Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. ~Simone Signoret

The Iyer wedding through my eyes...., you can find all the customs here Kashi Yatra: The groom embarks on a mock pilgrimage. Dressed in the traditional 'panchakatcham', holding an umbrella, a fan, a walking stick, and a towel containing 'dal' (lentils) and rice tied to his shoulder, the groom embarks on a mock pilgrimage. As he steps out of the 'mandapam', the bride's father pleads with him not to go to 'Kashi' (a sacred pilgrimage site in the city of Benaras) and marry his daughter instead. After much ado the groom accepts and returns to the 'mandappam' to get married! Run Anand Run this is your last chance.. but no!! he just stood there smiling..thu thu .. Unjal Unjal:The couple exchange garlands On entering the 'mandapam' the groom discards his walking stick and all the other paraphernalia and is garlanded by the bride. The groom in turn garlands the bride. This was the fun part .. Scene 1 : Bride smiles garlands the groom, groom inturn garlands the bride. Scene 2: Bride smiles and tries to garland the running away groom.Relatives catch the dude before he escapes. Scene 3.Groom tries to garland the bride but the bride is being lifted up up and now the groom is flying and Voila..he makes it.. applause... I was too stunned to shoot pics.Hello it was like watching a chinku movie, ppl flying around... my apologies… The couple is then made to sit on a decorated swing and the women folk smear their feet with a little milk, 'kumkum' and 'chandan' (sandalwood paste). A pot of water and a lamp set inside a measure containing rice are carried by the bride's mother and other elderly ladies around the swing and the couple is fed a mixture of bananas, milk and sugar. From what little I could gather both the groom and bride were fasting and they just gobbled up the mixture of bananas and milk. But the best part was when all the aunties “mammies” as the photographer kept calling queued up to feed the couple.They were literally fighting. The groom’s father was a bit worried and he kept looking at his watch ;-) .Then the drama reached its pinnacle when one “mamma “ took out 4 sheets of lyrics and went on to sing “ Happy wedding day to you “(This will soon be released in your local Audio stores). He went on and on and his voice reminded me of Himmesh ( Please note that I am a fan of Himmi..junoooooooooon junooooooooon ). Mamma then ended with a couple of tamil slokas and we all clapped. Then the maami's threw color color rice ladoos .. After the traditional 'aarthi' the bride and groom are escorted for the next ceremony -the 'kanyadhan'. The cone shaped 'parupputhengai' (a special sweetmeat) is an important part of all these ceremonies. According to Divster:" its part of the 'seeru'.Seeru means.. what u offer to the boy's side paruppu= daal, thenga=coconut so like. each one of them contains.. sweets like laddu, cashew sweet, jaggery ka sweet, knoharam(another sweet), and so on…. and i thought the couple were supposed to wear them.. I swear.. i was even ready to click a few snaps..che.. Kanyadhan:Giving away the bride Amidst the chanting of 'mantras' (Vedic chants), the 'pujari' ignites the sacred fire. The groom is gifted a 'muhurtha veshti' (a 4 metre long silk dhoti) and a 'pattu' (a 2 metre long silk fabric to be used as a stole). The bride is seated on her father's lap for the 'kanyadhan'. The bride and groom together hold a coconut dipped in turmeric, while the bride's mother pours water onto the coconut. This is the actual ritual of 'kanyadhan'. I was a bit distracted when they were giving away the bride…. Mangalyadharanam: The groom ties the sacred 'taali' on the bride The 'kanyadhan' is followed by the 'mangalyadharanam'. The 'taali' or 'mangalsutra' is placed on the bride's head along with a miniature piece of jewellery shaped like a yoke Mangalyadharanam and the groom performs a 'puja' with 'kumkum' and flowers. He then ties the first knot of the 'taali' around the bride's neck and his sister ties the other two. As usual I was a bit distracted …..and I missed this part… Sapthapathi : Seven steps around the sacred fire The bride's sari 'pallav' and the groom's 'angavastram' (shawl) are tied in a knot and the couple hold hands. The groom places his foot under the bride's and helps her to take the seven steps around the fire. Then he places the bride's foot on a grinding stone near the fire and slips silver rings or 'metti' on her toes. Yep I saw this …Oh..so its seven steps…but I thought it was 7 rounds ?? No ? The couple is then shown the 'Dhruva Nakshatra' or Pole Star, a symbol of permanence and the 'Arundhati Nakshatra' or symbol of purity and virtue. Missed this … Laja Homam: The bride makes an offering to the sacred fire The bride's brother slings a bagful of puffed rice or 'laja' over his shoulder and keeps giving fistfuls of it to his sister to offer as a sacrifice to the sacred fire. After this ritual the couple circulate and are blessed by all present. Missed this again .. I was looking elsewhere..

