Quo Vadis?

  Home is where the heart is. That is why you see homes of so many types from steel and glass to plastic sheets and ropes. Homes are emotional to many and is aspirational to some. For a few there is no place like home, no matter how messy, how odd it may seem to another. For some it is a job as they will only build homes that they can never aspire to live in and make do with tin cans on the site. It has been thirty days to the day we moved in to our own house.   This is not our first house; the first house was intended as a tax saver that has gone not as well as it was planned. Also it was a house that we have never stayed in after a decade of owning it. We wanted a house in the area where we lived for many years now as we found it to be comfortable for a number of reasons but was always outside the budget. After many home searches where we could not find a suitable one that could tick all the boxes in our wish list at an acceptable price, this house happened. As wise mast...

We are on the first of July, we are on the thresh hold of what is being called as Unlock 2. Since we know what this innocuous and actually silly term means let us jump into the post. The world has changed, we have changed. The changes will continue.  These days a video channel on YouTube fascinates me, called Living Big in a Tiny House the videos inspire me. The host and presenter is quite likeable and though his lines are so predictable there seems to be some genuine emotions in what he says. In one of the videos he also shared about his climb up to the top from a struggling actor to an Influencer on YouTube with over 3 million followers and making it a full time profession along with his wife / partner. The channel focuses on people who have built small homes on trailers and have downsized their lives to fit into these tiny homes. Most of these home owners decided to give up their old lives and downsized to basic essentials with few possessions. They also changed ...

This post is about something that polarizes people coming from Tamilnadu. This is the famous pongal. I am not talking about the festival, there are no doubts about it, Pongal is the most important Tamil festival. This post is about the breakfast staple “ven pongal” or kara pongal that is loved and hated equally.  I am on the side that loves it with a caveat. I prefer to eat pongal with sambar and at least coconut chutney, a vadai is a bonus. After all how can you eat just a gooey, almost tasteless mash? So if it is breakfast in a restaurant I go for a pongal vadai combination. This does not seem unusual to many unless I am driving on a road trip. I have seen eyebrows raised when I opt for this combination during a breakfast halt. The infamous after effect of feeling drowsy after a plate somehow does not work for me. I love pongal and I enjoy it on road trips. At home knowing my preferences sambar & chutney are usual with pongal. Pongal is an essential carb loading ...