RANDOM THOUGHTS

The Driving Skills of the Drivers of these Vehicles never ceases to amaze me . These Trailer Trucks are reported to be almost 30 Mts  in length . Most of the times it is Double Trailers , one behind the other and so a corresponding addition in length . These super long behemoths travel the 4 or more Lane Expressways in Canada and the US at 120+  KMS per hour . The drivers of these vehicles need to be admired  for their maintaining a strict discipline in following the road rules . It is now almost 5 months since I am in these parts and I am yet to hear the use of the horns on the road . The few occasions that I have heard the same have always been when someone  uses the same to check if his or her vehicle has been properly locked .

FOND DIWALI MEMORIES OF OUR                      YOUNGER DAYS                      On the eve of Deepavali our house was at  its chaotic best or worst depending upon how one would look at it . It bore a striking resemblance to the chaos associated with Ranganathan Street at its festive peak . The " boiler " for preparing  the hot water for the early morning bath next day was scrubbed clean and was at its shiny best . The sandalwood tilak and the kumkum pottu  made it look even more auspicious . The sesame oil and Chikakai  powder in closed containers found the pride of place in the Swami room . Each one of us in the family would get the new dresses with the kumkum mark and place it on the newspaper laid out expressly  for that purpose by appa in the Swami room. The special sweets and savories prepared by amma in shiny brass containers found their place in front of the deities in the Swami room . My job was to keep the Diwali Fire Crackers in their  new boxes in fron

My first blogpost  CANADA VISITS 5 -(1)was posted on 3 rd Dec 2018 . It was always on my mind to post 100 such posts before the end of the year . By a strange coincidence , this my 100 th post is on the auspicious occasion of DIWALI OR DEEPAVALI . I have had the good fortune to Celebrate the festival of lights many times over at various locations in India and  at Leeds in the UK and both at Regina and Toronto in Canada . This time year 2019 , I am at Toronto and the enthusiasm and fervor here is no less than what it is back home . Shops and Malls have exclusive sections for the Diwali related merchandise. The never ending  sweets and savories section is a master class in itself and the urge to have more bite of the mouth watering sweet  is all pervading . That your Doctor and your Better Half advise you to do otherwise could  be ignored  just this one time . The Indian Diaspora needs to be complimented for keeping their cultural roots intact while moving on with

All of us would have at one time or the other have had occasion to play with the Lattu ( Hindi ) or Pumbarram ( Tamil ) . The thrill of spinning the Top ( English ) both on the ground or on  the palm of your hand or even aiming and breaking someone else s TOP by aiming your TOP s nail tip on to your friends stationary Top on the ground , i am sure is still fresh in everyones s fading memory .  What brings me to write on the subject is the new toy which goes by the name of BEYBLADE  which has almost become a fad with the kids here in these parts . It is a line of spinning TOP TOYS originally manufactured by Takara Tomy and released in Japan in 1999 . There are 4 different versions of the same  , BEYBLADE FIERCE BATTLE  , METAL FUSION , BEY WHEELS and BEYBLADE BURST OR TURBO . This is extremely popular among the kids and is almost like the Lattu or Pumbarram of our days without the rope or string .  A toothed wheel and a plastic rack is assembled to get th

Canada takes a pride of place in imparting Life Saving and Essential Skills to its youngsters . It is no surprise that be it a boy or a girl and depending upon their age  there is hardly anyone who does not know how to Cycle , Swim , Drive a Car or Row a Boat or even Skating on Ice . Training in these spheres are imparted from a very early age . Both , the school of study and the parents go out of their way to make these skills within reach of their kids . On the particular day  that I visited one such swimming pool for my 6 year old grandsons swimming classes  at 7.45 pm , the temperature outside was a chilly 6 Degrees . The  water in the pool was maintained at a lukewarm temperature and the coaches were imparting swimming techniques to the kids .

Having had almost 40 years of  driving experience of both the 2 & 4 wheelers in India , the experience of travel by road on the highways of Canada is a novel experience . The distance from Terminal 1 of Toronto International Airport to our house at Ajax is 75 Kms and to be able to cover the same inside of 45 minutes is hard to digest. The traffic is so orderly and the lane changing done in a Scientific and systematic manner leaves one in a daze . The trucks with two long size containers in Tow one one behind the other and at speeds in excess of 100 Kms/Hour is amazing and the added surprising thing is that there is  no honking of the horn even once . We surely have to go a long way to achieve their Driving and Safety levels . Any break of Driving and Safety rules attract very serious punishments and even revoking of your Drving Licence itself for various periods of time  . It could even be in the region of 2 years and even cancelling the License in very serious cases

