made! We had a christmas dinner their place - and learnt danish carols, and how to make christmas hearts! They have a family tradition where everyone sits together to make new decorations each year - what a fun idea! Sandhya and me made chains of christmas trees, holly and diyas, as well as the hearts - danish ones are red and white! but we used every colour we could get!
I wish more people would make their decorations instead of buying them from stores - you can recycle paper, last years cards and make really bright and pretty things to hang on a tree or around the house! and they make very thoughtful gifts as well. Hopefully sandhya and me will get organised and make some candles before the new year! :)

2005-12-19T20:23:00.000-08:00

This was one of the most memorable moments of my life - the Dharasinga School inauguration programme. absolutely fantastic. Five villages got together to start a school for their children -and now 91 kids, in blue uniforms, with slates and tiffin carriers, sit in a beautiful mud hut, learning 'aa, ahh, ee, eeee' and how to play frisbee!! this is just the beginning of a revolution - a community fighting to give its kids a chance at education. A chance at life...I am humbled that I was privileged to be a part of the celebrations.

2005-12-16T07:05:00.000-08:00

PEACOCKS AND PASLEYS
That was over a month ago, at pavi's beautiful wedding. am back from Bissamcuttack, Orissa. so stories about MrsK, mitra and dharasinga soon!

2005-11-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm off to madurai for pavi's wedding :) YAY!! :) its raining cats and dogs though. so i hope it lets up a little. its amazing how the weather affects mood - soon we'll be having SAD here as well! anyways...have finally come to the ends of the left-overs from ammchi's 80th birthday celebrations. so will go check on the rajma now...

2005-11-08T22:07:00.000-08:00

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

This must be one of the scariest books Ive ever imagined. The whole idea of abnormal (then again, who defines 'normal') psychology can be interesting as well as morbid. like the book says all the extra and unnecessary publicity fuels the frenzy about 'terror'. Reminded me of Michael Moore's movie "Bowling for Columbine". the obsession with violence and the gun culture is chilling.
I cant begin to imagine how hard it must have been to write this book - reading it was hard enough!

2005-10-27T04:58:00.000-07:00

Have been reading about lymphoma's and hodgkin's disease. It's amazing to see advances in the medical sciences. If only we could spend more time and resource on this kind of research instead of trying to make and sell bigger and better weapons and arms. But of course most nations spend the largest chunk of their budgets on defense. The logic of the modern world is truly frightening...

2005-10-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

Vellore has to be the most intriguing place ever! there's a movie running called "CabrayWali" and after watching that, you can eat "hot and shour chicken" at Darling or Baby residencies!

2005-09-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

A Month in the Mountains

Just home from a month in Uttaranchal with a group of brilliant people :) Snaps are finally on my computer, so we'll be able to share a bit of the beauty with everyone. Here's a sneak peek - a view of the Api-Nampa Range in Nepal. We were on the other side of the Kali river in India resting in a beautiful village called Gunji having walked a whole day to get there from Chhialekh...when the clouds parted and this panorama unfolded. The name Api is Tibetan for Grandmother and the name of its neighbour Nampa is derived from the Tibetan expression gnampa-p'a meaning Holy Father.

And here's my favourite flower - the geranium. Many varieties followed us from the Garhwal Himalayas to Kumaon - purples, violets, pinks and lilacs!

More snaps and stories at
www.sinla.blogspot.com

ENJOY!

Turning the world upside down

2005-08-17T20:18:00.000-07:00

The world wants wealth to live in state
But you show a new way to be great
Like a servant you came, and if we do the same
We'll be turning the world upside down...

We need to question the norms of our day
Where poverty and hatred hold their sway
If we abandon selfish greed, and address our neighbours need
We'll be turning the world upside down...

2005-08-10T04:42:00.000-07:00

Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home.

