A sneakpeak..

...into how our Deepavali preparations are going on.

A little perusal of the Deepavali special books.They arrive home when it is a couple of weeks to go for Deepavali and from then on,a quick sit down often to read through the interesting articles is the order of most days.

The unravelling of the roll caps...they are the first crackers that we fire every year.We would then graduate from the roll caps to the bijili vedi's and then to the still bigger ones as the days to Deepavali get close..but for now we are only in the roll cap level.

 Then comes this mandatory,at the same time most enjoyable,task of drying the previous year's crackers. Our loot for this year is yet to arrive home but the leftovers from last year Deepavali is now drying in the terrace..

Let me add a close up look :o)

Here is one more as a bonus :D

Oh..I can't wait to lay my hands on them.Just four more days to go..Yay :o)...

Our Ayutha Poojai

Maavilai thoranam at home after a long time

Vazhai maram which will be always present on this day

Every Ayutha Poojai evening, we take grest joy in decorating the doors and furniture 

Even the dolls and showcases are not missed :)

This Ayutha Poojai went very peacefully for us.These days I take this festival as an opportunity to be grateful for all the things I have and dust the old habits and welcome new things into life with God's blessings.As a rule you should not read on Sarawathi poojai day, so we had the entire day to clean up the house and decorate the house and the furnitures and the vehicles, perform the poojai,sing and eat sundal and then peacefully take rest till the next morning.The first thing we should do on Vijayadasami day(the next day) is to read a study book which we smartly did. And then off we went to shopping for Deepavali.

Mom says that people in our native town used to have a saying 'Maha Nonmbi brings along all other nonmbis'.Nonmbi is the kongu tamil term for a festival.So Maha Nonmbi literally means Mega festival which is the nine day long Navarathiri.

So yes, Deepavali has started for us with the onset of shopping and soon sweet preparations and firing crackers will add on.Oh I can't wait! 

The Cutest Snowman

It all started when my niece recently showed us a snowman she made out of paper. It was tiny,only a centimeter high and painted black but cute all the way. Then she asked for play doh to do a real snowman. We did not have play doh and I offered to give her some rice flour. She was happy to have it.

I mixed in some water with the rice flour to make it look like a play doh. And this is how she made the snowman.Just two steps.

First she made the dough into an egg like shape by rolling the dough around in a wide bowl.

After a bit of drying, here is the snowman ready with a minute's work of decoration.

How clever of her to use dried chilli tops for hands and nose. I could not figure what she used for eyes but it is so apt.The small wooden bowl which the snowman is using as seat is actually the bottom part of a kunkuma chimil(kumkum holder).

I helped her dry it by covering the snowman with two bowls, creating a sorta oven set-up and placed it in the hot terrace surface for a whole day. I was thinking 'no way it would stay white and it might turn black and smelly the next day' due to our use of rice flour. But it has been a week since and the snowman is still white and hard and now decorating our TV showcase.It is her wish to showcase her snowman in the 'google' and I could not agree more(Yep that is how she refers to the internet..).

Bravo, my little niece, Bravo!

The Ganges Conqueror's city

Let me share some pictures from one of our not-so recent trip.We plan picnics often,mostly visiting some temples and then some historic places. Once on such a trip,while driving onward to our destination we found out to our surprise that we were very near to the Gangaikonda Cholapuram temple. In fact we were able to see the temple tower's tip. I have read so much about this temple during my school days and immediately wanted to tour it.We agreed to visit the temple on our way back.

It was around high noon when we stopped at the temple on our way back.. Luckily the temple is well maintained with step mats in place to walk on and the cloudy sky made it a mild weather.

View from the car parking area

This temple was built in 11th Century AD by King Rajendra Chola to commemorate his victory in the Ganges expedition.The temple's architecture is an exact replica of the Tanjore Big temple which was built by his father, the famous King Rajaraja Cholan.

It is quiet a walk to reach the main entrance

To show his respect for his father's work, it is said that King Rajendra instructed to design the temple tower's height to be atleast a foot shorter than the Tanjore Big temple so that his father's work will remain as the tallest stone work of that era.