Bunking school ??

"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." -- Lin Yutang

“ I am not a bookie !“ that’s how it all began. That was my response to RB’s request to book the train tickets to Chennai. We were off to attend Anand’s wedding. Initially 4 of us were supposed to be traveling, but in the end, as always, it was left to RB and me to do the honors. Did you know that it has the second largest beach in the world. Neither of us knew the local language Tamil but we were confident that we could quite easily find our way around the city. So armed with simple tamil words like Addi paavi, timmaru, Kadal , poi sollade ,naNdri, Thiruvanmiyur ku enda bus pogu, bus stop enga irukku ? and other small but loos words we boarded the Chennai express. The train was scheduled to depart at 9:45pm but it was understandably 10 minutes late (the traffic you know). We had on this occasion made reservations (2nd Class Sleeper, thank you RB) and we didn’t have much trouble finding our berths. We chitchatted for 10 mins and I opened my novel, only to hear the other passenger asking us to switch off the light. The time was 10.30pm and according to the TC,the train would be reaching Chennai at around 5 am. We slept like logs ….only to be rudely awakened by our co passengers. Yes, they switched on the @#$@# lights. The time was 4 am and guess what, the TC was wrong (as always) and we were in Chennai an hour earlier than scheduled. I got down from the compartment looked to my right, and my eyebrows touched the roof. Sigh* and I looked to the left. This time, I swear, the eyebrows didn’t move a millimeter. I was looking at 2 groups of girls who had occupied the adjacent compartments. I desperately wanted to kick RB for not booking our tickets in those compartments. But I had to give up, not only because he’s bigger and tougher than me, but for the solemn fact that even if we were in those bogies, all that we would have done was switch off the lights and go to sleep ..right ? We made our way to the bus stand and were greeted by a swarm of mosquitoes. We waited for an hour for the elusive bus and then we decided to take a rickshaw. We had heard a lot of things about the Chennai rickshaw wallahs and not all were good. We asked a dude for directions to Thiruvanmiyur. He said that we should take a bus. I asked him “How about the rickshaw ? “. There were a lot of empty ones and believe me these are huge compared to our local Bangalore autos. They are also called share auto’s. The dude shook his head dramatically and said “ No , they charge too much”. Me : “How much and which place are you going to ? “ Incidentally even he was headed towards Thiruvanmiyur and was looking for an auto. He went over to a driver and started haggling and occasionally pointing in our direction, of course it is better to smile when someone is pointing at you,and so we smiled. He came back and said “ Too much “ .I persisted “How much is he asking ? “ He, shaking his head,” Rs 30 “.I think I said wow .. and said “ For each ? Lets go “. He continued to shake his head and said “ Too Costly” . The auto driver continued to stare at us. Eventually an uncle came to our rescue and as soon as he hopped in, the driver called us over and our rates were lowered to Rs 20.( yippee) . It was a quiet 25 min ride, with me sitting next to the driver and looking at the sun rise over the Marina beach. The best part was the uncle got down after 5kms and he paid Rs 50, we traveled for 10kms and paid Rs 20.hehe At first glance Chennai looked like a small town. Maybe it was because I visited the not so posh part of the city?? anyway the flyovers were pretty cool , that’s because they were all completed and they didn’t have traffic signals on flyovers( yep we in Bangalore have traffic signals on flyovers). We asked a panwalla the location of the Marriage hall and he said, “cross the signal, go straight and you can see the big board mentioning the name of the hall”. We crossed the traffic signal and walked for 5 minutes, but couldn’t find the above mentioned board. We asked an uncle for further directions and after a few up’s and left’s and right’s, please note we were never lost, we found the board mentioning the name of the hall and we smiled, no not because it was right under out noses but because it was in Tamil. After a breakfast which consisted of idli’s, masala dosa’s, vada , pongal ,some strange sweet and coffee, we sat down to watch the rituals of the Iyer community and believe me it was fun.;-) Apart from the fact that someone introduced RB as a “hindi “,which meant he spoke only Hindi ( he’s a typical Kannadiga) and me a “telugu” … ??? , nothing unusual happened.The lunch was delicious and RB confessed that he was mesmerized by the variety of dishes and didn’t remember what he ate. After the marriage ceremony,we made an “on the spot decision” of catching a train back to Bangalore. We didn’t like the humid climate and the thought of taking a stroll on the marina beach in the afternoon was a bit worrying .We went to