Bill Cosby

2005-08-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

an amazing thing happenned - remember i told you to read the online 'our daily bread' coz it was really relevant to me etc etc. i was just washing up the dishes after dinner, while parents were chatting to usha jesudasan and i was generally feeling depressed and useless....cant-see-the-point-of-my-life type thoughts running through my head. when i remembered the reading...
so i just sat down at the comp to read it again. and i realised that it isnt todays reading at all! my computer remembers and prompts with addresses in the address bar...so it had taken me to some old reading in july. i had clicked on 'this month' and then chosen the 2nd tuesday....
and this is what i read

At age 30 she was ready to give up. She wrote in her diary, "My God, what will become of me? I have no desire but to die." But the dark clouds of despair gave way to the light, and in time she discovered a new purpose for living. When she died at age 90, she had left her mark on history. Some believe that she and those who introduced antiseptics and chloroform to medicine did more than anyone to relieve human suffering in the 19th century. Her name was Florence Nightingale, founder of the nursing profession.

Job went so far as to wish he had never been born (3:1-3). But thank God, he didn't end his life. Just as Florence Nightingale came out of her depression and found ways to help others, so too Job lived through his grief, and his experience has become a source of endless comfort to suffering souls.

Maybe you're at the point of not wanting to go on. Being God's child intensifies your desperation, for you wonder how a believer could feel so alone and forsaken. Don't give up. Coming to the end of yourself emotionally could be the most painful experience you've ever encountered. But take courage. Cling to the Lord in faith and start all over. God can use this kind of "beginning from the end." —Mart De Haan

Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish—
Come to the mercy-seat, fervently kneel;
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish:
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. —Moore
In Christ, the hopeless find hope.

so hope springs eternal even in my heart i guess...:)

THE WAY

2005-07-27T06:29:00.000-07:00

Chinook Blessing Litany

We call upon the earth, our planet home, with its beautiful depths and soaring
heights, its vitality and abundance of life, and together we ask that it

Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon the mountains, the Cascades and the Olympics, the high green
valleys and meadows filled with wild flowers, the snows that never melt, the
summits of intense silence and we ask that they

Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon, that flow in our
rivers and streams, that fall upon our gardens and fields and we ask that
they

Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon the land which grows our food, the nurturing soil, the fertile fields,
the abundant gardens and orchards, and we ask that they

Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon the forests, the great trees reaching strongly to the sky with the earth in
their roots and the heavens in their branches, the fir and the pine and the
cedar, and we ask them to

Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon the creatures of the field and forest and the seas, our brothers and
sisters the wolves and deer, the eagle and dove, the great whale and the
dolphin, the beautiful Orca and salmon who share our Northwest home,
and we ask them to

Teach us, and show us the Way.

We call upon all those who have lived upon this earth, our ancestors and our friends,
who dreamed the best for future generations, and upon whose lives our
lives are built, and with thanksgiving, we call upon them to

Teach us, and show us the Way.

And lastly, we call upon all that we hold most sacred, the presence and power of
the Great Spirit of love and truth which flows through all the Universe...
to be with us to

Teach us, and show us the Way.

---Edward Goldsmiths book - the way-an ecological world view - begins with this litany.

Birthday cakes and Beautiful aunts - a picture (in this case, two) paints a thousand words