Soon it became very sunny,so I did not stop to take a close up picture of the Nandhi statue or the Siva temple's entrance view.Here is the Nandhi in a side view.It was marvelous to look at and had many detailed work on it.Thank God for the many trees all around the temple.

The main Siva temple's side view.The temple was closed for worship around the time we visited and was to be open only at around 4 in the evening,so we made do with walking around the temple.

The blue sky with the fluffy clouds and the coconut trees all around -- all made up for a nice afternoon outing.

It was sad to note that some of the temple structures were destroyed in the last hundred years.It is said that part of the temple was destroyed in an attempt to use the stones in a nearby dam construction.

 A wedding party visited the temple when we were there. Its is a Hindu custom to visit a nearby temple once the wedding function is over and we saw the bride and groom walking around with their wedding garlands still on.

 There were many small separate temples for the other deities within the temple compound.

 The west side entrance to the Siva temple

The view of the Nandhi statue from the other side.

I have never seen any other Tamil Nadu temple this well maintained and calm and serene.Definitely appreciate the lack of crowd..maybe not many people know about it.We spent only an hour there with our tight schedule but it is worth to spend atleast half a day there to have a detailed tour.Hope we will visit the temple again sometime in the future.

Books read in the recent months..Contd

I had a lot of books to select from for my September read but I liked the title 'Something New' and I was not disappointed when I read it too. Well, till now PG Wodehouse has never disappointed me with his books.If ever you are looking for something to read,to lift your mood,your day---I would suggest to go right ahead and pick a PGW book.

'Something New' is again an e-book that I downloaded from the net for free.This book is the first installation of the happenings in Blandings Castle.Surprisingly the book turned out to be a quick read but as you go through each page, you are sure to be in stitches.

Ashe Marson is the hero here who writes the famous Gridly Quayle detective novels.Everybody loves his work except him.So in order to experience 'something new' in his life, he embarks on a dangerous journey of retrieving a 'stolen' scarab from the Blandings Castle. Unknown to him, the girl he has fallen for, the girl who motivated him in first place to achieve something new,has come to the Castle as well,with the same purpose as him,but only for a different employer.

This book has everything typical of a Wodehouse novel- the mistaken identities, disguises, chance romances but all of them a notch funnier than anything I have read till now.I loved this book and highly recommend it for a read.The story is very simple but you dont read PGW for the story. As Stephen Fry says  ' you do not question such sunlit perfection.You just bask in it'.

 'Something Fresh' is its US edition name

I have already completed reading a book in this month(October)..actually a reread. Was thinking for a long time to reread 'The Alchemist' and finally found time recently.Gave me a much needed mental boost and motivation.

So thats that on the books side for now!

Books read in the recent months

I was not able to blog in late August and the whole of September which was mainly due to all the hungama over the introduction of a 4G network over here. What a mess for the existing customers!While asking everyone to Jio, they smothered the existing customers to double their investment by buying new dongles to continue service..Well,we said no thanks and decided to give the boot to Reliance altogether and put an end to the atrocities they do in the name of providing service. It took almost 3 weeks to make them even take a request to disconnect my connection.So blogging was left wayside and I wasn't inspired to blog again even with the new connection in place for over a month.

All the same,I had kept up with my resolution to read (atleast)one book every month.My August read was a very exciting Agatha Christie book 'The murder on the Orient Express' which I downloaded as an e-book from the internet.Well, right off the bat I will say what a fantastic mystery!

I got quickly engulfed by the plot of this novel and it kept me at the tip of the seat till the very last page.I think I can safely declare officially that this will be my favorite Agatha Christie work ever even though I have read only 4 of her books till now.The novel features our friendly Belgian Detective Poirot solving a murder that happens in a train in which he is also a passenger for that journey.The ending is something you could not have guessed and comes as a real surprise.

I was so inspired by this book that I knew right away that my mom would also like the story.So quickly off I went and ordered a tamil translation of this novel and sent her the book.My mom too liked it and with it being her first ever Agatha Christie read, she said she could never have guessed the ending by herself. Now the book has been passed on to my sister for her turn to be thrilled.Overall a real good choice of a book to keep.

I selected a PG Wodehouse novel 'Something new' for my September read but I will talk about that in the next post.. Off I have to go..Be back soon!