Adai dosa recipe

A friend of mine asked me the recipe for adai dosa. Granted this is so uncharacteristic of my blog, but hey it's been a year since I posted anything here...so I guess there's no harm, I will atleast get back into the habit of posting and hopefully you can try some yummy adai dosas at home.

Ingredients:
1.Channa Dal - 1 cup
2.Toor Dal - 1 cup
3.Urad dal - 2 teaspoons(optional)
4.Fenugreek - 1 teaspoon
5.Rice(Sona Masoori/Ponni parboiled) can be substituted with long grain - 1 cup
6.Dried red hot chillie peppers - 4(for medium spicy adjust per taste)
7.Chopped fresh ginger - 1/2 inch
8.Cumin seeds and Fennel seeds - 1/2 spoon each (optional)
9.Aofoteoda - 1/4 teaspoon
10.Curry leaves(optional)
11.Dried grated Cocunut - 1 tablespoon
12.Salt - 3/4 teaspoon (adjust per taste)


Soak ingredients 1 through 8 in room temperature water for a minimum of 3 hrs max 5 hrs. The water should be a couple of inches above all the ingredients. The peppers will float - but that's ok. After abt 3 -4 hrs, grind the mixture into a coarse paste in the blender, adding the water that it soaked in, little by little. Add items 9 - 12 into the blender and give it a couple of more spins. The curry leaves should be kind of disintegrated, not completey blended...you can taste a little bit of the raw batter to check for salt.

Now heat the griddle/pan and prepare it by adding a few drops if cooking oil(Sesame oil preferable) spread the oil evenly by rubbing it with a cut Onion...there is some oxidation or whatever happening on the surface of the gridle when the onion juice comes in contact with it...this ensures that the dosas don't stick to the pan. Now pour a tablespoon full of the batter on the center of the pan and use the spoon in a circular motion to kind evenly spead out the batter to make a crispy thin crepe. Do not try to overdo the making it thin and crispy part until you get the hang of it, thicker ones taste good too. LOL. Add a few drops of oil on the dosa especially on the edges. After a couple of minutes turn the dosa with a flat edged spoon/spatula, so that the top side gets cooked. Leave it for a couple of minutes and remove it from the griddle.

Yummy adai dosa is ready...I like to eat it with no sides at all, it tastes great all by itself. But usually it's served with a chutney or in some parts of Tamilnadu it is served with jaggery(unrefined, unbleached cane sugar)

Have fun trying it...More to come(hopefully)

The NRI Dilemma

Its been a while since I posted anything here. Some truly profound things - both good and bad have been happening in my life, none of which I am inclined to write about right now. Nevertheless, I could say my experiences have made me a wiser, stronger and most importantly a more spiritual person.

Anyways - coming to the topic of the day: Almost every NRI has a dream in the some niche of their mind. The dream to go back to India some day. There is a saying in my language(Tamil)"Thiraikadal odiyum thiraviyam thedu" - Roughly translated, it means 'Go forth and venture across the oceans to find your fortunes'. This is exactly what most of us came here for. When we announced to our friends and relatives that we got visa and a job offer or the university admission from the US of A, no one asked us why we were going. It was a given that going to the US meant a better life, better financial status, better opportunities. One friend even told me when I was voicing concerns about getting an education loan for my Masters degree in the US "If you go to the US your life is settled, there is no reason for you to worry about this paltry sum of money". How wrong he was! Here I am 3 years after my graduation, still paying back my student loans and the end seems ever further away every year. Come August and it will be a full 5 years since that fateful day that I stepped on American soil. I still view this as my fortune making period, I still keep thinking that once I pay back all the loans, put away some "reasonable" savings, buy a house I should go back to India. Leo does not seem to get too worked up about this as I do. I am the one who has a constant fear that we might be stuck here.

The reason I worry is, every now and then I hear horror stories of people who endured great distress after their move back. I worry about our health, our immune system becomes so complacent that it fails to kick in and work against the assault it faces every time we go back to India on our vacations. Invariably I suffer through at least a week of throat infection, cold and fever even when we are ever careful to drink mineral water and eat home cooked food. One can only hope that eventually our body will regain its original resistance . The other main thing is inefficiency of all kinds of service providers. How many things can we get done by making a phone call in India? I am keeping up with what goes on in my parent's house in Chennai. They recently had a power outage that lasted 3 days because of a transformer failure that was never bothered to be fixed by the Electric authorities. Above all, it is very clear that you have to be financially quite well off if you expect to atleast to come three forth of the way to the lifestyle you are used to here in the US.

