My Musings

IMPORTANT WARNING AND CAUTION: Patients, feeble and weak hearted, those having high/low BP, and other sensitive persons are cautioned before reading further. Be forewarned. VACHATHI . A sleepy hamlet at the foothills of the Sitheri Hills about 12 kms from Harur, in Dharmapuri Dist of Tamilnadu. Inhabited by extremely poor, illliterate Adivasis. On June 20, 1992 (nineteen years ago) about 155 forest personnel and 108 policemen, and 6 revenue dept officials (a total of 269 personnel) swooped on this sleepy village and raided, searching for sandalwood, allegedly hidden by villagers. In the name of inquiry, villagers, mainly women, were dragged out of their homes and fields and assembled under a banyan tree where they were allegedly beaten up; then, they were bundled out to the Forest Ranger's Office in Harur where they were allegedly subjected to savage brutality. 18 women were picked randomly and were gang-raped. 103 women,including a pregnant one, were remanded to Salem Centr...

Appa's Sraththam - 2011 Appa's Thithi is Aavani, Sukla, Dwadasi. This year (2011) appa's thithi came on Thursday.  08 September. This is the second sraththam we perform at Kalakshetra avenue. Vijaya and I purchased all the items like grocery, vegetables, fruits, Vetrilai, pushpam, Vennai, and particularly Vazhai Ilai from around Thiruvanmiyur. This time too got the long variety of pudalangkaai. I purchased Vazhai Ilai from the road-side kadai near Reliance Fresh on 8th morning. Ilais were very expensive this time. Savithri came from Hosur on the previous evening and she, I and Vijaya cut all the vegetables. On 8th, all the three of us  got up by 5-30 in the morning and Vijaya and Savithri started work. Jayaraman, Kalyani, Purnima came by 7-15. Then Saroja, and later Sugavanam. Padma, Prakash, Rajeswari arrived by 10-30. Our regular sastrigal mama had told he wont be coming for the sraththam, so he deputed another sastrigal, Ramani by name from Mylapore. He came by...

This year's Vinayakar Chathurthi was on 01 September, Thursday. We celebrated the festival at our own house, 3 Kalakshetra Avenue. On the previous evening, Arvind and Krithika purchased the Poojai items including Pillaiyar idol. On 01st, we started decorating the poojai room. The idol was also decorated and kept ready for the poojai. Arvind and Krithika did all this, while Vijaya took care of Neivethyams and the meals. She prepared two types of Kozhukkattai (Thengai and Ellu), methu vadai, payasam. I started the poojai at 11-30. Arvind and aditi performed. It was over by 1PM. We had lunch, phoned many relatives re poojai. Sruti had come the previous evening and left after poojai. rajappa 11:40AM 02 Sept 2011