the bus stand and decided to catch a bus to the Central. All the buses were packed and I didn’t like the idea of being suffocated in the crowd. I kept telling RB that I could strike a deal with the auto. But no, he didn’t trust my Tamil :-( . At last we boarded a not so rush bus and after a 45 min ride landed at Central. One of the curious things that I noticed was that all the ladies were sitting on the left hand side of the bus. Unlike in Bangalore, were the first 4 front rows of seats are reserved for women. Weird. Time : 12: 30pm We went to buy the return tickets and were in for a shock. What greeted us was a huge serpentine Q. I found out that there were 2 trains bound to Bangalore , the 1: 15pm super fast express and the 3: 45pm Lalbagh express. Our hopes of boarding the 1:15pm train went up in smoke when we saw the long Q. Nevertheless we stood in line for 42 minutes, looking on as people shouted , swore and jumped lines. It was fun as I kept pestering RB to buy AC tickets, but he declined and moreover they were all booked. We asked for 2 tickets to Bangalore and that’s what we got. But when we checked the ticket, it said nothing about which train, what time or which class we could travel. Time : 1: 13pm I went to the “Can I help you” section and showed the dude our tickets and asked “which Train”. He looked at me as if I was joking and said “Bangalore train”. I was exasperated, I kept my cool and asked “what time ? “ He explained that we could board any train bound to Bangalore. Time : 1: 14pm We ran to Platform number 3 and heard the whistle. The question that was bugging our mind was which class tickets did we buy?. I showed my ticket to a TC and asked which class ? , He took a look at the ticket and said , any bogie, go go … and we ran. We didn’t jump into the first 5 bogies, because it was filled up and I thought I saw a goat (hallucination? ) and our search for a compartment with seats came to an abrupt halt when the train started moving and we had to jump in. As luck should have it, we landed in an empty 2nd class seater compartment. We spied a couple of empty seats and sat down. We were not sure if “ anywhere on the train” meant literally anywhere or just the general compartment (the goat). Of course I wanted to go to the AC compartment but RB wouldn’t let me..grrr. We decided to stay in the cosy seats, until we were forcefully evicted. We liked it not only because it had a lot of small ceiling fans but the endless running food vendors entertained us. These guys were selling bottled water, mobile covers, different types of vada’s, potato chips, coke, pepsi, pulav, curd rice, cold badam milk, ice creams and toys. I even saw a lady selling flowers. wow talk about variety. According to a colleague, people traveling in trains, spend more on eatables than on the Railway ticket. Time : 2:30pm A couple of typical Iyer, Maami and Mamma came over to our seats 76, 77 and informed us that they had reservations. We got up and moved on to the front row, which thankfully were empty. Time : 2:40 pm Enter the TC. Amusingly this dude was inspecting tickets of people who were seated and he didn’t care about the others who were standing near the door. We were tense because we were not sure what the TC would do when he saw our tickets. I said lets plead ignorance and blame that other TC who told us that we could sit anywhere .RB’s reply “Ignorance of rules is not an excuse”. Grr. This TC was a cool dude. He took one look at our ticket and informed us that the tickets were for the general compartment and that we had to go to the front bogies of the train. I asked him if we could pay extra and continue sitting in the 2nd class. He explained that all the seats were reserved and that the other passengers would be boarding the train soon and until then we could continue to be seated. Time 3:00 pm Another eviction and we found ourselves occupying 60,61 and 62. This was the coolest part of the journey, because for the next 100 minutes no one bothered us (apart form the food vendors) and we dozed off. Time 4:45 pm. We passed Vellore Institute of Technology and I was impressed by the huge campus. It was at this time that we were asked to vacate for the last time, as the rightful passengers had boarded the train. From now on it was “standing” and we jumped in and out of different compartments looking for standing space. We wanted to stand next to the door where it was cool with the breeze blowing. After 3 hours of standing and looking out at the passing scenery, we reached Bangalore.We talked about how we wanted AC tickets, but traveled in 2nd class with general tickets. I was really amazed by the sheer number of people, who used the trains to travel from one village to another. The Indian Railways is indeed one of the most amazing modes of transport and surprisingly are sometimes punctual. Apart from the fact that I jumped off in a different Railway station (Bangalore East) please note I was not lost, and had to pay a hefty auto fare, I reached home safe and sound :).