I fear that after going back to India I might realize that not only did I make the biggest mistake of my life by returning to India, I had spent the prime of my life looking forward to and planning for it. That being said, that's a risk that I have to take because my heart does not belong here. Unless I at least try going back I will forever live an incomplete life.

One thing I know for sure is, I cannot expect to go back to a past that I left behind. I know that going back now would be like experiencing a rip in the fabric of time. Its the same, its the land of my childhood, yet it has evolved and I was not there to watch it grow. Now after a few years it might be like searching a stranger's face for some sign of recognition. During each vacation I am taken aback by the ever larger malls, the coffee shops, the numerous ATM machines and the street vendors' cell phone. Granted, I will not say that five years back these things were unheard of - but the sheer spread and reach of them amazes me. When I return, not only would the country be a completely different place, I myself would a different person from the one that left the country half a decade ago. My mind subconsciously associates India with my youth - my exuberant college days and my blithe school days. When I go back, not only will I invariably be several pounds heavier, I will most definitely be going back with kid(s) of my own. I know that my experience living in India will not be the same way it once used to be and I know about the tremendous physical and psychological stress that I would once again have to endure. Its not going to be easy to uproot my life again...

Yet with all the odds stacked against my resolve to go back to India, my mind is like tree that may sway with the winds of doubt yet stands firm even in the face of a storm. See you soon India :-)

Pursuit of Happiness

Once again it's a movie that has stirred my spirit and has urged me to write despite my bogged schedule. I hardly know what day of th month and what day of the week it is anymore. I was caught by surprize at the "Happy Pongal" email sent by Anbuvel and Nirmal, my college time friends. Well coming to the matter at hand - pursuit of happiness - quite an experience, I should say, especially for someone like me who is forever plagued by the fear of may be never ever reaching the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. By now I have many times that in life it is better to go with the flow rather than trying to get things to go according to a premeditated and structured plan. Well, for me so far things have been going according to plan although I am way behind schedule in almost everything - be it finishing my planned level of education, finding the right guy and getting married - I have no complaints except that everything has taken more time than I anticipated. The movie "Pursuit of happiness" has been on my mind every since a priest paraphrased a dialogue from it during the Christmas midnight service we attended. It was a time of deep depression and a sickening fear about some new changes in my life. I will prematurely finish this article since I wrote this a while back and now I am not sure where my thoughts were flowing to at the time I wrote this. It will suffice to say the movie played a major part in my rethinking my approach to spirituality and God and life itself. It gave me hope at a time of despair and fear. And most importantly, it told me that Life is mostly fair.

Plank in my eye

That morning - I had mixed feelings. I was going to meet Leo for the first time and was excited about it...but was also scared that, in person, I might not like him or worse yet, he might not like me. Our's was a typical 21st century NRI self arranged marriage. In any case, what I want to write about now has little to do with our first meeting [ I will ellaborate on that in another post :-) ]. So without deviating too much, let me get to it. That day one of the things we were talking about, to make ourselves feel less awkward, was recently watched movies. Karthik ( who was kind enough to accompany his friend) did a great job of making us both feel comfortable. And I remember he was the one who brought up the movie "Crash". For those who have not seen this movie, bluntly put, its about racial discrimination and how everyone of us (regardless of our race) are prejudiced and have pre concieved notions of people just based on the color of their skin. Leo and Karthik raved about this movie and I went and watched it the very next day. Needless to say, I loved it. However, it did not touch me or hit a spot in that special way that some movies do. I realized at the time that it was because, although I could understand the interplay of the emotions of the characters in that movie, I could identify with none of them.