2005-07-25T20:21:00.000-07:00

Nature Conspires

2005-07-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

Remembered how you said yesterday that nature was conspiring with you to get things done, decisions made. I think ya...maybe you're right - coz nature is definitely conspiring...and conspiring AGAINST me!!!!!!!!! everything I do goes wrong - starting from yesterday i went shopping with amma and spent ages picking out tomatoes from a bunch of sad, small, yellowish ones. When we got home - amma was like - why didn’t you take the big red b'lore tomatoes?? They were on the top shelf!! Which I totally didn’t see. Along with the beetroots, also on same the top shelf that I didn’t see. I ended up bending over double and drag an almost hidden carton of extra beetroots out from under the shelves. Then I tried to make ragi dosa and potato. i put the potatoes in the microwave - but the voltage was too low. so they were barely warm, forget cooked! and then i put them on the fire and where they got burnt. And the ragi dosa - instructions on the cover of the packet called Ragi Dosa say add 1 cup of flour, 1-11/2 cups water. add onions and salt. Cook like uttapam. Which is what i did. or so i thought. But not even one dosa looked like a dosa. And most were under-cooked or burnt! i yelled to amma for help. but by the time she came - there was enough mavu for about 2 dosas left. and she said I was just impatient. (Not like her patience-filled dosas turned out much better than mine!) We had left over soup - which is my favourite. so i gulped down a large mouthful, hoping to avoid the pretend ragi dosa. Only to find the soup was COLD. So didnt get very far with that either.
One would have thought that nature would have had enough of screwing me over...but oh no. today has been just as bad. organising going to gandhigram and sivakasi has meant dhruva and me calling each other about twenty five times. Trying atleast. Mostly one fone or the other is engaged - as we are trying to call each other. Finally, dhruvas friend naveen may come from madras. So there will be three of us. And we havent been able to contact barbara’s friend there. So, so far, no one in gandhigram knows we are coming!! Poor appa was feeling bad for me i think. So he has sweetly told his secretary to get our train tkts. And he is also going to try to get a gandhigram number and speak to someone there. i tried to get reji and tha, as they used to be in gandhigram...but is their phone working?? thats a rhetorical question.
So,. after all that, (and calling you and sort of fighting, even though I really dont mean to fight - its all part of nature's conspiracy!!) I decided that I should bake annakoch's birthday cake before the current went off or the oven stopped working or the roof of our house collapsed - by now I realised I had to be prepared for any kind of eventuality. Baking is the one thing I’ve been good at for as long as I can remember. I like to think its in my genes! Knowing nature was working overtime, I was organised and got all the ingredients ready before I started off. Like it is in cooking shows, or in posh cookery books with glossy pictures of all the ingredients in pretty bowls. Sugar in the big mixing bowl, flour in another - and I remembered to add baking powder. Eggs in another bowl, essence and the baking tray all ready as well. But I was fighting a losing battle. With nature conspiring, i had no hope at all. And this time, her chief weapon was the butter. i carefully measured the butter and added a bit more from a fresh slab of cooking butter so that i'd get the measurements exactly right. Oh, how feeble were my attempts to stave off natures cruel thrusts. i carefully added the exactly measured butter to the sugar in the mixing bowl, and then started beating them together with a mixie. But to my horror, instead of the rich, creamy batter that i was expecting, the mixture had a remarkably plastic-y look to it. Infact, when I stopped to take a closer look, I could see long bit of some plastic-like thing trailing over the blades of the mixer The butter, as I then realized, had been camouflaged in a transparent plastic covering. And now my cake batter had as much plastic as it did butter and sugar. Determined that if I went down, I would go down fighting, I picked up the mixing bowl and dumped it onto the stove, hoping to melt the butter so the plastic bits would float off. And sure enough, in 5 minutes, the butter was a bubbling mass of golden liquid, with transparent goo-y bits floating around. I’m going to leave out the gory bits, of burnt fingers, boiling butter, strainers and dustbins, but finally in the end, I managed to get a thick syrup of butter and sugar and no plastic. I had not given up; I had stood up to nature and managed to come out on top.

Well, so far. The mixture is now in the fridge, cooling so I can beat it a little bit. But who know, when you are working against nature, anything is possible. While I have been typing this out – the butter could have frozen, or the eggs gone bad or the baking powder could go flat. Endless possibilities. I should stop now and get back onto the battlefield, call for reinforcements if needed (that means call amma and say HELP). But I must admit, whether for you or against you, nature sure is an ace conspirator! And next time, father or mother nature, please be on my side. You might even get a piece of warm, soft and chocolate-y cake.