You start dying slowly , If you do not travel , If you do not read , If you do not listen to the sounds of life , If you do not appreciate yourself , You start dying slowly when you kill your self esteem , When you do not let others help you , You start dying slowly when you become a slave to your habits , Walking everday on the same paths....if you do not change your routine , If you do not wear different colours or do not speak to persons you do not know , You start dying slowly if you avoid to feel passion & its turbulent emotions , those that make your eyes glisten & your heart beat , You start dying slowly if you do not change your lifestyle when you are unhappy with your job or with your love or with your surrounding , If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain , If you do not go after a dream ,  If you do not allow yourself Atleast once in your lifetime  to run away from sensible advice ,              PABLO NERUDA  On an equally enthralling

It is not every day that one gets to Celebrate the 100 th Birthday of a known person . No words to Express the same when the same happens to be the Father of your Wife ( ie ) your own Mama . My Father in Law Celebrated his 100 th Birthday on the 10 th of this month . My wife had penned a few lines in Tamil to mark the occasion . Our prior commitments did not enable us to be present with him on this momentous day and seek his blessings . We however plan to do the same God Willing on the 14 th of next month when we are back  in India . PS :Please Ignore  Any Typo error in Tamil As this is the work of Yours Truly.

Canadian Parliament Building with the Eternal Flame in Water Office of the Canadian Prime Minister  Self and Mami at Byward Market  Residence of the Governor General  Ministry of Justice  The colour of the leaves with the winter approaching is simply amazing  Different Coloured Leaves Everywhere The French were the first settlers in Canada and the Natives introduced the place as KANATA which over the years came to be known as CANADA . It is entwined in the path of two rivers Ottawa and the Rideau river. The Rideau river makes a magnificent waterfall like drop and merges with the much larger Ottawa river . All this is right in front of the Canadian Prime Minister s Residence . There are no fancy or elaborate security decoy of any kind and The  Machine Gun wielding Police are conspicuous by their absence . The conducted tour of the Governor General of Canada s Palace  is very informative . The Titular Head of Canada is still Queen Eliz

By Virtue of both my Daughter and Son being settled with their families in Canada , it has become a default location of stay during their summer and head back home to Agasthiarpatty during the winter with the tempernature in the negative on most days in both my daughter s place at Regina  and son s place at Toronto . This is my 6 th visit to Canada and though a visit to Ottawa was always on the cards , this was the first time that i could make it possible from Toronto . For the uninformed, Ottawa is the administrative capital of Canada whereas Toronto is so to say its Financial Capital . This is much like our own Trivandrum and Ernakulam of Kerala . The distance is almost 420 KMS each way and  surprisingly we covered the distance in 4.5 Hours with a stopmidway for refreshments . The roads are so well laid out and the driving itself so orderly that there was no cause for anxiety to anyone . The change of lane while overtaking was always with the indicators switched on . I could n

Our TAMIL PORALEES AND DUMILANS love for our Tamil Language is such that they see a threat to its existance if they see a Hoarding or a Flexboard in any other language like Hindi or sometimes even English if it occupies prime space . I spend almost 6 months of each year in Canada for sometime now . The National Language of Canada is both English and French . The shops displaying their wares and Name or Signboards in Toronto in Tamil are simply beyond count . Nobody ever raises a voice in protest fearing English or French Language ever getting obliterated in Canada . I have also seen the same at Harrow/Wembley  in London proper We do need to learn a lesson or two from them . We seem to be busy aping them for all the wrong reasons .

Some Never To Be Lost Pictures Last year almost to the day , i felt blessed to have participated in the TAMBARABARANI PUSHKARANI ON 14 th Oct 2018 . This once in a lifetime event happens once every 144 years and it felt proud to hail from a place where this river almost starts its journey and participate in the activities to commemorate the occasion. The widely publicised event drew a vast enthusiastic crowd  from all over the country and accross the globe . The highlight of the event was a bath in the river at various bathing ghats all along the rivers journey from the Pothigai Hills to its congruence with the sea . This widely publicised event reportedly drew almost 1.2 Crore people . One of the main places of interest was the Bathing Ghat in front of the Temple at  Papanasam . All vehicular traffic was stopped at Agasthiarpatty and further travel was allowed only by the Public Transport . The traffic was so heavy that it took almost 3 hours to traverse the alm