A week or so back, there were notices posted on the doors of all the apartments in our complex. It was about a couple of "incidents" in a near by apartment complex - two African American males had stolen some stuff at gun point. Their descriptions were given...and the usual warnings were issued. I really did not think much of it...Untill last night that is. It was about 8.30 PM. Leo and I were in the living room watching "According to Jim" and having our dinner (Tomato biryani), when we heard a loud rap on the door. No one, I repeat, no one has ever knocked on our door at this hour before...well except when we order Pizza of course. I went to wash my hands and looked through the peep hole. The person had already knocked twice by then. I saw a very tall well built African American male - he knocked again and I could sense that he was getting a little impatient by now. Well the next part is what prompted me to write. I did not open the door. I just stood there not able to decide what to do...My brain had not formed a coherent train of thought - it was as if it was an inverse involuntary non-action...it just would not give my hands the command to open the door. At this point - Leo got up and washed his hands and went in to put on a shirt. The gentleman had knocked almost 5 times now. I literally went and hid inside the bedroom. [Jeez was I overreacting!]Leo finally opened the door and did not hide his annoyance at being interrupted during dinner. I could hear them talking and then heard Leo shut the door. I came out and asked him what all of that was about...what did he want... Leo showed me his keys with a queer expression on his face. Then explained to me that the gentleman was a neighbour and had wanted to let us know that we had left the keys on the door. He was being kind. That was it. You can imagine our embarassment...

I couldn't forget it the whole night. I felt so terrible at having passively insulted the kind neighbour. And now I could feel the powerful message that the movie "Crash" had conveyed. I kept thinking, "well, I have not been a victim of discrimination so far, so I can't really identify myself with the movie".It was like a slap on my face when I realized that I was actually on the other side of the fence last night. This verse is for me: Matthew 7:5 "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye"

Hundred Rupees

Once in a while homesickness hits me and it brings a bout of nostalgia with it. And when it does I find myself yearning for those sultry summers, crowded bus rides, long waits in endless queues at the bank, post office etc., - the same things that I used to detest about India a few years back.

Being the first born and having a tom boy streak in me, I often took the role of the son my parents never had. I would replace burnt fuse coils, climb up the attic to fetch rarely used vessels for my mom (she saved them for special occasions ..or when we had company), run errands like going grocery shopping at the Teppakulam market (I was an expert bargainer), going to the bank to withdraw money - going to the postoffice to send a registered mail with acknowledgement form. And mind you this was when I was about 8 or 9 years old - not even a highschooler yet. I would usually wait for an adult to cross the road and I would stay close to them while they crossed it.

I would like to narrate an incident that happenned on one such occasion. I was asked to run an errand to buy something. I am unable to recall what it was now. But I do remember that I did not even have to cross the road and that the place/store where I had to go was only a few minutes walk away from my home. I was holding a small basket (the kind that is woven with plastic wires) and a hundred rupee note in my hand(That was a one time thing - my mom did not have change - I was usually given a maximum of Rs20.00.) After this incident I remember constantly chiding myself for not having held these two items one in each hand. I had both of them in my right hand and half way through my walk I realized that something was wrong...I checked my hand - and you guessed right. The hundred rupee note was gone! I felt a cold hand squeeze my heart...I hastily checked inside the basket, hoping that it would be there....It was not there...my heart was sinking to the depths by the second...and already, tears were welling up my eyes. I backtracked and searched for the hundred rupee note all the way back home, all the time furiously wiping the tears off my eyes...I didn't want to attract the attention of the passers by...still somehow a couple of them stopped and enquired if I was alright "enna paapa aachu?" I thanked them and said I was fine and kept searching. I looked for it thrice (walked back and forth that stretch of sidewalk or platform as we used to call it) and finally had to accept that I had lost it.

I came home crying and my parents were so alarmed.(My dad had just come home for lunch). I explained what had happened and I could see the relief on their eyes. They were terrified that something worse had happened. They consoled me that it was OK...that I didn't do anything wrong....The worst part was that- their understanding didn't make me feel better at all...I blamed myself and could not forgive myself for losing Hundred Rupees of my father's hard earned money. I was only about 8 or 9 but I knew the value of money. I knew that, that was reason for the tense atmosphere in our house during the last week of every month.

Something happened yesterday at home that triggered this post. Something that struck a cord with this incident. We had been on a moving spree these past few months[For those who know me : From Ypsi, MI to Lafayette, IN to Dyersburg, TN to Farmington, MI]. We had dumped our stuff in our cars and had not unloaded everything until yesterday. We hooked up our cable and internet services yesterday and I wanted to hook up the modem with the free wireless router that I had gotten while I bought my Dell laptop. I had been saving it all this while, because I knew that eventually when we moved into our own apartment, we would need it. And yes, you guessed right again - it was gone. Searched the car thrice, searched the entire house numerous times to no avail. And I started crying. Leo could not understand it period. He chided me for getting worked up over something as trivial as a $50.00 Router which I had anyways gotten for free. And I don't blame him. He was right.