a peek into Vc's room...ok ok a shelf ...

What the ....super-dog ?? or is it an AD for jeans?

Walking to School....

TV:It's the menace that everyone loves to hate but can't seem to live without. ~Paddy Chayevsky

Do you watch the Discovery Travel and Living Channel ? No ? Then you better start checking it out. Some of the stuff I like are Long Way Round 2 Men... 2 Bikes... 20000 Miles... Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman. The episode I watched had these guys stuck in Mangolia. Awesome landscape very very bad roads. Orange County Choppers : These guys are known for their custom motorcycles. Check out this beauty. I even liked "Surfing The Menu", well that was because they were showing ice creams ..slurp. The Great Indian Wedding which featured Priya Sachdev and Vikram Chatwal's wedding was .... ;-) oh well I moved on to Animax: Appleseed :)

"I am a graduate of Starfleet Academy; I know many things."~-- Worf (The Darkness and the Light)

Yes I did it !! I watched the most talked about film in recent years , the 70 crore film by Karan Johar, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. Yep its 3 hours and 20 minutes and no way it’s going to represent India to the Oscar :). I watched it on a PC and the sound quality was not worth writing home.But the best part was that I could fast forward the “ boo hoo” scenes and believe me there were a lot of forward-able scenes Stuff that caught my eye and went into my nose: First 20 minutes enjoyable …no crying or hamming . Next 3 hours ..too many twists and turns ( yes I was looking up and down) Songs : Ooh there is this one song .. which I will call the “ Blue Song “. The screen turns completely blue. (I thought the monitor went kaput and gave it a whack) Cinematography : Good Headache : 2 Anacin tablets Story : cough cough For me,.the one person who stood out in this multistarrer was not Shah Rukh Khan or Rani Mukherjee ,Abhishek Bachchan ,Preity Zinta nor was it Amitabh Bachchan but it was Kiron Kher . We’ve seen her in almost all of the hit films … Paro’s Mom ( hai hai ) in Devdas , Dj’s mom, Mitro in RBD, as Rani’s mom in Hum Tum ,Zooni's mom areh Kajol in Fanna, , i think she was Mariam Hayaat Khan in Veer-Zaara and of course she was in Main Hoon Na and that art film Khamosh Pani.But she came into the limelight with the film Sardari Begum . We just take some things for granted don’t we …….. Super scene : All the cast (yep all of them )… ok let me explain who is who : Shahrukh eeeew he ham’s a lot and is married to Priety and his mom is Kiron Kher. Abhishek ( it seems he’s the man all girls dream off ,eeew, but in reality he doesn’t exist) is married to loos Rani ( she reminded me of a bunny , ) and his father in the film is AB . Seating arrangements : AB is sitting at the head of the table, on his right is AB junior, to his left is Kiran Kher . Next to Kiron is Preity. Sitting next to AB junior is the bunny Rani and at the other end opposite AB is Shahrukh with a grim look. Everyone has a glass of champagne,sip sip slurrrrrrrrrp/ AB : I have an announcement to make . Silence AB : I’m getting