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO LEARN A NEW TRADE  DINING TABLE SOCKS AND SHOE CHANGING SQUAT STOOL MULTI PURPOSE SIDE TABLE As mentioned in my earlier blog , my son had settled into his new house at Toronto . We decided to add a fresh coat of Varnish to the wooden furniture that we had procured earlier from VARIOUS GARAGE SALES which is quite a common feature here .For those not in the knowhow , Garage Sale in Canada and US is disposal/sale of household items at rockbottom prices . Now , labour is very hard to come by  in Canada and even if one were to be found it is at an astronomical @ 20 $ / Hour . In our  case , the estimated labour cost would have  worked out to be more than 3 times the cost of the furniture itself . Despite protests from my son and  family members , I decided to embark on this mission on my own  . I will hasten to add that apart from wielding a paint brush on a few and odd  occasions while contractors were busy with their white washing work back home a

The all Knowing Mr Google . No matter the age , it is almost a common quick fix  amongst almost all of us to GOOGLE and look for remedies and symptoms to common ailments that one is affected from time to time . Our own PAATI VAITHYAM had easy and homemade remedies for most of them but our own ignorance and the fear of being labeled as old fashioned dissuaded us from making use of the same . Just a few common ailments  come to mind . 1 ) Not able to get a good sleep  : There are a number of solutions suggested for this . Sleep on your Left shoulder Sleep on your Right Shoulder Sleep on your back with legs stretched apart Sleep on your back with legs close together Sleep on your tummy . Sleep on a hard pillow . Sleep on a soft pillow . Sleep on the floor . Do not eat anything 2 hours before your bedtime . No Coffee or Tea 2 hours before your bedtime . Keep counting from 1  to 100 and back to 1 repeatedly till you are fast asleep . Keep repeating the name of your fa

            The year is 2017 and the date 21 st of March   . Self and wife had completed our long pending visit to Puri Jagannath Temple. After getting the blessings from  Lord Jagannath , Balabhadra and Subhadra, we entrained the Puri / Howrah Duranto Express and were on our way to Kharagpur.  Kharagpur is the place where i completed the last 4 years of my schooling . No words can describe the thrill one gets upon seeing a place with which you have had innumerable  memories and which come rushing in even some 50 years after you have left the place . Now , this is a school of British Vintage having its opening on the 13 th of November 1899 which is almost 120 years old to the day . I say almost to the day because on the 13 th of Nov this year , we will be some 30000 feet above the earth passing high over the Atlantic or the Parched Deserts of the Gulf on our way from Toronto to Abu Dhabi enroute to Chennai and would not be able to pen this then. This is a school affi

DO NOT GO ONLY BY THE LOOK OF A PERSON . The  fact that you  stand erect with your legs apart and head held high and straight when you are in your circle of friends does not always make you one bit more accomplished than the friends in whose company you stand . Much to your annoyance , the sad truth is something which you had least expected . At the back of your mind is the thought that this situation could have been easily avoided if only you had been a bit  more pro active . Better planning could have saved you from the embarrassing situation that you now  find yourself to be in . Sadly you realize that you are the only one in the crowd who has exhausted the data limit on your mobile phone while the other members of your circle of friends are busy exhausting their data plan on their respective mobile phones . It is only incidental that they have a studied stoop of their head and shoulder to have a better view of the mobile phone held firmly in their hand .

Attending a Marriage or a Wedding Reception in the pre Covid Pandemic Days does bring in a different sense of connect or disconnect depending upon your  Age , Sex or the relationship with the person whose marriage you have so graciously decided to attend . For a kid  this is undoubtedly  the best place to be in . Lots of cousins and freinds to play with and a never ending array of snacks , sweetmeats and the added bonus of not having the elders to chaperone upon you as they themselves are busy making it worth their while . The glitter in the eyes of the college going or the unmarried but eligible ones of both the sexes trying in all their might to impress upon the opposite ones in their bejewelled or fully made up glory does not come very often in the day . Now comes the important section . This is the important section of the people who have decided to attend the Marriage Recption of a CLOSE FRIEND , FRIENDS SON OR DAUGHTER OR A VERY CLOSE FRIEND OF YOUR SON OR DAUGHTER WHO ARE NO

The above picture is from Varanasi , the constituency that our dear PM Represents . This is in the main Hindi Heartland and TAMIL LETTERINGS in the background is there for all to see . The recent sight of the Kazhaga Poraalees and Goons threatening the owners of eateries to bring down the Hindi Hoardings right in front of the Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple made a sad viewing . The repeated Telecast of the incident by the famous triumvirate of the vernacular media well taken care financially or otherwise by their political masters who have to cater  to  their own vote bank politics brainwashed as they have been for the last 50 years against anything Hindi or in the interest of a nation as a whole is not lost on anyone  . The repeated telecast have only one agenda which is to stoke the fire as farther  and as wide as possible . A lot many people from other states visit Madurai and include a visit to the Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple by default on their way to or from Rameswaram