Expressions

The most fascinating fact I ever came across. In Europe Indian food is synonymous to its spices. But an article in the newspaper THE HINDU says that

“There was no onion, garlic, tomato, green and red chilli before 10th century A.D.

Dry ginger and pepper were only used instead of chillies. Onion came to India from Mexico and chillies, both green and red came to us from Northern part of Chile after 10th Century A.D.

Portuguese brought garlic and cloves to India”

The link is given here.

I would really like to know the origin of the other spices, I’ll do a search this weekend.

Have a happy weekend

Ananthi Sankaran

Of late bizarre incidents and dreams are happening in my life.
To start with, one day at 1 am, I heard a tap in my door. Thinking that it was one of my neighbors, I opened the door to find a drunken man asking if my name is Fatima. I was quick enough to close the door, but the next day when I narrated this incident to my friends, I got some hard, word bashing for opening my door at that time of the night without asking who it was.
Another night I had a very strange dream, I go to a shoe shop and find a really huge pair of shoes, just then a tall man comes to pick up his order of the exceptionally large shoes, when I asked what his shoe size was, he told me 1.25 meters!!!!! When I said about my dream to my colleagues, their question was, what kind of dreams are you getting? Are you alright?
After the laughing incident in my sleep (see the previous blog), I went home thinking about that incident and laughed again in my sleep. But this time no one was around and I laughed at myself in fact in my dream, thinking about my earlier dream (confusing is it?? But true)
One day, I received a mail from the president of the Doctoral school in my city, asking me to meet him. Since he does not normally send mails like this, (as this is what one of my colleague told me), I lost my one night’s sleep thinking why did he want to meet me? Is he going to throw me out of the doctoral school? After all these voracious thoughts I went to meet him the next day only to find out that he just wanted to ask how is my research going and to know if I need any signatures from him since he is leaving for another country the coming week for a very long period of time. Strange isn’t it??? My colleagues were disappointed by this news as they expected something juicy =)), but a small part of me was happy because, he called me for this chit-chat and not the other students ;)
Finally today, when I was walking back to my lab dreaming in my own world after successfully helping one of my friends with something, I saw a man walking in front of me. Soon my mood changed and I started listing the things I should complete by today evening, when I heard that man call me. He said something quickly in French. French is a language I cannot understand well even when people speak slowly, so I asked him to repeat again, and he said that “I am a handicap, and I am unable to carry this bag, can you carry it for me?” Though he did not appear to be handicap, I said ok, as I assumed that he might be having tennis elbow like my mother which does not allow you to carry anything for a very long time. When I stretched my hands to take his bag, he started laughing loud and asked me if I will believe everything what others say and will not verify if it is true or not? My first reaction was anger, but seeing this guy laugh, my anger dissolved and started laughing at myself. I smiled and said ‘Nice one’ and quickly marched away. But was wondering why do strange things happen to me? Or is it that I am analyzing my life more closely while others don’t?
I blame it on coffee:). Studies show that more than 4 cups of coffee a day will make you hallucinate :). Of late I am living on coffee. No wonder I am hallucinating even in my dreams. From tomorrow I’ll try to drink less cups of coffee and more cups of concentration. By the way, I am writing this blog with a cup of steaming espresso in my hand :)

Ananthi Sankaran

Getting a BE seat was like a cake walk for Somu. Though not a hard worker, luck has always been in his side. His parents managed to buy a piece of land when he was young. Blessing from the rain god and Lakshmi has always helped them to give a decent education to their only son, who always took advantage of his caste to get into reputed institutions and now has been selected for Scientist B position in BARC, Mumbai. The humble parents were so happy that their only son has become a scientist. Somu, who wanted to profit his parents ignorance to the fullest, demanded things to done ordering them to bring and do various things. His parents’ extra attention to him made him think that he has achieved the unachievable and became more arrogant and demanding. He started showing his arrogance to the poor and uneducated villagers and the villagers as a sign of respect fulfilled all his wishes and demands. Soon the time had come for Somu to join BARC. A grand farewell was given, with hired musicians, hired elephants to garland Somu, and with great pride Somu left his village. As soon as he reached BARC, Somu could not loose his demanding nature. He started ordering things to every person he met in the guest house and in the canteen. Initially the people just because of respect for another fellow human being, listened and carried out all his demands. He failed to realize that BARC is filled with high quality scientists and being an entry level scientist meant nothing to them. Soon his demands grew more and more and the people around him to whom he ordered became irritant and impatient. One day they decided to pull him out of the bed in the night and throw him in the mud water. So when Somu was fast asleep, the manager of the guest house, who was one of the victims, provided the key to his room to help others accomplish the mission. They silently carried him out of his room and swayed him and dropped him in a puddle filled with muddy water. The shock woke Somu from his sleep and he stayed still, trying to understand the situation. I, who had been a witness to all the happenings, could not stop laughing seeing the mud filled confused Somu. But as my laughter saturated, I heard a distant laughter from somewhere. I tried to look around and I felt like coming out a whirlpool. As I opened my eyes I saw my friend laughing overcoming her early morning drowsiness; she said “yeh, sapnon mein koi comedy film dek rahi thi kya??? (Translation: Hey were you watching a comedy film in your dreams??)”

Ananthi Sankaran

I read this article today. No wonder my friend who I know and talk like best friends for the past two months asked me yesterday if I own a microwave, while I was constantly telling her for the past two months that my main equipment for cooking is my micro-wave :)

Next time I must insert the things I wish to be heard in a gossip!!!!

Men, it is not only you who is struggling to understand women; women themselves cannot understand other women :)

Ananthi Sankaran