Just makes me realize how somethings can get so ingrained in you. It was not the $50 that I was lamenting for - it was the fact that I had disappointed myself yet again. I had lost another Hundred Rupee note.

Vanilla Sky

We watched Vanilla sky tonight. I liked it, although I won't say that it is one of the best ones in the science fiction aisle. What makes me write this post though, is one of the central ideas in the movie: the never ending quest of man to "live" beyond death. What is death after all - isn't it the end of consciousness as we know it? For all those beholding the dead - it looks like the dead person no longer has conscious thought and his physical life system has ceased to function. But what about the dead person him/herself? Is consciousness a separate entity that can exist in an external dimension? What if the dead were not really dead after all? What if they or their consciousness or soul, as we colloquially call it, had somehow transcended into another dimension which is not conceivable or even comprehensible by us.

My deliberations do not serve to shed any light whatsoever at this never ending mystery. Rather it re emphasizes the desire and hope of 90% of humans - that death is not the end, that this life here on earth is not all there is to it, that all our pleasures, pains, sacrifices, prayers, beliefs, temptations, passions, guilts, resentments, rages, smiles, tears and dreams are not all for nothing. We simply do not want to think that it all really does come to an end and there truly is nothing beyond it. However if we somehow accept that this life on earth is all that we have, then I wonder what kind of people we would become. What will happen to righteousness. If we are leading a righteous life now, isn't it partially because we believe in some way or the other, that we will reap the benefits of all our goodness sometime in the future...after our dealth " when it really matters"? What happens then if we convince ourselves that there is no judgment day, there is no accumulation of karma to be carried over to the next janma or no moksha or naraga- no heaven nor hell. Perhaps it is for the best that we believe that death is not the end....

Snow fall and Michigan

We moved to Farmington Hills, Michigan on Monday. Familiar surroundings, lots of Indian faces, 73 degrees F outside and finally Leo and I in our own sweet apartment. Overall we were feeling great. I was able to temporarily forget my abhorrence for the Michigan weather. That is until Wednesday when I had to drop off Leo at the airport for his interview at Merck, NJ. MI weather chose the precise moment I started the car, to rear its ugly head. It started pouring and I was drenched by the time I filled the tank at the gas station. I cursed myself for not having filled it before. Then on the drive, the rain drove me nuts, literally covering the windshield and all windows with a thick sheet of thundering water. There were moments when visibility was nil and I could not decide if I should pull over and risk driving off the edge of the road or keep driving and risk hitting someone in front or slow down and get hit by someone from the rear. Trust me, 275 South is not the freeway where you want to be in this situation. Finally we both made it on time and Leo rushed into the airport after a perfunctory peck on my cheek and a hasty "luv ya". Not surprisingly there was no rain on my drive back and parts of the road were even dry.... it was as if nothing had happened ... Sun was shining.... sky was blue...and there was no sign that the clouds had exploded on us just a few minutes back...it was as if the road and all of the outdoors were mocking my fury and frustration... this was Michigan after all - what was I expecting?

After spending an evening of solitude and saying the family prayers over the speaker phone [leo joined me from the hotel room in NJ] I decided to call my mom. Spent a good two hours on the phone with her - she said she had watched "The lake House" and liked it. Me was happy 'cause I was the only soul in my circle who seemed to be awfully fond of the movie. She is a great fan of Tom Hanks and I was surprized that she hadn't seen Forrest Gump. Recommended that she watch it but ended up narrating the entire story to her. Anyways I said good day to her and good night to myself and finally gave in to slumber.

This morning I was sitting in our living room which was completely bare of anything except for my university days' desk top computer, set on the floor. I was browsing for about 3 hours all the time surreptitiously watching the outside through our two large windows for signs of rain. I've got to go pick Leo up and I want to be prepared this time. Atleast mentally - there's nothing much you can do about it physically right? Anyways I was watching and saw that it was starting to snow!!! It would stop for five minutes and then start again with a gust of wind. At first they were just tiny flurries which would melt even before hitting the ground....I was slowly drawn to the window for a closer look and I stood there watching the first snow of the year for about 15 minutes. Slowly the flakes became larger - like the big fat ones - the kind that stay on the window sill for a few seconds before melting into nothingness...and incredibly I caught myself wishing that it would snow heavier so that the green of our golf course view would turn a pristine white. And then as a slow smile pulled at my cheeks, the realization hit me: MI winter is not so detestable after all :-)