married . AB junior chokes and spits his champagne ( superb acting ) Everyone is stunned and someone asks "who is the bride ?". AB looks at Kiron Kher and says AB: Why don’t you tell them ? Shahrukh gasps and spits his champagne….uhhahhahahaa…….well I thought it was funny. AB:”hahah just joking “.. all have smiles except Shahrukh. Ab taunts Shahrukh and says “ You don’t have a sense of humor “. They talk about the latest Animax toon flick “ Appleseed” and Shahrukh says something about love and goes on to confess that he likes Rani more than his wife Priety. All have shocked expressions. Shahrukh smiles and says :”Just kkkkkkidding .. see I have a sense of humor ". AB ‘s expression is awesome.. he’s dead serious and says.. “ good joke “ and keeps staring at Shahrukh. Go watch that scene. Hey I thought I saw Kajol make a guest appearance in one of the songs. Psst check out Rani's jewellery...oho.. Anyway moving on to the last part of the movie which is the last 60 minutes I kept clicking on the forward button and everyone seemed to be crying or breaking plates. The final verdict : Do watch it with lots of popcorn and please encourage your friends to give you a buzz while your watching the movie. It’s a slow movie and the more distractions you have the better you can enjoy it. Unfortunately I had a few nightmares and so to erase the memory of KANK, I watched Parichay (*ing Jumping Jack Jeetendra and Jaya). It was so soothing…….sigh* Later on in the day I watched Rangde Basanti and all the memories of KANK were washed away. Balle Balle …..

I believe there is something out there watching over us. Unfortunately, it's the government.~Woddy Allen

I clicked on the Next Blog button (Up there) and boom I landed on this blog .http://stripedpajamas.blogspot.com/ Its a lil kid's blog ...and is really funny and cute pics too.. Do check out the archives ...too funny :) I must start one for my nephew..uhahahahaaha wink wink... ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I read about 11 reviews of KANK and I am hooked...will check out the movie and let you know....3 hours and 20 minutes...sigh* I can do it ...I know I know.. I can do it.... Wonder what the peacock is thinking...

Uff and now that RB day is history, I can come out of my hiding place..and whats with color threads eh ? cant you girls send some cool stuff like Rolex watches or expensive Gold bracelets ? thu thu and Oye Kk the postman flicked your Cactus rakhi...uahhahahhahaaa.. and no Kareena has nothing to do with RB...

Wait wait.. Anand has a much better pic of the pillar.. awesome...

Houses houses everywhere..and check out that color color house.. orange ?? psst you can see the girls hostel..

The dream house ??? Right next to my apartment..owned by a landlord...

A scene straight out of " Day after Tomorrow". Snapped this yesterday..

ID celebrations at appice :)

Webbs ground (St Josephs ground), MG Road. I loved the background..the dark clouds..suppppper

Picking flowers and the nets.. and no that's not me.. :-)

Yappppppa What next ???

The Bangalore TV tower, a church,and a couple of film theater's.