Hold on my dear friends. The subject can mislead you as you all are in the same age of mine. I understand. And knowing me, you would have bet on something that is totally different from what we are going to discuss here. Let’s move on! (Its mostly my brothers article and a few comments are mine J)

It’s been a week since I started to cook. Within that I burnt my fingers twice, cut my finger once while cutting vegetables, messed up the entire a kitchen in a span of minutes and spent hours together in cleaning. All these chaos made me write this small article which in all seriousness a sentimental one!

Have we ever thought how many times our mom would have hurt herself since she started cooking? Have we ever heard her complaining? Have we ever seen her taking a break from the kitchen? She would never say that she is hurt, that’s the beauty of perpetual mother love.

I have been to kitchen a lot of times to eat the snacks that she keeps for us and to loot the money she saves from market shopping. But hardly a few times I have helped her in cooking. And recently, I was helping my mom in cooking for about a week’s time when she was ill. I tell you my dear friend, it is tough. I am not talking from the perspective of just cooking but from the myriad varieties that she brings to your dining table without ever compromising on quality.

FlashBack: Recently I prepared the worst ever eatable (?!!) Maggie in an hour. (But in advertisements they claim Maggie can be made in two mins) And the question of the hour is, can Maggie really be made in two minutes? Barring Rajnikanth, No one could ever make it, I swear. Put aside your thoughts of him making ‘kothu-Parotta’ in -25 seconds!!

You talk about cooking and its demons. But in a sense, that too can come handy over a period of time as my recently married sister supposes.  Spare a thought for cleaning. It is difficult to describe and it’s the most disgusting part of cooking I would say. How many of us wash our plates after eating? (For the matter the vessels that we use.. Ah.. I am afraid to go to the sink in the early morning) And if you are aware of the way our guys eat chicken and mutton you must be holding your stomach by now. (Attention all Rajkirans!)

You come to realize the greatness of your mom’s cooking either when you cook for yourself or your over-enthusiastic wife comes up with something like a puliogare-chicken-biriyani and tosses up a “Hows that honey?” at you.

In all emotions, we criticized our mothers hell lot of times for the food. But have we ever praised or thanked her for good food any day? Shame on us. I am not writing this to hurt anybody and I am not going to ask you to become bodhi dharma (neither can I) in a single night. What I want from you guys is once our mom is done with her work “Just give her a beautiful kiss with a tight hug and praise that the food she made that day is the best food that you have eaten in your life time”. See the joy and happiness in her face that’s what she wants from us, after all.

NOTE:  Strictly, please refrain if you have a lady cook in your room/home. Given this generation from your male cook too…

Be it the infamous 281 of Laxman at Eden gardens against australia or Dada’s flamboyant 183 against Srilanka in 1999 world cup or Tendulkar’s tons and tons of runs all over the world or the dazzling doubles and triple centuries of Virendar sehwag there was a serene, calm master operating at the other end, none other than, arguably, technically the best batsmen of the current era ‘Rahul dravid’. 
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What stands out more than anything else is his modesty and temperament which has earned him so much respect and fans across the globe. Undoubtedly the most tenacious batsman of the modern cricket has sculptured yet another century in Kolkatta and has become the leading run scorer of the year 2011.
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By the way he plays and analyses the game he has not only earned respect amongst the fan but also from plenty of players in the opposite teams’ dressing room as well. Quite obviously, if you survey the most respected cricketers in the recent past, Rahul will stand atop. 

Today(On the date this was written), Sachin tendulkar is completing his 22 years in international career. In the mean time rahul dravid has gone past 16 years in international cricket which is not a mean achievement. 

If Tendulkar’s career is characterized by charm and charisma, Dravid’s would be of patience and perseverance. By the way no comparison can hold good between these legends. 

The ‘Never say die’ attitude of rahul dravid is what you require no matter what sport are you in, no matter what problems are you facing against.  Somebody was commentating “No longer can we call rahul dravid a wall. Because even the wall can be knocked over and Rahul cannot be”. That summarizes predominantly everything that I have wished to have written.   
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(You saw the bradman oration speech that Rahul dravid gave last week. If yo didn't please watch it guys. It was truly inspiring)      

There is a cab-coordinator in Chengalpattu Infosys office (Chennai).  After a hectic day at work you go to him and tell the place where you want to go. He would spontaneously say the cab number. You can ask me what is so special about this. Well, there are a lot of things to compute before he comes up with the cab number. First of all the cab routes are not regular and  at any given day a cab is supposed to go to any place based on the requirement. Second there is no booking needed for this. So he doesn’t even have a clue of how many cab requests are going to come on that particular route. Third he has to keep track of the number of people he has sent for a cab in a separate thread so that he doesn’t overload any of them. Moreover he should be answering all the queries of the employees in different languages as India is a diversified nation and so as the software companies. All these things happen in no time and you see him on that spot, you would really appreciate that he is a genius.

What I am trying to emphasize here is the fact that your inspirations need not be always an Abdul Kalam or a Sachin Tendulkar. In my perspective, seldom would you get to be with such legends and still you try to live the dreams of them, which is quite not practical. The bottom line here is that in every-day life you see a lot of perfectionists and great people. It is just that the work that they do or the field that they are in doesn’t have the extra cut for them to come to limelight.

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Ever since Neanderthal man invented fire and wheel, of all the other pregnant inventions the most adorable one, as my senses reckon, is the Biriyani. It is not just the Biriyani, but is the Bi-rri-yaa-ni. The word in itself, has arranged syllables that lit up my eyes when I hear it just before my lunch or even before the supper at times. The moment I am keying this piece my mouth is watering since I had a pretty ordinary lunch. Don’t want to dwell onto those things. Rather would like to narrate the subject in detail.

Would you believe me, if I say, my tongue is familiar to almost hundred tastes of biriyanis, sadly just named as either Dum,Hyderabadi or Thalappakattu or the quintessential Tamilnadu homemade biriyani. To me biriyani entails a chicken biriyani or at least egg biriyani where your fiscal constraints thrust you to opt for a cheaper choice. More seriously, to prepare/order a vegetable biriyani is as sinful as watching a silk sumitha movie without a two piece scene. (No offence vegetarians!)

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